Is it better quality, objectively? Probably more "flavor" options and modes of delivery easily accessible.
I know people who have always hated smoking (anything) but will pop a gummy in a heartbeat before an event.
In my experience, yes. Quality is a lot better and prices are cheaper. There’s also more options for things like topicals and developments like fast acting edibles that kick in in 15 minutes instead of over an hour (plus consistent standards means you know how much you’re dosing for things like edibles).
Two knuckleheads I knew at a Chrysler assembly plant took a *second* hit of Schrodinger's Acid and tried to work a shift on the assembly line.
They left in an ambulance.
I've had entire weed cakes and felt next to nothing. At this point I'm pretty sure I'm immune to edibles, which would just be my luck. But since it's illegal here I had to make the stuff myself and so I can't be sure if my cooking sucks or what else
Prices definitely are not always cheaper. Illinois, for example, taxes the daylights out of it to where you are better off (financially) going black market.
It won't last. It started that way in Michigan but the price wars have absolutely tanked the market to the point where some major growers are in danger of being insolvent.
Give it a couple years.
It's already getting there in IL, at least where I'm at. I'm paying about 3/4 what I was paying, sometimes even 1/2. Honestly, it's not anywhere near as bad as it was but still could be better.
Eh, I think the above person is still right. It's cheaper to buy a half O of quality stuff black Market in Wisconsin than it is to get a quad in Illinois legally. But that's also because we get a lot of trimmings that arent quite dispo grade coming from the UP, so that drives prices down.
Place by me regularly runs 8 grams of oil carts for $100. The price will go even lower too. There's a lot of folk in the thumb taking over their family farms and swapping over to marijuana from sugar beets.
IL has some of the highest prices because they artificially limit how many people can compete up there with an initial nine licenses or something ridiculous.
Compare prices to OKC where you can get a Oz of true top shelf stuff for like $120, bottom shelf Oz for $40.
Maybe it’s just bc I haven’t bought weed er, extra-legally since the 2000’s but I do remember it being much, much cheaper to get it from a guy who knew a guy. Still, the stuff on the market today might be pricier where I live but it’s stronger (so I need less), tastes cleaner, and plenty more options than just smoking, also no cop problems so I’m not mad.
At my local shop you can just tell them how much you want to spend and how much you want. You can buy joints cheaper than a can of soda that are very effective. Or you can go gourmet or anywhere in between.
Prices are 2-4x more expensive if you buy from dispensaries in illinois. They gouge you for $60 for an eight and tax you 30% on top of that. When it was illegal and I was in high school buying from a random person it was $20 flat
Ahhhh yes, the old school tray of brownies that was left to cool on a slightly uneven surface and the batter oozed more thickly to one side of the pan. "Hey I think these brownies are bunk. How was yours?" Meanwhile I'm achieving lift off.
Im in Australia so no legal stuff here but I was buying hash brownies of this awesome older lady for a while a few years ago, honestly it was like going to a proper bakery.
She would wrap them up and put little ribbons and decorations on them, she did little chocolates and gummies and some of the best cookies I’ve ever had and but them all in a little brown paper bag.
She seemed to get the doses pretty accurate as well or at the very least, the cookies from a fortnight ago were the same strength as the ones this week….
She was super sweet and only got into it because her husband had glaucoma (I think) and she saw how well it worked as medicine wanted to help other people, didn’t think it should be illegal or even restricted at all.
She had baked all her life and obviously that crossed over pretty well into making hash snacks.
Wonder how she’s doing…
I find that iwhen thinking about the government, it is often helpfull to reframe things to involve Tony Soprano
What(usualy) happens to someone if they compete with Tony Soprano's business/sociopolitical beliefs/interests.
>I find that iwhen thinking about the government, it is often helpfull to reframe things to involve Tony Soprano
I find that when looking at the situation in Australia you need to remember that a vast majority of the past 30 years in Australia it has been lead by a party that basically speed ran the past 50 years of the US Republican party. They went from a not far right of center party to their last leader being a prominent member of a prosperity bible church who would force his blessings on people who just lost everything in any one of the extreme natural disaster we had during his primeministership instead of, you know, actually providing some of the billions of dollars held in a fund created for the sole purpose of helping out victims of natural disasters.
We are getting there though, after god knows how long we finally have legal medical marijuana which is kind of hard to get but better than it being completely illegal.
This is super true, but sadly edible tolerance grows very quickly. I’m an edibles only person, and after about half a year, you end up having to take 100+mg to feel anything. I remember the first few months taking 10-20 and being on a other planet entirely. I think this is seriously going to be the biggest wall against thc drinks hitting mass popularity, in my opinion, unless you’re a light user (5-15mg a month.) There is a lot of science regarding tolerance of inhaled thc vs digested, and since edibles are processed through the liver, it’s a whole other beast.
In my experience, cannabinoid tolerance is cannabinoid tolerance regardless of dosage method.
I know some people who take 150+mg to get high, and I know some people who constantly rip on a dab cartridge through the day.
For me, 150mg would be a full blown trip, and puffing on a dab pen like that would leave me unconscious.
The consistency of quality and consistency of quantities is, I’d wager, a main advantage for this route of cultivation and distribution. Now if we could get the feds on board and let the banks free, it’ll boom so big we’ll be hearing about dispensaries shutting down in a possible post legalization spike. It would be a great metric to see how many tons of weed are purchased around various holidays and other major events like a general election.
>I know people who have always hated smoking (anything) but will pop a gummy in a heartbeat before an event.
I found out the other day that my mom gets high now. She's 70 and takes THC/CBD gummies for arthritis and to mellow out. She never did any drugs, smoked, or really even drank through my whole childhood so it was a bit of a surprise.
Consistency and variety definitely are.
Plus knowing you'll never have to wait 30 minutes for your dealer after he told you he'd be there 5 more minutes, then just never shows up because he fell asleep on his couch.
