[teamhappy]

I've been thinking about this just the other day. The context then was locally grown weed in the US and the implications of that for farmers in South America. Wouldn't we be better off distributing the "workload" evenly across the planet?

[davidw]

Probably not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage#Ricardo.2...

To take your pot example, there are places where it grows well, and places where it's not so easy to grow. It's better for everyone if it's grown in the easy places, and traded for goods that are more easily produced in the 'not so easy' places.

That's the theory, at least. Naturally, that specific example also has a lot of legal issues surrounding it!

[delecti]

International drug trafficking laws are almost definitely a bigger factor in the consideration of where to grow legalized medicinal/recreational cannabis than cost, especially considering it grows so readily in so many different climates.