Legal weed would decrease market share of their primary product. Illegal weed limits the base of users, and thus presents little threat. So an Phillip Morris may be able to capture some market if they entered, however they estimate that their losses of their primary income would exceed any market growth in marijuana, due to not having the ability to leverage their market share.
At least that’s the sentiment I got from talking to clients working in those spaces (both tobacco and marijuana)
I would not want to grow my own. It’s work I don’t want to do and if it’s in my yard, it exposes me to liability if some kid sneaks over and steals it and somehow injures himself with it.
Dude. Not physically. But psychologically? When I was in my Junior year of HS I started smoking with friends. Within a year I was smoking daily. We would put a quarter pound on a table at a friend’s house and go through it in a week. For several years I had to wake and bake to do anything. That included a stint as an intern at both Norman, Craig and Kummel (the third largest advertising agency in the USA at the time) and Westinghouse.
Weed was our life. We were weed connoisseurs. Back then there was Acapulco gold, Panama red, Thai sticks, Budda sticks, hash, opium, opiated hash, hash oil. Crap… We lived for THC and lived off of it.
National Review makes a fair point, while the Cole memo which makes enforcement of MJ laws in states that have legalized it a low priority, is a perfectly sensible policy, it is a lousy law.
It is Sessions and the DOJ job to enforce laws as written.
Cory Gardner, a Republican senator from Colorado, had harsh words for Sessions. “With no prior notice to Congress,” Gardner griped, “the Justice Department has trampled on the will of the voters in [Colorado] and other states.” This critique rings hollow. It was Congress that established this law, and it is Congress that must repeal it. Indeed, if anyone is “trampling,” it is the legislature of which Gardner is a part. We have long argued that the prohibition of weed is a fool’s game, and we have long urged that it be ended. We have held to this view through a host of administrations, and we hold to this view today. Nevertheless, we believe also that the Constitution must be strictly obeyed, and that congressional inaction presents no magic veto power to the executive. This, put simply, is not Jeff Sessions’s call.
If takes Federal prosecution of MJ user in states that have legalize it, to motivate Congress to fix idiotic federal MJ statutes, Sessions maybe doing the country a favor.
That’s what makes it not addictive. There are no meaningful withdrawal symptoms at all.
Wanting to do something, even something you like a lot, is not the same thing as addiction.
Anyone who has had a real physical addiction to anything knows how laughable the idea of weed addiction is.
I lived the same way you described, for years. And then it became incompatible with my life, and I stopped. And it wasn’t hard. I missed it, because I loved smoking weed. I still miss it, but I haven’t smoked it in ages.
In contrast, I was addicted to nicotine. Quitting smoking cigarettes was infinitely harder. I failed multiple times, succeeded quitting for years, smoked a cigarette at a friend’s wedding and was immediately hooked again. Smoked for years before quitting again.
Weed is no more addictive than anything else that you enjoy.
I feel like Philip Morris should have a weed-market research division the same way that Exxon should have solar panel or battery cell division. If the cigarette companies don’t have a detailed in depth plan for exactly what to do when weed is legalized (I mean factories identified, strains selected, packaging designed), then they’re guilty of gross incompetence.
They may prefer it to stay illegal as long as possible, because theyve done very detailed math about their market share, but if they don’t have a plan for it, they’re just dumb.
It is not Atty General Jeff Session fault that MJ is treated as a class 1 narcotic by the Federal government. It was Senator Jeff Sessions along with other 99 Senators and 435 Congress critters fault that it remains a class 1 narcotic despite decades of evidence that it has no business being treated like one.
It is at best highly dubious that any Attorney General be they Eric Holder, Loretta Lynn, or Jeff Session has the constitutional authority to say, I’m going to treat MJ differently than other Class 1 narcotics.
There is exactly one branch of government that has the unambiguous authority to stop Federal prosecution of MJ laws in state that have legalized MJ. That branch is Congress, not the executive branch.
Perhaps we are talking past each other. But I think thats because you (actually the National review) are giving credit to Sessions for trying to perform his role within the bounds of the constitution.
I give him no such credit. In fact every single member of the Trump administration have amply demonstrated you should ALWAYS assume they have made their decisions based on malice, stupidity or bigotry.
He made this decision against all the evidence because of the usual three reasons I listed above.
I dont really need to think about it much more than that. Willfully ignorant on my part? Possibly, but so far it has been 100% accurate. So I see no reason to waste my time thinking about any sound reasoning to their actions because there isnt any, no matter how much the National Review tries to rectroactively invent some.
These people are just mentally small. I treat them as such. If that comes across as snide and condecending to them and their supporters then even better.
When they started recreational sales here in NV back in July, the deal was state run liquor distributors had exclusive rights on moving product from growers to the dispensaries, but when that day arrived, most of them got cold feet and backed out, fearing that since it was still federally illegal, they could jeapordize their entire operations. The Nevada Tax Commission eventually had to open distributorship to other parties to get things moving again. So it could be nationwide companies like Phillip Morris or Anheuser Busch have similar concerns.
I think we are both right. I don’t disagree that Session has some misguided stupid belief about MJ, and along with hatred of all things Obama and that was his main reason for repealing Cole.
But the one silver lining of the Trump presidency has highlighted the ridiculous power of the executive branch and the fact we the American people have allowed Congress to avoid doing their job.
It is crazy we allow one man to use the entire arsenal of nuclear weapons against another country even if we haven’t been attacked. It didn’t seem like a such a big deal under Obama or even Bush 43, but now we know that is crazy since are very existent depends on Trump acting rationally.
Likewise, our entire drug policy being decided by the executive branch and bunch of un-elected bureaucrats. The people’s branch, the Congress has no say on it. Read this rejection by Obama acting DEA head of reclassifying MJ.
It is time Congress stood up and took responsibility for actually making sure the laws of the country actually reflect what the public’s wants and stop ducking making hard decisions.
So rather than Sen. Cory getting mad at Session and threaten to hold up judicial nominees, he needs to get the MJ laws in this country changed.
Exactly. Both parties vote along party lines, but Republicans seem even more adamant about it. The party will punish members who don’t fall in line. They can lose committee appointments, or only get shitty ones, and donors will start to withhold campaign funds.
If you vote for a Republican, you are voting for the Republican platform. Don’t think otherwise.
