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what are the main reasons?
No. And to the extent it does increase usage, it is more dose controlled (illicit weed can have THC content all over the map and is laden when pesticides), and displaces alcohol, tobacco and opioid use, all of which are likely more harmful. It is already a massive business in Canada (multiple billions $/year), but that is captured by organized crime.^ You really don't think there will be a significant increase in usage?
And how is extra money going to taxes better than that same money going to the "black market" and being spent in the lower-middle class economy, pre-tax.
One downside is that without government enforcement of contracts and regulation of anticompetitive activity, the black market tends to settle these matters with violence. Sometimes that takes place in private, but sometimes that means bullets spraying a sidewalk outside a club in Toronto and hitting bystanders. And because the profits are so large, they are worth fighting over despite the risk of incarceration. And people who get recruited to such organizations at a low level to distribute drugs tend to get trapped and induced to commit greater crimes.Please explain the (black market) economics then and how that is detrimental to the economy. I don't know much about black markets. I'm not being confrontational, I'd like to know, if you know.
As I can see it, unless the majority of the end user's money is somehow leaving the country, then that money is circulating, untaxed, in the economy, to the great benefit of the lower middle class... Drug dealers pay rent and go to Boston Pizza too, and gangs buy motorcycles.
There are about a dozen online MOM sites out of Vancouver with a dizzying (pun) selection of consumables. Canada Post delivers discreetly in a few days across Canada.Really, where would you, someone who doesn't partake presumably and is upper upper middle class with oodles of rental cash flow, first go to get the "not hard to get" weed? Let's not pretend than anything greater than some ~10% of Canadians have direct access to a person with marijuana for sale, when they want it.
Good response Sags. As a non user I have been wondering why the government was legalizing it and your response answered my question very simply. No doubt its also safer than the unknown stuff you buy from a dealer.Marijuana prohibition is too costly to police and adjudicate through the courts.
The government will collect tax revenue AND spend less on police and courts.
Resources can be allocated to more important needs.
Marijuana is easier for teens to buy than cigarettes or alcohol. It is sold everywhere with no id necessary.