The dispensary business won't collapse because they are not competing with pharmacies. Though it will be fun to watch the insurance companies push back when pot is prescribed for whiplash, colorblindness, and genital herpes.
Luckily, the price will be so low, even after-tax, that you won't need insurance to fund your cannabis consumption.
Why do doctors face no backlash for prescribing painkillers willy nilly. Americans use legal painkillers more than any other country in the world.
It is very much a recreational users "drug," whatever you want call it, first and therefore engenders many characteristics of its sales.
A normal pharmacist is not going to walk the consumer through all the different kinds of "highs" the "patient" can get from different variations of Vicodin the way a dispensary worker would with canabis.
As well, I doubt CVS will start hanging "420" and Bob Marley posters all over the place or provide the kind "canabis experience" that consumers will want, for various, which will continue to be served by the dispensaries.
There are many strains that are cultivated for improving recreational experiences, I don't see Walgreens catering to this. So, I think the dispensaries will continue to exist in a significant way, but sure some of their business will be taken away but perhaps because of other effects the market for dispensaries will be expanded.
Even for those who use "recreationally", there are different goals. Some people use it to sit on the couch and watch netflix. Some use it to clean their bathrooms. Some use it while snowboarding or rock climbing. A lot of people use it to self-medicate anxiety and other issues. And different strains can be better for each of those.
As much as there may be a difference in flavour for wines, they all get you drunk the same way. Not so with cannabis.
How would a reduced federal scheduling level for cannabis also reduce the state's power?
Moving marijuana to schedule 2 will allow scientists to make honest assessments of its benefits and harms.
If you guys were in Canada, I'd be terrified right now. Thankfully, this blue ocean is undisturbed by the ycombinator fish thus far.
Post April 21st, when the UN convenes, and Canada/Mexico pull-out/renegotiate three of their treaties, the U.S. might be pulled in as a result, and Obama can quietly brag about Marijuana being legalized under his administration (and he doesn't have to take credit!)
1. http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2016/2016fc236/2016fc236...
2. http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2000/2000canlii5762/200... [210]
Considering that concert and event venues were seized under crack-house laws in the early 2000s simply for hosting music events that featured drug use by attendees, actually facilitating drug use seems like not much of a stretch.
ps. I am in favor of complete legalization including the right to grow your own and sell, barter or gift your product to adults over the age of 18.