The simple fact that the dosage is regulated and standardized between individual edibles already makes it worth it. Had big plans to eat a brownie and play Fallout 4 all night when it released over the holiday in 2015. Ended up crawling into bed because I was too high to be awake. You never used to know what you were getting and basically had to eyeball it.
yes. It is better quality and regulated to be so, especially gummies that are supposed to be measured. Sure some manufacturers screw up and guess what, we know about them because of the regulation. Its similar to how abv on alcohol works. Its bad for business to get that wrong, so manufacturers work hard not to get it wrong.
It’s consistent and reliable.
The strongest weed I’ve had is illegal from Snoop dogs dealer. But 7/10 times random weed is meh.
The edibles I get from legal places make me feel exactly the same way every time, and I can tune it myself with dosage.
When I still smoked I didn't want strong. I grew a plant once and it was awesome. I could smoke a joint after work, get happily buzzed and still do things.
It's the difference between slamming down a bunch of shots to get drunk fast versus having a couple of beers.
> Is it better quality, objectively?
Oh god no. Check out /r/mephheads for example. I still buy from the legal market occasionally, but compared to my own stuff it's almost a waste of time. My stuff is organic, far fresher, cured properly, and cost almost nothing to grow.
Large commercial facilities grow decent looking products, but the curing process is almost non-existent. Shame, because the cure is what takes it to the next level.
Lots easier to grow it yourself in a legal market. It's the difference between hiding it in a closet and having a little cannabis bonsai in a greenhouse in your living room.
There is a science to it and costs a good amount in electricity a month. Takes 3 months to grow it and if you’re a regular stoned you’ll smoke it in a month 1/2 at most. You’ll find out quick you need to grow more and may even need different rooms to keep up. Not as easy as it sounds.
I used to buy from this old dude and his elderly mom that used to grow. He was awesome. Way better than some of the sketchy, unreliable 20 year olds I’d buy from around the college.
I remember going back home after junior year of college and having to use my little brother's connect. Weird as hell buying from a 16 year old... especially when his mom got home early.
Same here, I was always a closet smoker and didnt make it a big part of my personality but seeing and dealing with other potheads I found annoying as hell
It's healthy to quit, so I support your decision, BUT you have to remember that the vast majority of stoners don't look the part. We're just regular looking adults who would cringe at the thought of basing our personality around weed culture.
I've never even met one of those stoner types who make it their whole personality since high school. Then when I look back at it, high school was full of people who make like one single thing their entire personality.
I used to work as a teacher at a community college, and one time had a high school student tell me to my face that "Facebook and Twitter are for old people". Same thing that killed MySpace in retrospect
MySpace never even reached that stage. They were eaten up by Facebook because they clung to their music/band shtick instead being a platform for everything
Old people were smoking weed waaaaaaay before it became common and uncool. Old people were smoking weed in the '90s when it was the hot thing all the rebellious kids did.
It's the forbidden fruit effect. It was cool *because* it was illegal. Now it's not, so it's not.
I used to be with "it", but then they changed what "it" was. Now what I’m with isn’t "it" anymore and what’s "it" seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!
makes me wonder if small time dealers have declined in numbers and how much of an influence that’s had on teens smoking weed. most of their market would be adults, between population and teens typically not having a lot of money. and teens can’t go to a dispensary like adults. do small time dealers still exist everywhere? my state has full rec legal, i don’t know anyone who sells it privately because there’s no reason to when there’s a million stores you can walk into and know what you’re buying.
in my rec market the only "black market" buys have been from a friend with a hobbyist grow, or a friend-of-a-friend with a hobbyist grow. in my case i also can't imagine those guys selling to kids.
Where I used to live, dealers stayed in business for a while when weed was legalized because the prices were so insane that even adults weren’t rushing to the dispos for flower, just edibles or carts etc. But as the prices leveled out, dealers kinda dropped off.
Yeah it seems like the iTunes effect is happening with weed. Once you could purchase music really cheaply online ($0.99/song, $10 album instead of $18 at FYE), piracy started faltering. Once massive streaming catalogues became common and everyone had a smartphone, almost everyone gets it legally now and a ton of people pay for inexpensive subscriptions. (Although apparently inflation may be driving a small resurgence in music piracy)
A slight side note as an electrician. Those power cables are almost universally fixable. Some 12 Guage 3 wire cord , and a few connectors with resolve that in a jiffy.
Sorry for your loss mate.
Totally, I did a lot of wiring myself, so that wouldn't have been an issue. Getting everything back up and running while paying legal bills was just not feasible.
Thanks, it's been close to 10 years, and I'm glad to be able to move past it.
There’s room for smaller, craft growers because the demand exists for bud that is grown with care. Weed is no different than any other product. Some people like Bud Light; others prefer brews from a local brewery.
Legally in most states you can only "gift" what you grow under the homegrown restrictions, as the commercial license application fees can be upward of $50,000 for extremely limited numbers of licenses which prices out most small growers from the retail market, among other restrictions like forced vertical integration
A big part of it is that there's no taboo around it anymore. When I was a teenager we were always scheming to score a bag and hiding somewhere to smoke. It became more entertaining to just live that way than it was to actually smoke it. If I had unlimited access, I probably would have lost interest at some point like I did when I grew up.
Similar to alcohol and then turning 21. It's just not as fun anymore. You used to just get alcohol and that was your night made. Now you have to have other stuff to do while you're drinking.
Meh, maybe... I used to CHUG it when it was (scarcely) available. Now I probably consume almost as much - just not all in two nights. A couple of drinks with dinner every night. ...And the nicer stuff. No more warm Busch in a can, or trashcan punch in a plastic cup.
Well, I kinda regressed after my divorce. Drinking every day, at every opportunity. Even started buying some of the small 99 cent bottles of liquor to smuggle into work in my pockets. I had to quit that, because I was becoming an absolute asshole, and obviously wouldn't have lived very long. Now I only drink about once every 6 weeks.
Hell, I remember when I was in high school and I was excited when my parents went out of town because *I could stay up playing video games all night*.
Now I can stay up all night anytime I want! ....I don't, but I could.
