I know quite a bit about THC levels. None of that explains why people go in droves to buy expensive weed if it is so easily grown at home. Legality is no issue as most have been users prior to this. So what brings them to government weed?
Put quite simply the vast majority of users dont go for government weed.
In
some places, depending on legislation,
some people go for government weed, & if it was everywhere that number would increase, but it would be a minority.
You can grow stuff as good as it gets at a fraction of $20 a gram (thats a ridiculous price really), so you'd never turn that minority into a majority at that price, or displace the black market at that price.
& this view that government would some how make the "best" weed is also a highly dubious claim. In fact there used to be quite a few smokers, all be it a minority, who used to be against legalization just because of concerns over that issue.
It was a bit of an extreme position, but the reasoning behind that aspect was sound enough that in probability government would never produce the best weed, as that would contradict their best interests.
In fact theres even some crude evidence for this in countries where prohibition came late in the "war on drugs" & where low level cannabis was preffered on health grounds.
Lets not forget this isnt just a harmless plant, there are genuine health issues, so you're never going to get the government trying to "out-unhealthy" the black market, & therefore it always will be an inferior product, & there would always be superior alternatives, either grown personally, or on the black market.
Im sure a number of people would switch, but if you enforce a government monopoly then you enforce a lower grade product, & keep fighting a war on drugs against the superior blackmarket alternative.
In reality,
if you went the tax route, then youd have to considerably lower the price below the $20 a gram price to drive the blackmarket out of bussiness, which would require the government not just to legalize the stuff, but to drive the current street market price down.
Combine the two "negatives" & can you see any government pushing a position where they are driving market prices down, & strength up, on a product that has proven health risks associated with it?
Put it this way, if a presidential candidate ran on a platform that promoted cuts in tobacco prices, & an increase in nicotene & tar levels, how popular would he be with certain sections of the population?
Its hard to run on a pro-unhealthy stance, obviously, or there would be more people doing it.
Its one of the reasons that legalization/decriminalization and taxation have always been kept as seperate issues.
If you seperate the issues & ask if over a period of time whether a monopoly (or monopolies) could be established over the product, and taxation slowly introduced, then that is a possability, but thats a seperate issue, further down the line & would still require a war on drugs, & also would be divisive amongst smokers.
I mean I dont know what your smoking levels are, those vary from person to person.
You have the casual smoker who might have a toke or two at a party now & again in their youth, very low level users who smoke maybe 0.5 grams a day & then you keep going up through people smoking 20/30 grams a day, up to the very heaviest smokers who have no upper limit.
Take someone sitting down and smoking 20 grams in a session with a friend, watch tv, or listening to music or whatever.
At $20 a gram thats a $400 session, & thats not cheap for a lot of people, so I doubt someone on that smoking level would support your $20 a gram government monopoly.
