They Still Don't Get It

Would you believe the first legal purchase of pot in the US happened only ten years ago? That was when an Iraqi war veteran in Colorado bought some cannabis products from the state's first dispensary. Since then, legalization has been rolling, with 38 states plus DC allowing, at the minimum, pot for medical use (24 + DC allow recreational purchases).

Unfortunately, what is properly a matter of individual liberty and personal autonomy,

has been treated as just another money-grab by state governments. A recent Politico article covers widespread lament that the pot market isn't as lucrative - for the states - as it was in the past or as it has been hoped to be, and this bit relates how New York might actually use taxpayer money to bail out some struggling pot farms.

Running a business is a competitive venture. You provide goods or services to the public, and hopefully make enough money to make the effort worthwhile. Others will provide similar goods or services, and you will compete with those others for a share of the market. Some will succeed better than others - whether it be by better product, better service, better location, better management, better marketing, or sometimes just luck. Some will not do so well. Some will fail, and there will always be new competitors. Pick any retail segment: restaurants, supermarkets, barber shops, bagel stores, pizzerias, bodegas, clothing stores - you name it. Market forces are inexorable.

That's before the other variable - consumer tastes - is factored in. Razor manufacturers took a hit when beards came back into style. Restaurants constantly adjust their menus to reflect changing preferences, and casual dining chains have suffered as people increasingly like quick service and delivery.

So it is apparently going with pot shops.

Some are struggling to make money, and some have shuttered. This is raised as a point of concern, but I ask - is the same sort of concern voiced over the 60% of restaurants that close within their first year? Why the fret and talk of bailouts over these failed businesses?

Once again, the corrosive specter of Other People's Money hangs over a matter. A state government, once the voters via their representatives choose to legalize pot, should not be deciding how many shops there should be, or trying to milk as much revenue out of those shops as it can.

I'll take a moment to mention the moral hazard of government treating an intoxicant as a revenue source. If someone is to have an opinion on overall pot use, a decrease should be seen as a positive, not as a problem because “less tax revenue.”

Pot shouldn't be treated as some sort of panacea, it should be understood to be what it is. Alcohol is well-understood to be a recreational product with potential negative health impact that can be abused and that shouldn't be used when performing certain risky activities. Pot should be looked at the same way.

Up to a point. Alcohol sales are mismanaged by governments as well. Some are "ABC" or "package store" states, where the government owns liquor stores. Others regulate and specify wholesale prices, distorting or bypassing market forces. Excise taxes on alcohol vary significantly by state.

There's also tobacco. Some states are so usurious in their taxation that they create black markets. In New York, because of the extremely high taxes, something like 60% of all cigarettes sold are either smuggled in from low-tax states (years back, I knew of a guy who'd drive down to Virginia or North Carolina every so often, fill the trunk of his car with cigarettes, and sell them for a profit to bodegas) or counterfeits made in places like China.

People go along with these "sin taxes" on tobacco and alcohol - and now pot - either by arguing that "public health" is harmed and therefore the harmers should pay extra, or that such behaviors should be discouraged by making them more expensive.

Neither aligns with any principle of liberty. I can disapprove of your decision to smoke two packs a day or drink yourself into a coma every Friday night, but neither I nor my elected proxy has any right to interfere with your decision to do so.

This is what our politicians refuse to get, and they refuse because too many of us are OK with them treating our fellow citizens as sheep to be herded and geese to be plucked.

Pot should be legalized because liberty, not because money. Pot should be legalized because prohibition does not work and has never worked, not because Other People's Money. The mindset that says "look at all the revenue we are missing out on, let's grab a piece of it," while prevalent, is destructive and corrosive and has no place in a liberty-based society.