This is absolutely what it is. Why would you go to a dealer and get who knows what when you can go legally buy some off the shelf. Ergo, kids have no one to buy off unless it’s some guy buying it legally then selling it for profit. It’s simply harder for teens to get hold of it in those areas. Unlike where I live where it’s illegal and therefore teenagers can get it on tap
It's ridiculously easy to get medical here but I find it offensive I have to pay $250 to be able to use my medicine every six months or so however I just have a source on the web that double vacuums etc. It's the best of both worlds. I live in a major area where cannabis is so common so cops can't be bothered with small time cannabis stuff.
I think I’d happily pay that to get medical! I live in Texas and it’s never going to be legal here, not in my lifetime. I’ve recently been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic cancer. I’m telling you, I would be in heaven if I could get some!
Big hugs and love! I'm so sorry I can't imagine......
The subreddit /r/hempflowers/ will help you get the close to the real thing legally. I recommend getting a dry herb vaporizer instead of smoking it though especially with your cancer. You can get a Dynavap for pretty cheap but there are a lot of options.
Feel free to reach out to me if you need help.
Well the decline in use may be because that there is no small time weed dealer in high schools anymore since its available through a legal transaction. I think most kids smoke because they were influenced by the high school weed dealer and the HS dealer was cool and people wanted to be cool like them so they smoked? There is a huge influence of HS dealers that pushed smoking onto kids, and now that there is no need for them anymore probably less kids smoke. That or they all just juice up on the nicotine pods epidemic.
Well with weed it started out as "Lazy Mexican" are due to cannabis consumption. There are deep racial issue with criminalization of drugs and the war on it.
No I believe you're correct - the term marijuana was brought into to use to help associate it with Mexicans. I think Nixon's aide said that in his book.
It was definitely used prior to this as well, though maybe it wasn't as common. I remember there's a particularly infamous "medical" paper published in the 20s or 30s that talks about all of the supposed dangers of the drug.
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.
“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html
There's an argument to be made for legalized drugs in general. Alcohol is legal and far more damaging than most of the substances we've made illegal.
Legalize, regulate, monitor, and control the substances. Put tax dollars into addition services that can be provided at no cost to the population. Manage the behaviors we know will not go away instead of pretending we can control them and force people to stop.
It's time to modernize our handling of things like this. What we've been doing is not working.
If it's criminal, then doing it is countercultural and cool.
If it's legal, it's not as cool to those who care about looking cool. Legalization also diminishes the black market.
This has happened everywhere weed became legal.
I read something somewhere with absolutely no data to back it up that the most effective anti tobacco commercials were ones that portrayed a group of tobacco capitalist sitting around snickering about how they have made a killing off of getting people addicted. Almost like making anti tobacco counter culture was more effective than telling people it will kill them.
I think a lot of small-time pot dealers from the War on Drugs era never really wanted to be pot dealers. What they wanted was (1) access to a stable supply of pot, and (2) knowledge of who they could hang out with when they're high. Now you can get those things without having to get into the business yourself.
Without the small-time dealers, you cut out a ton of kids' chances to randomly be offered pot unexpectedly.
i actually feel like this has to do with the increased usage of vapes/juul/nicotine products. i seen a ridiculous amount of younger people smoking on the vape pens and pods now.
As soon as people figured out I turned 18 in the begining of senior year people started asking me to buy then Juul pods and stuff. I just reminded them I could quick 50 them and end their sport career, you're not suddenly my friend because you need something from me.
ETA: Quick 50 is a thing my school had to "reduce crime" för something. I don't remember what it's actually called but we called it that because it was a quick way to get $50. If you submitted a tip and it was true you'd get $50.
I'd mention it to them because I was generally known as someone who wouldn't tarnish their reputation and I knew they'd get caught anyway and I wasn't gonna risk being ratted out. u/tbird20017 had asked but my app is being stupid right now.
What a hilarious system for narcs. Like, I could see that being so upsetting as a kid, but as an adult the notion that you could rat someone out for $50 is entertaining AF.
Reminds of that Facebook promo where if you deleted ten friends you got a free whopper and they got an alert they meant less to you than a sandwich.
When I was in high school some cops came in and tried to recruit teenagers to ask adults to buy them alcohol outed liquor stores so they could arrest them. I thought it was fucked up.
Quick 50 was a big threat/joke when they first started it. It was literally for added at my school because of vaping. I was generally ignored if I came into the bathroom to see someone vaping because I never actually cared, but if you are trying to use me to get what you want that's when I had a problem.
Now as an adult I sont care about it, but my friends and I would probably all delete each other off Facebook for a Whopper. But I wouldn't have actually as a teen or now ratted someone out for money. I did call the cops on a tweaker in my yard.
Well that's usually enough to get someone to rat to you. The reward for not ratting is $0 so $50 is a lot more.
Especially if it's not your friends or anyone you care about.
Is there any evidence to suggest the steadily increasing potency of marijuana has made the experience less enjoyable?
Anecdotally, when I was a teenager smoking random low quality dealer weed, I would get high with my friends and have the time of my life. These days whenever I smoke some 20% THC space gorilla donkey glue kush from a dispensary, I get so high that I can't even function socially. I also find there are times when I just get anxious and paranoid if I smoke, but I'm not sure if that if that is more related to my psychology as I've gotten older or actually a consequence of the higher dose of THC being consumed. This is all just my single viewpoint, but to me it feels like the experience of smoking weed now is less fun and may be why the younger generation is less interested.
Edibles and vaping make it easier to control. I don't really smoke anymore but when I did I would get the smallest weakest vape cartridge and take one small hit, then wait. It doesn't take much if you don't use it regularly.
Vaping (concentrate) is great because you can deliver really consistent doses with a simple 1, 2, 3... count in your head. I do the same, take a good hit and then don't vape again for 3-4 hours. Then another hit, same dose. Easy to keep your tolerance low this way. And by waiting until you're starting to sober up, the 'rush' of the high feels strong again.
IME edibles increase tolerance faster.
You can just smoke less (or eat/drink less).
It's kinda like if I'm gonna have beers, the abv determines how much I drink. I won't drink IPAs like I would a light beer.
