[sferoze]

You might not have to worry about "Big Marijuana", as it seems much easier to grow your own Marijuana then it is to make your own cigarettes. There would be so much competition between big and small companies who are selling it. The following article was written in 2011 but I still think it makes an interesting point about the business of growing and selling marijuana vs tobacco.

"Why is marijuana banned and cigarettes legal? There are two reasons. They are the same two reasons why marijuana will never be legalized. Money and horticulture.

Approximately 20% of the population smokes, just over 40 million adults. That is tens of millions of dollars a day in local, state, and federal taxes.

The government has a captured cash cow in cigarette smokers. People cannot just grow tobacco and manufacture their own cigarettes. Tobacco is a land, labor, and time intensive crop. After it is harvested it must be cured, aged, and dried in a specific manner.

It would take a good sized plot of land, a lot of work, and about a year and a half for you to produce a few cartons of cigarettes. You need more than one plot of land as tobacco depletes soil and the crop must be rotated, or you must invest in expensive fertilizer and nutrient mixes. You cannot easily or economically grow tobacco to make cigarettes for personal consumption.

Marijuana, on the other hand, can be cultivated anyplace. You can grow enough in pots to continually supply you and your friends. If you have enough space you can turn it into a cash crop. All you need are seeds or plantings, and in a short time you can fly higher than a kite. Anyone, anyplace can grow marijuana. And they do.

The government cannot control, regulate, or easily tax pot. This is why marijuana will never be legalized. There is no way to make it a commercially viable and profitable product and no way to effectively tax it."

Read more: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/middle-c... Follow us: @wtcommunities on Twitter

[maxerickson]

The tobacco taxes aren't that huge a source of revenue:

http://taxfoundation.org/blog/monday-map-tobacco-tax-revenue...

Significant, but not huge. Federal seems to be around 0.6% (the way I rounded, should be somewhere close to but lower than that).

[mrweasel]

0.6% is still a lot of money. I'm not sure who the US does it's budgets, but in other countries the politicians are fighting over perhaps 1 - 5% of the actual budget, the rest is fixed. The Danish government has a budget of around 1 trillion Danish kroner, but the actual negotiations in parliament only revolves around 5 - 10 billion.

Missing 0.6% pretty much removes the entire bargaining platform.

[maxerickson]

Yeah, it's a lot, but it's low enough that I wouldn't expect taxation to be a primary issue in the policy debate over marijuana.

[sferoze]

There is just no interest in making it legal because it is a cash crop that anyone can grow and benefit from.

There is more to marijuana then it being a recreational drug. It is also a very valuable material that can be used in a variety of other products. Search hemp products on google and you will find a variety of uses.

The fact that we have outlawed hemp in human society is insanity but it makes sense in the context of big business and competition. Do some research on what is takes to grow cotton vs growing hemp.

"The "fabric of our lives" needs approximately twice as much territory as hemp per ton of finished textile, the land-use miser of the bunch. Further complicating matters is the inverse relationship between chemical use and land requirements." - [1]

Hemp is a plant that is so valuable for its use in products, and it is really easy for anyone to grow. It's a weed, its grows like crazy! Doesn't sound very profitable from a big business perspective does it?

[1] - http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_l...

[maxerickson]

At least if you ever have to eat your hat, it will be made out of a strong and durable natural fiber.

[sferoze]

I am pretty confused about your comment, care to explain?