The DEA is now looking into moving marijuana off schedule I. That would make it a regular prescription drug, with regular prescriptions, distribution through pharmacies, and insurance coverage. If that happens, the whole "dispensary" business will collapse.
In California (and in Colorado before legalization) dispensary customers are overwhelmingly recreational users, given recommendation letters from "specialists" who issue them with no medical exam. Their "demonstrated medical needs" would never pass muster with a, say, Kaiser doctor.
The dispensary business won't collapse because they are not competing with pharmacies. Though it will be fun to watch the insurance companies push back when pot is prescribed for whiplash, colorblindness, and genital herpes.
I don't think that's true in the real world. It's more complicated. First of all, I get that for a certain minority of users, it is very much seen as a "medicine" but for the majority it is tongue in cheek game and the dispensaries use all sorts of medical language but at the same time treating it as some sort of fine wine. Normally pharmacists don't ask "Would you like the OG Azithromycin or the Sour Diesel version?"
It is very much a recreational users "drug," whatever you want call it, first and therefore engenders many characteristics of its sales.
A normal pharmacist is not going to walk the consumer through all the different kinds of "highs" the "patient" can get from different variations of Vicodin the way a dispensary worker would with canabis.
As well, I doubt CVS will start hanging "420" and Bob Marley posters all over the place or provide the kind "canabis experience" that consumers will want, for various, which will continue to be served by the dispensaries.
There are many strains that are cultivated for improving recreational experiences, I don't see Walgreens catering to this. So, I think the dispensaries will continue to exist in a significant way, but sure some of their business will be taken away but perhaps because of other effects the market for dispensaries will be expanded.
You're mostly right, but there are enough differences between strains of cannabis that while not quite the same, it's more like a doctor talking over whether Lorazepam or Xanax would be better for you. Dispensaries do probably take it too far, but I haven't been to any.
Even for those who use "recreationally", there are different goals. Some people use it to sit on the couch and watch netflix. Some use it to clean their bathrooms. Some use it while snowboarding or rock climbing. A lot of people use it to self-medicate anxiety and other issues. And different strains can be better for each of those.
As much as there may be a difference in flavour for wines, they all get you drunk the same way. Not so with cannabis.
I don't know the legal specifics of this, but is that actually true? It is schedule 1 right now, which means it federally has no medical use, yet there are states that successfully empowered themselves to (1) legalize for recreational use, e.g. CO and (2) legalize for medical use from dispensaries, e.g. CA.
How would a reduced federal scheduling level for cannabis also reduce the state's power?
It's very difficult to do clinical research on schedule 1 drugs. You need a DEA license, and FDA approval. Lots of hoop jumping, lots of opportunity for prohibitionists to forbid the research.
Moving marijuana to schedule 2 will allow scientists to make honest assessments of its benefits and harms.
Have you considered that they could de-schedule it altogether? Unlikely, but about as likely as killing a nascent gold-mine in business revenues, employment and tax receipts. Pandora's Box is already open and while Big Business may want to cut everyone else out and monopolize cannabis revenues, it's not going to happen.
They're selling for twice what we're[0] selling for in Winnipeg. More than twice, if you count for the exchange rate. Marijuana is decriminalized in Canada right now (Allard v. Canada, 2015[1], R. v. Parker, 2000[3]).
If you guys were in Canada, I'd be terrified right now. Thankfully, this blue ocean is undisturbed by the ycombinator fish thus far.
Post April 21st, when the UN convenes, and Canada/Mexico pull-out/renegotiate three of their treaties, the U.S. might be pulled in as a result, and Obama can quietly brag about Marijuana being legalized under his administration (and he doesn't have to take credit!)
The Meadow team seems to be doing a great job. getMeadow.com is really well done and their move into dispensary inventory management software and a POS system is impressive. I have been following them closely and I was wondering if their move into inventory management might have been due to dispensaries not being that interested in a grubhub style ordering service. I am curious about this because I have been working on a "grubhub for cannabis" site of my own and I have found dispensary interest in this SaaS product to be tepid.
I wonder what kind of regulations exist for Meadow. When I opened up a business (not marijuana related) bank account in Colorado, they only had one question: "Is this a marijuana business?"
Considering that concert and event venues were seized under crack-house laws in the early 2000s simply for hosting music events that featured drug use by attendees, actually facilitating drug use seems like not much of a stretch.
ps. I am in favor of complete legalization including the right to grow your own and sell, barter or gift your product to adults over the age of 18.
Good point, although banks are very conservative (with this kind of stuff). My guess is they'll want some kind of assurance from some fed commission to say this is ok or not ok, or some kind of CYA framework to follow.
The often peddled argument is that cannabis is a "soft drug" is, according to what I have seen, a complete lie. It is capable of completely and permanently altering a person's personality in negative ways. Also, I would not want my kids using it.
Food (or the addiction to it) is also "capable of completely and permanently altering a person's personality in negative ways". Outlawing a substance because of the potential for abuse does not solve the underlying problem.
Hopefully, when you say "according to what I have seen", you are referring to respected scientific literature rather than anecdotal experience and heresay...
> The often peddled argument is that cannabis is a "soft drug" is, according to what I have seen, a complete lie.
Cannabis is a "soft drug" when compared to drugs like heroin and cocaine - "soft" is a relative description. It is not meant to imply that using cannabis is entirely without negative effects.
Pointing out the existence of a worse legal poison is not a very good argument for the legalisation of another one. Perhaps it should not be used at all.
Another argument is the incredible damage that drug prohibition has done to our society. Millions of drug users have been criminalised and/or jailed just because they wanted to alter their state of mind. Drugs on the street are often tainted with adulterants. Violent drug cartels have wreaked absolute havoc on entire countries.
The war on drugs does not work, so let's take a fresh approach.
GordonS> "Millions of drug users have been criminalised"
Well yes, they are criminals who have broken the law. Your argument is defeatist; drug prohibition works quite well in places like Japan and Singapore.