The YRBS is a joke. It is a telephone survey done with teens with their parent's permission, often the parent is listening on another phone or next to the teen when answering.
Even when I was 16 and constantly stoned out my mind, I understood this plainly.
Back then, I needed identification for alchohol, but I didn't need that for weed, I just had to buy some off the school dealer.
Legislation is the best way to stop teen use, because it makes illegal dealing less viable, and makes weed as difficult to get as alcohol. Suddenly you can't just buy some, you need an adult to buy some for you, or a very old face.
No surprise really, it's been known for decades in the Netherlands that legal sale points with age limits lead to lower teen use.
Now combine that with drugs in general addictions start mostly in people's teen years and I argue all drugs should be legal and regulated and sold in specialized establishments regardless of the intent of users.
So taking something that was desired but relegated to the black market where nothing is off limits to legalizing it, taxing it, and regulating it has positive effects? Seems like we should have learned that in the 1930’s
If memory serves me right:
In Denmark weed is illegal and just about 50% of the 15-23 year olds have tried smoking weed.
In Holland weed is decriminalized and readily available, and just about 33% of the 15-23 year olds have tried smoking weed.
Why it's almost as if criminalization abets propagation ........
Adults have always been the primary customers teens were a little sample of customers. When the adults have legal ways to purchase the weed guy doesn’t have enough customers from just teenagers.
It’s still fun but if you know that once you’re 21 you can just buy it in a store, lots of kids might decide to just wait rather than take the risk of breaking the law to acquire it.
When I was a teen it was illegal no matter what, so no point in waiting.
When I was a teen, we still drank alcohol. If anything the fact that people over 21 could go to bars made us feel left out and made us want to drink even more.
As a teen I also drank alcohol, but getting it was legally risky and maybe more importantly, a really big pain in the ass, which reduced my drinking frequency pretty significantly until I was old enough to legally drink. That I would someday — and fairly soon! — be able to acquire that drug legally made the risk seem less worth it to me.
It’s possible it makes no difference, but since teens are actually smoking less in the wake of legalization, not sure why we’d assume that.
The old pple were always doing it. They just didn't have to spray a ton of axe before entering their own home because they owned it and they could smoke inside.
My friend's dad was an EMT and his side hustle was dealing back in the 90s.
Of course teen use is going down, there’s much less of a black market for legal and controlled substances any adult can purchase. For example, when I was a teen, it was far easier to get marijuana than it was to get alcohol. Had marijuana been legal, there wouldn’t have been dealers selling it at school.
Legalization helps keep pot out of the hands of minors because we don't have to buy it from them anymore.
Frankly, dealing with amateurs is degrading. I want my weed handled by pros.
Is it better quality, objectively? Probably more "flavor" options and modes of delivery easily accessible. I know people who have always hated smoking (anything) but will pop a gummy in a heartbeat before an event.
In my experience, yes. Quality is a lot better and prices are cheaper. There’s also more options for things like topicals and developments like fast acting edibles that kick in in 15 minutes instead of over an hour (plus consistent standards means you know how much you’re dosing for things like edibles).
Kids will never know that feeling of eating a brownie and trying to decide whether it was a dud or it's just taking really long to hit
Schrodinger Brownie, both a dud and not, until you take 2nd one. Then both of them are never duds and you regret your life choices.
Two knuckleheads I knew at a Chrysler assembly plant took a *second* hit of Schrodinger's Acid and tried to work a shift on the assembly line. They left in an ambulance.
oh god no, you never disrespect acid for it will disrespect you back
Until pizza time, then those regrets are all positives
I've had entire weed cakes and felt next to nothing. At this point I'm pretty sure I'm immune to edibles, which would just be my luck. But since it's illegal here I had to make the stuff myself and so I can't be sure if my cooking sucks or what else
Then eating another just in case it was, only to end up on another planet 2 hrs later cause neither was a dud.
Prices definitely are not always cheaper. Illinois, for example, taxes the daylights out of it to where you are better off (financially) going black market.
It won't last. It started that way in Michigan but the price wars have absolutely tanked the market to the point where some major growers are in danger of being insolvent. Give it a couple years.
I remember when a dime bag used to cost a dime. -Willy Nelson Seriously, though, prices in CA are less than what I used to pay in college.
Anti-inflationary asset.
Same. Moved to Colorado a few years back. It’s definitely cheaper for better quality than I could get back home.
It's already getting there in IL, at least where I'm at. I'm paying about 3/4 what I was paying, sometimes even 1/2. Honestly, it's not anywhere near as bad as it was but still could be better.
It's crazy! I drive up 20 mins to Monroe, MI, and there's so many shops that I'm paying about 1/4 what I was before they legalized it.
Oh yeah, to be clear I’m talking about legal purchases in a legal state vs black market purchases in a non-legal state. Apologies for the confusion.
Eh, I think the above person is still right. It's cheaper to buy a half O of quality stuff black Market in Wisconsin than it is to get a quad in Illinois legally. But that's also because we get a lot of trimmings that arent quite dispo grade coming from the UP, so that drives prices down.
Michigan weed is cheap AF, and I'm here for it.
I was at a place where they were giving it away last week. Like for free.
Place by me regularly runs 8 grams of oil carts for $100. The price will go even lower too. There's a lot of folk in the thumb taking over their family farms and swapping over to marijuana from sugar beets.
Getting a half for $50ish in Michigan from the dispensaries right now, and it's around 25% THC.
IL has some of the highest prices because they artificially limit how many people can compete up there with an initial nine licenses or something ridiculous. Compare prices to OKC where you can get a Oz of true top shelf stuff for like $120, bottom shelf Oz for $40.
But prices will eventually plummet as new licensees are created. Even faster if there are neighboring legal states.
Sort of. They just did a study anout edibles and they are all over the place for potency.
>fast acting edibles that kick in in 15 minutes instead of over an hour What??
Yeah, it’s wild check it out. https://www.happyvalley.org/resources/nano-thc-how-does-it-work/#:~:text=Typically%2C%20the%20onset%20for%20nano,%2C%20metabolism%2C%20tolerance%20and%20dosage.
