States like Colorado and Washington now have kinda-sorta-legalized marijuana (I say that because the federal government is still struggling to manage the regulations).
And there lies the problem—how does the government want this industry to develop? Do they want large companies controlling the marketplace—which might make them more friendly to regulation? Or do they want a highly competitive marketplace, so no company takes control.
There are few precedents for the marijuana market. Some have pointed to the tobacco industry or the alcohol industry as ways that the market could go, but both are reliant on a few large companies that dominate the marketplace.
Mike Konczal from the Roosevelt Institute says:
The regulators see how the consolidated alcohol industry is able to avoid taxation and accountability and are determined to avoid these problems in the new pot industry. Thus this market may help economists understand a crucial role of regulations that has lapsed in recent decades: the role of government in curbing the excess power of the private sector.
This is why I find the “let’s just make it legal and tax the hell out of it!” argument to be problematic. Essentially these people who are usually resistant to government regulation are calling for heavy government regulation of an industry before the industry is even legalized.
Another regulatory issue: where do you put the pot dispensary?
The law in Washington, as currently structured, requires pot retailers to be at least 1,000 feet away from a school, day-care facility, playground, teen arcade game center, recreation center, transit center or library. Though this may sound minor, in practice it means that it will be very difficult to put pot retailers in dense population spaces.
This makes the location of pot inconvenient—not like alcohol or tobacco, where you can pick them up at any gas station.
And a last question: will pot be subject to the same smoking prohibitions as tobacco? Already in some small cities in the US, tobacco smoke is prohibited everywhere—apartment buildings, public places, restaurants, shopping centers. Why should marijuana be any different?
That’s what’s going to be asked time and time again in the next few years: why should marijuana be any different? People saw the legalization of pot as a final success, but it’s actually just the beginning of the debate.
