Gang suppliers are the real question
Never let anti-capitalists design a legal market for cannabis. Their consuming hatred of Big Marijuana and the profit motive would create such an ineffectual legal market that voters would see how awful the legal model is and vote it down at the coming referendum.
The Greens and the Drug Foundation not only want to decriminalise marijuana, they want to legalise it with government controls on who can supply, and checks on quality. No for-profit supply seems to be their ideal.
The Greens seem to want to imitate the monumental screwup in Canada. Not only did Canada forget to legalise production before supply, so it ran out within a week, but each province decided for itself how marijuana was to be legally sold. One chose a government monopoly. Others allowed private retailers, but they had to have a clean record and pay expensive annual registration fees.
Most of the current marijuana dealers did not qualify, and continued to sell taxfree marijuana. American states also continue to have black markets.
What the Greens will set up is a legal supply that is hopeless at competing with existing gang suppliers. The legal shops will be so far away from schools and other sensitive locations, open 9-to-5 in a remote warehouse district, and paying a living wage, that they will need a bailout from Shane Jones’ Regional Growth Fund. Meanwhile, the gangs will continue to supply 24/7 home delivery tax-free, with free samples of harder drugs.
Do not underestimate the entrepreneurial ingenuity of criminals. Some UN bureaucrats had a cunning plan: hold an occasional lawful sale of confiscated ivory to collapse the price of poached ivory and drive the poachers out of business.
Elephant poaching soared because criminals worked out that they could pass off their illegal ivory as legally acquired and sell it to people who otherwise would not buy it. A large market in counterfeit legal ivory developed off the back of this earnest attempt.
I’m a recovering libertarian. I support decriminalisation because, if adults want to get high, more fool them as long as they do not harm others. But I know that argument will never sell at a referendum.
The reason dope-smoking-on-Saturdaynight middle-class parents oppose decriminalisation is that, when they are feuding with their kids over bad grades, they still want to tell them that marijuana is illegal.
The best argument for decriminalisation at a referendum is that it pushes gangs out of the supply chain so kids will not be offered samples of harder drugs. That pragmatic argument, and better quality control, could win a majority.
Then the rationale for suppressing the illegal trade would be stronger. Penalties for illegal supply, and even possession through an illegal supplier, might have to increase.
If advocates of legalisation want a legal market that drives the gangs out of marijuana supply, the Greens and others on the Left will have to swallow a big dead rat and embrace capitalism.