I know this isn’t the case in every state with medical or recreational, but I live in a state where the laws for medical cannabis were clearly set up to create a monopoly, and eliminate competition, so that only the state and friends of the state could profit.
The marijuana sold in the dispensary can only be grown by the state, and there isn’t much variety in products available for purchase.
To qualify for a medical license, all of your information has to go into a state run database, and you have to pay some kind of annual fee to renew your license.
To be eligible to even open a dispensary and sell the state’s legal marijuana, you had to already have an existing pharmacy in place for something like 8 years when the medical law was passed, and you had to meet very specific zoning laws. Not surprisingly all that criteria applied to only 1 family owned pharmacy.
Since there wasn’t any competition, the state and the single dispensary were able to mark up their prices to an insane degree. But what are you going to do, they’re the only game in town.
Except when private businesses started taking advantage of the legal federal loophole for THC products derived from hemp, it created a competitive market for people to purchase legal hemp derived THC products (THC seltzers, gummies, etc.). It started to cut into the state run monopoly’s business, because clearly why would anyone keep paying for exorbitantly overpriced and pretty mediocre products if you didn’t have to?
In other words, capitalism and the free market actually worked a little too well for the wrong people, so small government free market loving Republicans tried and failed to crack down on hemp derived THC products at the state level.
This ensures their monopoly can continue to exploit the public without having to worry about competitors cutting into their business. Weed prices won’t go up (hopefully) but they can keep charging whatever they want because the federal government is eliminating their competition for them.
Again, I know this isn’t the case in every state, but I would be very surprised to learn it’s only the case in Louisiana.
So just to clarify, you’re saying weed prices may go up because of this?
No, but I’ll give you an example of what I mean.
I know this isn’t the case in every state with medical or recreational, but I live in a state where the laws for medical cannabis were clearly set up to create a monopoly, and eliminate competition, so that only the state and friends of the state could profit.
The marijuana sold in the dispensary can only be grown by the state, and there isn’t much variety in products available for purchase.
To qualify for a medical license, all of your information has to go into a state run database, and you have to pay some kind of annual fee to renew your license.
To be eligible to even open a dispensary and sell the state’s legal marijuana, you had to already have an existing pharmacy in place for something like 8 years when the medical law was passed, and you had to meet very specific zoning laws. Not surprisingly all that criteria applied to only 1 family owned pharmacy.
Since there wasn’t any competition, the state and the single dispensary were able to mark up their prices to an insane degree. But what are you going to do, they’re the only game in town.
Except when private businesses started taking advantage of the legal federal loophole for THC products derived from hemp, it created a competitive market for people to purchase legal hemp derived THC products (THC seltzers, gummies, etc.). It started to cut into the state run monopoly’s business, because clearly why would anyone keep paying for exorbitantly overpriced and pretty mediocre products if you didn’t have to?
In other words, capitalism and the free market actually worked a little too well for the wrong people, so small government free market loving Republicans tried and failed to crack down on hemp derived THC products at the state level.
This ensures their monopoly can continue to exploit the public without having to worry about competitors cutting into their business. Weed prices won’t go up (hopefully) but they can keep charging whatever they want because the federal government is eliminating their competition for them.
Again, I know this isn’t the case in every state, but I would be very surprised to learn it’s only the case in Louisiana.