Legalized Pot Leads to Booming Black Market in Colorado

Sounds like a law enforcement problem. Also, being that the business is so new, and expensive to protect against liability & other legal issues, the article is right in saying the prices are artificially high, and a >30% tax ? Yup. that's how you create a black market.

And 80 years after prohibition is lifted, there are still black-market moonshine dealers.

And your title shouldn't be "leads to", rather, "does nothing to stop". there has always been a marijuana black market in Colorado.

 

From the platform of the addictions treatment community, we've told 'em that and told them that. They insisted they knew addicts and the markets driving drug use better than we did. I'd say "Told you so ... " but what's the point? I can't say it's satisfying to be right, in this case.

 

This is, well it should, unsurprising.

One of the truths that is often suppressed by advocates for the legalization of vice crimes is that they create, on the back end, greater problems and harm more people that when the substances or practices are outlawed. Our ancestors understood this, but I suppose this generation (my generation) needs to relearn these lesson on the anvil of social pain.

Recently I was reading a study on what happens when prostitution is legalized in societies. (This is yet another "next step" for many pagans in our world) Human trafficking explodes in these areas and other sexual crimes (pedophilia, rape, etc) see increased rates as well. As a result, women are actually harmed more than helped.

 

On NBC News this evening, they ran a story about citizens from Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas going over the border to buy pot! They mentioned that illegal possession and use of pot in Kansas has increased 61% since Colorado approved pot sales!

This problem is kin to people crossing the border into Nevada to go to the Bunny Ranch and others, for paid sex! The only difference between this vice and pot is, the bunnies are more difficult to bag up and bring over the border with you!

I wonder how long it will be before those states and others, drop the hammer and establish checkpoints at their borders, like California has for inspecting cars coming to or returning to California for fruit from another state!

Like the news stated, Colorado's new laws, have created one more border issue, and it isn't with our neighbors to the south!

 

Do you supporting banning tobacco and alcohol too for the sake of logical consistency?

 

Why is it liberals cannot make legitimate comparisons? What in the world is so hard with that?

 

People are stupid, no matter the product. Many years ago I lived in a an apartment building where the neighbors catty corner to me would go outside and smoke cigarettes. A gramma and her teenage daughter. One day I walked out there and they weren't smoking cigarettes, but it just smelled like not much. So I asked "Umm, whatcha smoking there?"
They had run out of money and were rolling up brown paper bags tight and smoking them. Serious.
One can always make money off stupidity if so inclined. Bet you anything I could sell flavored paper bag rolls to people like mentioned above, if I really wanted to. LOL But that would be pathetically wrong.

 

Big-government liberals hate choice. They all want laws made to protect us from ourselves. Some are democrat. Some not.

I still say the O/P is wrong. The black market existed already.

 

You're saying more pot is on the black market, now ? The black market sells more than it used to ? That's not in the article.

 

Re-read the article. Only one authority is actually quoted, and his exact words are "may be as strong as ever".

Also, users are not being pushed into the black market because of new laws. They are simply refusing to leave it, due to the new laws.


Massachusetts had an 21 y-o drinking law before anyone did. New Hampshire's was 18 until recently.

Was it New Hampshire's fault so many 18, 19, & 20 year old died driving back to Massachusetts ?

 

Hmmm. People traveling to Colorado to buy black market pot ? I find that dubious. (Get it ? Doobie us ?)

The second link, like the first is sorely lacking in researchable facts.
There is this…..

….On our visit we met with community leaders, educators, law enforcement personnel, and researchers at the University of Colorado medical center. They are the ones assembling the evidence from the front lines, from schools, hospitals, burn centers, and treatment facilities. A portrait is emerging of considerable, and rising, damage. And yet no comprehensive study is being undertaken.

Hospitals ? Burn Centers ? Treatment facilities ? Over pot ?These are traceable. Lets see those numbers.


Also, I need to add it is nice that you are actually reading what I put up.

 

The Marijuana business lasted about 18 months, in Montana, before federal laws, and mis-management took it's course. It was a real comedy of errors, and one person, Jason Christ, did all the damage himself. It's best to not have folks like this involved.

I feel very strongly that federal marijuana laws are more dangerous than the drug. THE MOST DANGEROUS THING ABOUT POT IS THE POSSIBILITY OF GETTING CAUGHT WITH IT. We have too many kids doing time in federal jails who have never committed a violent crime over this.

 

Whether the crime was violent or not they knew what the law was and broke it. If you are in federal jail you did not just get caught with a single joint for personal pleasure either.


The most dangerous thing about pot is it fries your brain and cause communities to decay.

 

I've been sitting at this light for over a minute, with a cop right behind me, and my car is full of pot smoke. What do I do?

 

Now THAT is funny.