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by nephihaha 26 days ago
In the UK currently, an estimated third of cigarettes are illegal, because of the high duty on tobacco. What will probably happen here is that the British government will do the same if cannabis is legalised. They are already starting ensuring that only they and their friends can supply medical cannabis, meaning that we don't have a proper open market before it's even started.
1 comments

Well idk, we had some kind of open market here in Canada and it just ended up with a few big players, a million bankruptcies and weed for under $10 CAD a gram.
Some of those Canadian people probably did not have a good business plan, but it is clear the British government doesn't like the idea of a small grower with a few plants. Even though that should be allowed as much as it is with brewing.
Growing is totally separate from selling though. I don't know about the UK case but in Canada, there was intense opposition from Conservatives towards any amount of pot being allowed to be homegrown.

There were Conservative politicians who got up and publicly said that toddlers would die cause they'd eat marijuana plants grown by their parents!

I wouldn't blame the business plans so much. A lot of them applied for licenses but didn't get theirs approved till after the huge players did. By then, the market had already consolidated.

Not completely. You could get a market gardener type scenario where people could sell some plants on a smaller scale. Some of the best beer comes from small breweries. Surely the same applies here?
Oh yeah, it would. I think in Canada it will eventually open up quite a bit.