A thought exercise on legal pot, and what it might be reasonable to do about it.

Imagine for a moment that marijuana will soon be completely legalized across the Anglosphere. Or, if not totally legalized, or at its consumption relatively deregulated.

In 2018, with numerous medical marijuana bills and laws existing on the state level in the USA, and similar or even more sweeping laws in Canada, and the British Lib Dems agitating for Cannabis reform, this is almost a reality. In the USA what remains is for the Federal government’s drug enforcement czars to shrug their shoulders. It’s practically a done deal at the state level in many states.

What do I feel about this? My feelings are irrelevant. I personally feel recreational pot smoking is a waste of time and a waste of money. I’ve seen brilliant people waste gobs of time stoned. But I do not object to its legalization at all in principle simply because I’m opposed to making the growing of any type of plant illegal. Should pawpaws or stink-fruit trees be illegal?

That said now, consider this very carefully. Is it possible that marijuana legalization will ultimately be structured in a way to only benefit a narrow elite. An elite who will effectively form a legal controlling cartel.

Does this sound fantastic? Well, you go and setup shop and try breaking into the pharmaceutical industry, not supplements but pharmaceuticals, and try easily dealing with the FDA. The system is structured in a way in which only large corporate entities have the resources to manufacturer, market and distribute pharmaceuticals in a way that fully complies with the FDA. After all, no one wants snake-oil peddlers running around anymore.

There are indicators that non-pharmaceutical manufacturers, like makers of vitamins and dietary supplements, will soon end up just as heavily regulated. I have huge problems with this. When I was in Paris a few years ago I had to search through half of the bleeding city to find zinc pills. I managed to find a Desi pharmacist in Montmarte selling tiny 15 mg zinc tabs, they were expensive, and he only had a few. I can buy 50 mg ones by the case-full at the local Walgreen’s here in green and cloudy Ohio..

But that’s a subject for another rant, suffice to say you get my point right? You may think that once pot is fully legalized that you’ll be able to grow it and sell it freely, and give it to your friends and toke up. In reality it will probably end up highly regulated, and taxed, for a while. Though just like with craft beer there may be a small permitted artisianl market allowed in some states.

Could I be wrong? Sure, but then again I can also be right. Consider, in the state of Ohio medical marijuana was legalized a couple years ago. However, not long before that, an earlier attempt to legalize it – Issue 3 on the ballet  soundly failed.  Why did it fail ? To a large degree because Issue 3 effectively was structured in a way to set-up a monopoly or small cartel on commercial growing.

Basically it was pushed by very narrow cartel of wealthy individuals who had purchased many many acres of land in various parts of Ohio, and the bill is structured in such a way to only let normal citizens grow much smaller amounts. A backyard full of the stuff would put you in prison, but for the owners of these 10 farms it would be perfectly legal and normal business.

Hence the real, or at least the main, reason why the bill was voted down in Ohio. Most Ohioans, I suspect at this point, don’t oppose pot in any substantive way, even recreational smoking. Aging Deadheads who reeked of kif went to the polls to vote no because they realized it was an attempt at forming a monopoly.

So let’s extract something larger from this little anecdotal example. It seems clear to me that, in an age of increasing economic and social inequality and declining mobility, marijuana will be the mid 21st century’s answer to Aldous Huxley’s Soma. He did, after all, write in the middle of the last century, in the youth of the grandparents of most people reading this, that what was needed was a pharmaceutical way of making people love their servitude. He didn’t consider sexbots and Internet pr0n, though Brave New World did have similar sensate and sexual soporifics. Anyway full legalization is practically a fait accompli, the real question is who will ultimately benefit the most from it.

It certainly won’t be the consumers. Anyway go chat-up Mustafa Mond. He knows the 411 better than Bernard Marx. The key, I think, is simply to be aware. Things we may think of as beneficial to us could have entirely different real reasons.