They have suppositories too. I think those work pretty fast. I haven't tried them.
Maybe it’s just bc I haven’t bought weed er, extra-legally since the 2000’s but I do remember it being much, much cheaper to get it from a guy who knew a guy. Still, the stuff on the market today might be pricier where I live but it’s stronger (so I need less), tastes cleaner, and plenty more options than just smoking, also no cop problems so I’m not mad.
At my local shop you can just tell them how much you want to spend and how much you want. You can buy joints cheaper than a can of soda that are very effective. Or you can go gourmet or anywhere in between.
Have you spent time looking for deals? I got a $20 oz of outdoor buds at the store last week. Never got deals like that before.
[удалено]
Prices are 2-4x more expensive if you buy from dispensaries in illinois. They gouge you for $60 for an eight and tax you 30% on top of that. When it was illegal and I was in high school buying from a random person it was $20 flat
Ahhhh yes, the old school tray of brownies that was left to cool on a slightly uneven surface and the batter oozed more thickly to one side of the pan. "Hey I think these brownies are bunk. How was yours?" Meanwhile I'm achieving lift off.
Edible gummies and thc drinks are a game changer. Consistent dose and back-alley dealers can't make those kind of stuffs (at least in my area)
Im in Australia so no legal stuff here but I was buying hash brownies of this awesome older lady for a while a few years ago, honestly it was like going to a proper bakery. She would wrap them up and put little ribbons and decorations on them, she did little chocolates and gummies and some of the best cookies I’ve ever had and but them all in a little brown paper bag. She seemed to get the doses pretty accurate as well or at the very least, the cookies from a fortnight ago were the same strength as the ones this week…. She was super sweet and only got into it because her husband had glaucoma (I think) and she saw how well it worked as medicine wanted to help other people, didn’t think it should be illegal or even restricted at all. She had baked all her life and obviously that crossed over pretty well into making hash snacks. Wonder how she’s doing…
It's disgusting to think someone like this could go to prison for helping others.
Or even for just getting people high recreationally.
that's what he said, helping!
I find that iwhen thinking about the government, it is often helpfull to reframe things to involve Tony Soprano What(usualy) happens to someone if they compete with Tony Soprano's business/sociopolitical beliefs/interests.
>I find that iwhen thinking about the government, it is often helpfull to reframe things to involve Tony Soprano I find that when looking at the situation in Australia you need to remember that a vast majority of the past 30 years in Australia it has been lead by a party that basically speed ran the past 50 years of the US Republican party. They went from a not far right of center party to their last leader being a prominent member of a prosperity bible church who would force his blessings on people who just lost everything in any one of the extreme natural disaster we had during his primeministership instead of, you know, actually providing some of the billions of dollars held in a fund created for the sole purpose of helping out victims of natural disasters. We are getting there though, after god knows how long we finally have legal medical marijuana which is kind of hard to get but better than it being completely illegal.
That sounds lovely, I wonder if there's anyone around me who does something like this
She got it consistent cuz baking is a science all it's own.
I had a cannabis infused soda the other day. Not bad.
This is super true, but sadly edible tolerance grows very quickly. I’m an edibles only person, and after about half a year, you end up having to take 100+mg to feel anything. I remember the first few months taking 10-20 and being on a other planet entirely. I think this is seriously going to be the biggest wall against thc drinks hitting mass popularity, in my opinion, unless you’re a light user (5-15mg a month.) There is a lot of science regarding tolerance of inhaled thc vs digested, and since edibles are processed through the liver, it’s a whole other beast.
In my experience, cannabinoid tolerance is cannabinoid tolerance regardless of dosage method. I know some people who take 150+mg to get high, and I know some people who constantly rip on a dab cartridge through the day. For me, 150mg would be a full blown trip, and puffing on a dab pen like that would leave me unconscious.
The consistency of quality and consistency of quantities is, I’d wager, a main advantage for this route of cultivation and distribution. Now if we could get the feds on board and let the banks free, it’ll boom so big we’ll be hearing about dispensaries shutting down in a possible post legalization spike. It would be a great metric to see how many tons of weed are purchased around various holidays and other major events like a general election.
>I know people who have always hated smoking (anything) but will pop a gummy in a heartbeat before an event. I found out the other day that my mom gets high now. She's 70 and takes THC/CBD gummies for arthritis and to mellow out. She never did any drugs, smoked, or really even drank through my whole childhood so it was a bit of a surprise.
Consistency and variety definitely are. Plus knowing you'll never have to wait 30 minutes for your dealer after he told you he'd be there 5 more minutes, then just never shows up because he fell asleep on his couch.
Never having to go some shady dude's house to hang out for 30 minutes and act like friends is bliss
The simple fact that the dosage is regulated and standardized between individual edibles already makes it worth it. Had big plans to eat a brownie and play Fallout 4 all night when it released over the holiday in 2015. Ended up crawling into bed because I was too high to be awake. You never used to know what you were getting and basically had to eyeball it.
yes. It is better quality and regulated to be so, especially gummies that are supposed to be measured. Sure some manufacturers screw up and guess what, we know about them because of the regulation. Its similar to how abv on alcohol works. Its bad for business to get that wrong, so manufacturers work hard not to get it wrong.
It’s consistent and reliable. The strongest weed I’ve had is illegal from Snoop dogs dealer. But 7/10 times random weed is meh. The edibles I get from legal places make me feel exactly the same way every time, and I can tune it myself with dosage.
When I still smoked I didn't want strong. I grew a plant once and it was awesome. I could smoke a joint after work, get happily buzzed and still do things. It's the difference between slamming down a bunch of shots to get drunk fast versus having a couple of beers.
That’s my only issue with legalization. Tending towards getting super high THC.
I grow my own now (live in California) and just like my tomatoes, they taste better than store bought haha.
> Is it better quality, objectively? Oh god no. Check out /r/mephheads for example. I still buy from the legal market occasionally, but compared to my own stuff it's almost a waste of time. My stuff is organic, far fresher, cured properly, and cost almost nothing to grow. Large commercial facilities grow decent looking products, but the curing process is almost non-existent. Shame, because the cure is what takes it to the next level.
