{"id":41090,"date":"2017-12-03T03:00:40","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T08:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=41090"},"modified":"2021-08-06T12:05:51","modified_gmt":"2021-08-06T16:05:51","slug":"alberta-debates-marijuana-legalization-oddly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/12\/03\/alberta-debates-marijuana-legalization-oddly\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta debates marijuana legalization … oddly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Colby Cosh’s most recent column<\/a> is a real-life illustration of the old Bastiat saying that “The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended”:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I will leave better informed people to discuss Mr. Orr\u2019s creative interpretation of the Cultural Revolution as being a proto-Reaganite anti-drug crusade. Actually, I am just informed enough to discuss it, briefly. Here\u2019s the discussion: it\u2019s bananas.<\/p>\n

And yet! \u2014 the nonsense about China might not even have been the silliest part of the speech. Orr has concerns that legalized marijuana might not serve to suppress illegal production. This could, in itself, be a legitimate point. There is a genuine fear that the licensed vendors will set the price too high to compete with existing dealers. But it is not quite the point Orr chose to make. He seems to be convinced that licensed growers cannot compete with the black market at any price.<\/p>\n

Why is it that criminals grow pot? Orr\u2019s answer is not \u201cbecause growing pot has, until now, been a crime.\u201d That would be too easy. \u201cLet\u2019s look at it from a business point of view,\u201d he suggests\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThe black market doesn\u2019t have to pay taxes. They don\u2019t have to pay (worker\u2019s compensation). In most cases they don\u2019t have to pay for any capital expenditures on land or buildings. They don\u2019t have to buy business licences. In many cases they don\u2019t pay for power\u2026 Anybody who tries to do this legally is going to have to pay all of these expenses, and you think you can compete financially on that level with them?\u201d<\/p>\n

This, of course, explains why, when we want furniture or shoes or chicken, we all invariably buy them in back alleys from underground businesses. But if Orr were to actually look around Alberta \u2014 even his own part of Alberta \u2014 he would see that lawful businesses do have some advantages.<\/p>\n

Legal growers can raise hundreds of millions of dollars in capital markets not run by guys named Lefty or Snake. They can recruit scientists, professional marketers, and horticultural experts without having to hope Walter White shows up. They can exploit economies of scale. They can buy or rent acres of land without having to hide from helicopters. They can do business in broad daylight: they can rent billboards.<\/p>\n

And meanwhile, it is not really as though illegal pot growers don\u2019t have labour costs, or overhead, or capital and land requirements. Underground businesses that don\u2019t pay \u201ctax\u201d still have to spend money, often more money, on the basic protective services that taxes buy the rest of us. Any economist could have told Mr. Orr as much. But I am afraid he got his economics out of the same Cracker Jack box his Chinese history came from.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colby Cosh’s most recent column is a real-life illustration of the old Bastiat saying that “The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended”: I will leave better informed people to discuss Mr. Orr\u2019s creative interpretation of the Cultural Revolution as being a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,10],"tags":[542,1432,343,950,83],"class_list":["post-41090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-law","category-liberty","tag-alberta","tag-blackmarket","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-fredericbastiat","tag-marijuana"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-aGK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41090"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41093,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41090\/revisions\/41093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}