Welcome to my weekly digest for September 16, 2022. For new subscribers, this contains a roundup of my recent writings and podcasts, as well as links to the best articles from around the web this week. You can control what emails you get from me by
I don't wish to sound like a lolbertarian here, but what kind of "legalization" are we talking about when it's a "criminal enterprise" to grow it without government permission? The outcome of trying to legalize possession for individual use but having government enforcement of a legal cartel was entirely predictable. Everyone ought to have known that the promises of huge revenue from "legalizing and taxing it" were overblown. Think of it: you have an industry with a well-developed black market, then you implement a much more expensive and highly taxed legal market, but decrease the penalties for operating in the gray market. What better recipe would there be for having huge illegal growing operations?
I don't wish to sound like a lolbertarian here, but what kind of "legalization" are we talking about when it's a "criminal enterprise" to grow it without government permission? The outcome of trying to legalize possession for individual use but having government enforcement of a legal cartel was entirely predictable. Everyone ought to have known that the promises of huge revenue from "legalizing and taxing it" were overblown. Think of it: you have an industry with a well-developed black market, then you implement a much more expensive and highly taxed legal market, but decrease the penalties for operating in the gray market. What better recipe would there be for having huge illegal growing operations?