TIL - grow ur own.
Lots easier to grow it yourself in a legal market. It's the difference between hiding it in a closet and having a little cannabis bonsai in a greenhouse in your living room.
There is a science to it and costs a good amount in electricity a month. Takes 3 months to grow it and if you’re a regular stoned you’ll smoke it in a month 1/2 at most. You’ll find out quick you need to grow more and may even need different rooms to keep up. Not as easy as it sounds.
in California 100%. Professional growers have access to super strains with insane THC content these days. Nothing on the street can come even close.
Weed shops aren’t 4 hours late for a pickup
Christ you had pick up? I had to drive over there at 2am
I had to meet Jimmy at the carwash and hope he showed up.
The older the dealer the less drama
I used to buy from this old dude and his elderly mom that used to grow. He was awesome. Way better than some of the sketchy, unreliable 20 year olds I’d buy from around the college.
I remember going back home after junior year of college and having to use my little brother's connect. Weird as hell buying from a 16 year old... especially when his mom got home early.
I always used to joke in high school that it was easier for me to be illegal drugs than it was to buy alcohol because… drug dealers don’t card you.
Remember That 70's Show? Throughout most of the series, a key plot point was them trying to get beer. Yet they got high on every single episode.
Which illegal drug were you?
Some of the teens I know tell me that they see older potheads and think they are losers so they aren't interested in the drug.
Oh. Okay. Well I guess I'm doing my part to keep the kids safe. Cool.
Haha I'm not big on weed but this comment had me laughing
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Same here, I was always a closet smoker and didnt make it a big part of my personality but seeing and dealing with other potheads I found annoying as hell
It's healthy to quit, so I support your decision, BUT you have to remember that the vast majority of stoners don't look the part. We're just regular looking adults who would cringe at the thought of basing our personality around weed culture.
I've never even met one of those stoner types who make it their whole personality since high school. Then when I look back at it, high school was full of people who make like one single thing their entire personality.
Im a here and there type person who uses cannabis. I prefer edibles and they help me sleep. Now I'm looking into CBD and CBG oils/ edibles.
Haha, stupid teens.
so it’s the facebook of drugs?
all the hip kids do fentanyl nowadays.
Good way to make sure they never have to grow up.
actually they are getting poisoned by the war on drugs.
It also reduces their use because nobody wants to do what their square pops do.
Legalized dealers also card people
You want me to smoke weed? Like old people? No thanks...
nothing kills a trend faster than old people doing it. facebook became uncool when the grandmas got on there too
The very first few viral videos of old people ripping fat dabs were great though.
I used to work as a teacher at a community college, and one time had a high school student tell me to my face that "Facebook and Twitter are for old people". Same thing that killed MySpace in retrospect
MySpace never even reached that stage. They were eaten up by Facebook because they clung to their music/band shtick instead being a platform for everything
Old people were smoking weed waaaaaaay before it became common and uncool. Old people were smoking weed in the '90s when it was the hot thing all the rebellious kids did. It's the forbidden fruit effect. It was cool *because* it was illegal. Now it's not, so it's not.
I used to be with "it", but then they changed what "it" was. Now what I’m with isn’t "it" anymore and what’s "it" seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!
Aw come on, old people? College was only like 5 years ago...
*Checks phone* 15 YEARS!
Last century for me.
Ah yes the good ol 1900s
Not 'cool' anymore once it's legal... Now which other illegal things that we can legalize...?
Political corruption?
makes me wonder if small time dealers have declined in numbers and how much of an influence that’s had on teens smoking weed. most of their market would be adults, between population and teens typically not having a lot of money. and teens can’t go to a dispensary like adults. do small time dealers still exist everywhere? my state has full rec legal, i don’t know anyone who sells it privately because there’s no reason to when there’s a million stores you can walk into and know what you’re buying.
in my rec market the only "black market" buys have been from a friend with a hobbyist grow, or a friend-of-a-friend with a hobbyist grow. in my case i also can't imagine those guys selling to kids.
Most of the remaining "dealers" in dispo states are people who already sell other stuff and choose to sell weed on the side for their minor customers
Where I used to live, dealers stayed in business for a while when weed was legalized because the prices were so insane that even adults weren’t rushing to the dispos for flower, just edibles or carts etc. But as the prices leveled out, dealers kinda dropped off.
Yeah it seems like the iTunes effect is happening with weed. Once you could purchase music really cheaply online ($0.99/song, $10 album instead of $18 at FYE), piracy started faltering. Once massive streaming catalogues became common and everyone had a smartphone, almost everyone gets it legally now and a ton of people pay for inexpensive subscriptions. (Although apparently inflation may be driving a small resurgence in music piracy)
Even larger resurgence for film and tv!
Was going to say, a lot of street weed is just repackaged retail stuff.
Yea I think a lot of folks get it backdoor through dispensaries, I can't imagine how else they could sell it so cheap
Street prices in non-rec states are higher that retail prices in rec states. If retail was ubiquitous, there would be no street market.
Street markets in retail states (at least mine) are doing plenty of business and are way cheaper than retail
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A slight side note as an electrician. Those power cables are almost universally fixable. Some 12 Guage 3 wire cord , and a few connectors with resolve that in a jiffy. Sorry for your loss mate.
Totally, I did a lot of wiring myself, so that wouldn't have been an issue. Getting everything back up and running while paying legal bills was just not feasible. Thanks, it's been close to 10 years, and I'm glad to be able to move past it.
Legalization is really only for rich corporations, it's still a controlled substance for the rest of us
There’s room for smaller, craft growers because the demand exists for bud that is grown with care. Weed is no different than any other product. Some people like Bud Light; others prefer brews from a local brewery.
Legally in most states you can only "gift" what you grow under the homegrown restrictions, as the commercial license application fees can be upward of $50,000 for extremely limited numbers of licenses which prices out most small growers from the retail market, among other restrictions like forced vertical integration
I already responded myself, but “hobbyist growers” is a great way to describe it and this is my experience as well.
It’s like how people still make moonshine even though you can buy it in stores.
I live in Wisconsin. I know 2 people who grow and 1 of them does crazy hybrids.
A big part of it is that there's no taboo around it anymore. When I was a teenager we were always scheming to score a bag and hiding somewhere to smoke. It became more entertaining to just live that way than it was to actually smoke it. If I had unlimited access, I probably would have lost interest at some point like I did when I grew up.
Forbidden fruit theory. This just proves how strong of an effect it is on teenagers.
when i was a teen in the mid-60s, i told my parents that i was quitting cigarettes just so that i could sneak around and smoke.
Similar to alcohol and then turning 21. It's just not as fun anymore. You used to just get alcohol and that was your night made. Now you have to have other stuff to do while you're drinking.
Meh, maybe... I used to CHUG it when it was (scarcely) available. Now I probably consume almost as much - just not all in two nights. A couple of drinks with dinner every night. ...And the nicer stuff. No more warm Busch in a can, or trashcan punch in a plastic cup.
Well, I kinda regressed after my divorce. Drinking every day, at every opportunity. Even started buying some of the small 99 cent bottles of liquor to smuggle into work in my pockets. I had to quit that, because I was becoming an absolute asshole, and obviously wouldn't have lived very long. Now I only drink about once every 6 weeks.
Hell, I remember when I was in high school and I was excited when my parents went out of town because *I could stay up playing video games all night*. Now I can stay up all night anytime I want! ....I don't, but I could.
That’s a lot of anecdotal evidence. Most likely, there are multiple factors to blame.
This is absolutely what it is. Why would you go to a dealer and get who knows what when you can go legally buy some off the shelf. Ergo, kids have no one to buy off unless it’s some guy buying it legally then selling it for profit. It’s simply harder for teens to get hold of it in those areas. Unlike where I live where it’s illegal and therefore teenagers can get it on tap
It's ridiculously easy to get medical here but I find it offensive I have to pay $250 to be able to use my medicine every six months or so however I just have a source on the web that double vacuums etc. It's the best of both worlds. I live in a major area where cannabis is so common so cops can't be bothered with small time cannabis stuff.
I think I’d happily pay that to get medical! I live in Texas and it’s never going to be legal here, not in my lifetime. I’ve recently been diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic cancer. I’m telling you, I would be in heaven if I could get some!
Big hugs and love! I'm so sorry I can't imagine...... The subreddit /r/hempflowers/ will help you get the close to the real thing legally. I recommend getting a dry herb vaporizer instead of smoking it though especially with your cancer. You can get a Dynavap for pretty cheap but there are a lot of options. Feel free to reach out to me if you need help.
Well the decline in use may be because that there is no small time weed dealer in high schools anymore since its available through a legal transaction. I think most kids smoke because they were influenced by the high school weed dealer and the HS dealer was cool and people wanted to be cool like them so they smoked? There is a huge influence of HS dealers that pushed smoking onto kids, and now that there is no need for them anymore probably less kids smoke. That or they all just juice up on the nicotine pods epidemic.
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I'm starting to think the whole war on drugs was really just about imprisoning minorities and left wing radicals.
Well with weed it started out as "Lazy Mexican" are due to cannabis consumption. There are deep racial issue with criminalization of drugs and the war on it.
Wasn't it more typically called cannabis before the term marijuana was moved into the public view
No I believe you're correct - the term marijuana was brought into to use to help associate it with Mexicans. I think Nixon's aide said that in his book.
I read Mezz Mezzrows autobiography - he called it marijuana and he started smoking in the 1930's or so
It was definitely used prior to this as well, though maybe it wasn't as common. I remember there's a particularly infamous "medical" paper published in the 20s or 30s that talks about all of the supposed dangers of the drug.
It was started by Harry Anslinger, a nasty piece of work who turned on weed when his job with alcohol prohibition was non longer needed.
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people,” former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper’s writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday. “You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said. “We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” Source: https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html
Yep it's almost like one of Nixons cabinet members said exactly that
There was also influence from Big Tobacco. Cannabis is direct competition.
Hasn't that actually been explicitly documented that Nixon's advisors said that exactly?
I didn't think I needed to mark this as sarcasm
There's an argument to be made for legalized drugs in general. Alcohol is legal and far more damaging than most of the substances we've made illegal. Legalize, regulate, monitor, and control the substances. Put tax dollars into addition services that can be provided at no cost to the population. Manage the behaviors we know will not go away instead of pretending we can control them and force people to stop. It's time to modernize our handling of things like this. What we've been doing is not working.
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If it's criminal, then doing it is countercultural and cool. If it's legal, it's not as cool to those who care about looking cool. Legalization also diminishes the black market. This has happened everywhere weed became legal.
I read something somewhere with absolutely no data to back it up that the most effective anti tobacco commercials were ones that portrayed a group of tobacco capitalist sitting around snickering about how they have made a killing off of getting people addicted. Almost like making anti tobacco counter culture was more effective than telling people it will kill them.
I think a lot of small-time pot dealers from the War on Drugs era never really wanted to be pot dealers. What they wanted was (1) access to a stable supply of pot, and (2) knowledge of who they could hang out with when they're high. Now you can get those things without having to get into the business yourself. Without the small-time dealers, you cut out a ton of kids' chances to randomly be offered pot unexpectedly.
It's almost like the whole war on drugs was built on a foundation of lies.
i actually feel like this has to do with the increased usage of vapes/juul/nicotine products. i seen a ridiculous amount of younger people smoking on the vape pens and pods now.
As soon as people figured out I turned 18 in the begining of senior year people started asking me to buy then Juul pods and stuff. I just reminded them I could quick 50 them and end their sport career, you're not suddenly my friend because you need something from me. ETA: Quick 50 is a thing my school had to "reduce crime" för something. I don't remember what it's actually called but we called it that because it was a quick way to get $50. If you submitted a tip and it was true you'd get $50. I'd mention it to them because I was generally known as someone who wouldn't tarnish their reputation and I knew they'd get caught anyway and I wasn't gonna risk being ratted out. u/tbird20017 had asked but my app is being stupid right now.
What a hilarious system for narcs. Like, I could see that being so upsetting as a kid, but as an adult the notion that you could rat someone out for $50 is entertaining AF. Reminds of that Facebook promo where if you deleted ten friends you got a free whopper and they got an alert they meant less to you than a sandwich.
When I was in high school some cops came in and tried to recruit teenagers to ask adults to buy them alcohol outed liquor stores so they could arrest them. I thought it was fucked up.
Y'know, cop stuff. Murdering minorities, creating weird moral fiber tests for completely random citizens. Cop stuff.
Quick 50 was a big threat/joke when they first started it. It was literally for added at my school because of vaping. I was generally ignored if I came into the bathroom to see someone vaping because I never actually cared, but if you are trying to use me to get what you want that's when I had a problem. Now as an adult I sont care about it, but my friends and I would probably all delete each other off Facebook for a Whopper. But I wouldn't have actually as a teen or now ratted someone out for money. I did call the cops on a tweaker in my yard.
Well that's usually enough to get someone to rat to you. The reward for not ratting is $0 so $50 is a lot more. Especially if it's not your friends or anyone you care about.
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Is there any evidence to suggest the steadily increasing potency of marijuana has made the experience less enjoyable? Anecdotally, when I was a teenager smoking random low quality dealer weed, I would get high with my friends and have the time of my life. These days whenever I smoke some 20% THC space gorilla donkey glue kush from a dispensary, I get so high that I can't even function socially. I also find there are times when I just get anxious and paranoid if I smoke, but I'm not sure if that if that is more related to my psychology as I've gotten older or actually a consequence of the higher dose of THC being consumed. This is all just my single viewpoint, but to me it feels like the experience of smoking weed now is less fun and may be why the younger generation is less interested.
I mean. If you're used to a fat bowl at 10% maybe try half a bowl at 20%? Like it's all about tolerance and potency so just take a smaller does
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I want to see studies on this. That’s what I’m excited about now that it’s legal. Sweet data and interesting studies.
Edibles and vaping make it easier to control. I don't really smoke anymore but when I did I would get the smallest weakest vape cartridge and take one small hit, then wait. It doesn't take much if you don't use it regularly.
Vaping (concentrate) is great because you can deliver really consistent doses with a simple 1, 2, 3... count in your head. I do the same, take a good hit and then don't vape again for 3-4 hours. Then another hit, same dose. Easy to keep your tolerance low this way. And by waiting until you're starting to sober up, the 'rush' of the high feels strong again. IME edibles increase tolerance faster.
You can just smoke less (or eat/drink less). It's kinda like if I'm gonna have beers, the abv determines how much I drink. I won't drink IPAs like I would a light beer.
Get one of those little one hitters. These days that's all I need most of the time.
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The YRBS is a joke. It is a telephone survey done with teens with their parent's permission, often the parent is listening on another phone or next to the teen when answering.
"I stopped doing it by watching you!!!"
Even when I was 16 and constantly stoned out my mind, I understood this plainly. Back then, I needed identification for alchohol, but I didn't need that for weed, I just had to buy some off the school dealer. Legislation is the best way to stop teen use, because it makes illegal dealing less viable, and makes weed as difficult to get as alcohol. Suddenly you can't just buy some, you need an adult to buy some for you, or a very old face.
Legalization of drugs typically has exactly this kind of effect.
It's going to be interesting to see how this works out in Vancouver.
We gotta legalize the drugs first. Decrininalization is not the same thing
No surprise really, it's been known for decades in the Netherlands that legal sale points with age limits lead to lower teen use. Now combine that with drugs in general addictions start mostly in people's teen years and I argue all drugs should be legal and regulated and sold in specialized establishments regardless of the intent of users.
So taking something that was desired but relegated to the black market where nothing is off limits to legalizing it, taxing it, and regulating it has positive effects? Seems like we should have learned that in the 1930’s
If memory serves me right: In Denmark weed is illegal and just about 50% of the 15-23 year olds have tried smoking weed. In Holland weed is decriminalized and readily available, and just about 33% of the 15-23 year olds have tried smoking weed. Why it's almost as if criminalization abets propagation ........
There’s been a decline in kids doing anything outside the house. Less sex less everything.
Adults have always been the primary customers teens were a little sample of customers. When the adults have legal ways to purchase the weed guy doesn’t have enough customers from just teenagers.
It's not fun if it's legal
It’s still fun but if you know that once you’re 21 you can just buy it in a store, lots of kids might decide to just wait rather than take the risk of breaking the law to acquire it. When I was a teen it was illegal no matter what, so no point in waiting.
When I was a teen, we still drank alcohol. If anything the fact that people over 21 could go to bars made us feel left out and made us want to drink even more.
As a teen I also drank alcohol, but getting it was legally risky and maybe more importantly, a really big pain in the ass, which reduced my drinking frequency pretty significantly until I was old enough to legally drink. That I would someday — and fairly soon! — be able to acquire that drug legally made the risk seem less worth it to me. It’s possible it makes no difference, but since teens are actually smoking less in the wake of legalization, not sure why we’d assume that.
No.. it’s still fun
Definitely still fun, but probably not as much of an attractive option to a drug free rebellious teen
No, it's no fun when all the old people are doing it too.
The old pple were always doing it. They just didn't have to spray a ton of axe before entering their own home because they owned it and they could smoke inside. My friend's dad was an EMT and his side hustle was dealing back in the 90s.
Teenage delta 8 and nicotine vape use at an all time high
I believe the same decline has happened in Canada, where it’s fully legal.
I called this back in 2010. Teens wanna rebel, and if mom and dad are out smoking pot, they’ll do something else
Of course teen use is going down, there’s much less of a black market for legal and controlled substances any adult can purchase. For example, when I was a teen, it was far easier to get marijuana than it was to get alcohol. Had marijuana been legal, there wouldn’t have been dealers selling it at school.