When purchasing an asset to sell it, does the purchase and selling price matter in terms of profiting...

most of our supply comes from the American west coast or local farmers.

not sure where you're getting that information but very confident you're incorrect.

most southern states, especially those that border mexico, get 99% of their weed from mexico. i do not know the ratios for non southern states, but I do know a large percent of the weed in US is from mexico.

Texas specifically is a central hub for drug cartels as they go up to dallas//houston/austin and literally branch out in all directions via the various innerstate highways and destribute en mass across the country.

Mexico is a HUGE supplier of weed specifically.

while it is possible a larger % of weed is provided elsewhere the higher north you go, I'm still confident mexico and the related drug cartels are high influence for this.

All of my weed comes from BC, personally. You shouldn't just assume it's all coming from mexican cartels. Both Canada, and America grow huge amounts of marijuana.

furthermore most large scale operations in the US - both weed and otherwose - have close ties and/or are directly operated as an offshoot of a wider operation being run by other illegal crime syndicates that operate in many more areas of criminal activity.

there is a very small portion (zero?) of "i'm just a typical white US resident that decided to grow an acre of weed and be a millionaire from it all by myself and I would never murder anyone"

i really suggest you read up on this if you really think weed is just an innocent little crop being grown by friendly west coast US farmers.

No... I literally have a friend who grows weed in Colorado. lol. Nice try though.

>bc and colorodo
>using "legal operations" as "proof" that weed is safe and harmless and does not have nefarious puproses
>legal operations for weed is few and far between and one of the lowest %'s of how much weed is in the US

currently googling for statistics, confident to say weed supplied via legal means in the US is a small fraction, which completely defeats the purpose of use in this debate.

to continue further, even if you happen to be one of the unique and small in number "i have a buddy who grows weed and i sell it so i have no ties to anything bad", the people you supply to will not buy from you for the rest of their life. more than likely a few years tops. buyers and sellers migrate literally all the time. if you are feeding a habit it can be said 100% without a doubt the person you're feeding will one day buy elsewhere, and will inevitably buy from previously mentioned "bad" operations at least sometimes. this continues the funding of these crime organizations that do nothing but hurt us as a species.

learn to look the big picture. what you do is more important than its direct effects in your life in the here and now

Congratulations, you're a faggot

I live across the street from a weed greenhouse. Well, it's actually 5 large greenhouses. It produces tons of weed every month. Like literally tons as a unit of measurement.

there's operations like that all over Colorado. In every town and county that allows them. And we're not by any means the only state that allow that. California has had legal grow operations for something like a decade.

I don't know if we're making a dent in the cartel's profits, but since anyone can grow it and buy it in CO I sincerely doubt they're selling much here any more.

>internet equivalent of "nuh uh" or "ur mom!"

lets think about this for a moment - if its legal to open up a business and grow weed in CO

do you really think the cartels have not put people in place there and opened up shop?

they literally setup operations anywhere they want and spend lavishly to do it illegaly. Doing it for a fractino of the risk and cost - legally - would be like a dream

The owners spent about $7,000,000 on the build.

they're from boston. I don't think I've ever seen a Mexican on the property since construction was finished.

the other grow in my town is owned by a local family. No cartel ties that I'm aware of, they've owned greenhouses in town for as long as I've lived here at least.

there's a lot of money being made. Cartels aren't getting a shot at it.

>feeding a habit

oh jesus christ dude, we're talking about weed here, not heroin...

So you don't smoke weed, don't work in the weed industry, and don't actuallyhave any weed statistics...

can you just stop please, you're embarrassing yourself.

i wasnt implying the two people you know of are in the cartel, just saying if its legal in the state, theres no reason those who have been in country wide operation illegally would just ignore the opportunity

did not say that in a "weed is addicting and harms you!" mentality. people that go jogging have a habit of jogging. without various forms of technology such as running sues people would not be able to run as much as they do now without blistering earlier etc, which would inevitably hinder the growth of that hobby.

regardless of weeds direct effect being good/bad/neutral, that has nothing to do with the discussion here. what's your point?

I have my own experiences and knowledge with the topic which i dont feel obligated to share here as it does not matter. I don't need personal experience or statistics for what we'ere discussing. to argue that the trend of smoking weed (or doing any other drug that is en-mass illegal, despite small offshoots) doesn't cater to larger "evil" operations is like arguing the wind isnt real or cars dont harm the environment.

you might as well be covering your ears and yelling LALALALALA

If he wanted to get high slower, why not just cut it with tobacco?

>just saying if its legal in the state, theres no reason those who have been in country wide operation illegally would just ignore the opportunity

yes, my point is that a greenhouse with filtered air and special water permits costs a lot more per plant than a field in mexico or an illegal grow on national forest land.

the cartels are priced out of the legal market on the production side and undercut on the retail side. There's nothing for them to gain by doing business legally when it cost way more and earns way less. Especially since they already break the law anyways.

The easy solution is to just legalize drugs and make those spic killers compete with industrial sized operations. It's seems like an insult to our agency that we can't use our bodies as we see fit, for better or for worse.

cartels/illegal opperations on large scale is literally a billion dollar industry. where they save in the actual grow operation they lose hand over fist via things like siezed drugs/weapons/cash/entire operation setups and crops, cost of "employees" aka trafficers and mules, soldiers, growers etc, cost fort hings like hits and wars, arrested workers, various costs associated with logistics, gang theft, etc etc. the list is never ending, yet they still make literally billions in profit.

the illegal operation is giant, the amount needed to fund the larger operations is mind boggling. The cost to run a LEGAL operation that removes the ongoing and continuous chance of complete loss of any and all parts of operation at any time (not counting the federal seizure issues possible with legal ops) would be nothing in comparison

thats a great question, would have to ask him that.

i actually agree with you here. good to see another competent person in the thread that thinks beyond "it's just muh blunt"

>yet they still make literally billions in profit
that's because their markup is in the thousand of percents

>I don't need personal experience or statistics

So you just need your imagination? Got it...

>The cost to run a LEGAL operation that removes the ongoing and continuous chance of complete loss of any and all parts of operation at any time
the problem is a cartel front is never going to be legal and free from risk simply because it IS a cartel front.

if feds found out my perfectly legal non-drug business was actually owned by a cartel they'd take it and sell it off. There's nothing cartels can do to alleviate this problem.

Look at the one dude's racehorse breeding operation. Perfectly legal but funded with drug money. When the feds decided to they took it and sold it. Because that's their job. And even if the business is legal, just having cartel money makes it money laundering.

You literally have no knowledge whatsoever of the weed industry in the U.S.

Things have changed.

25 states plus D.C. now have legalized marijuana in some form. There are tons and tons of warehouses, fields, closets across this country that are run by normal, law-abiding citizens.

Canada also produces tons and tons of pot, and has been doing so for a loooooong time.

It seems you are painfully ignorant of the subject.

I mean really... take a look at Tilray, a 100% legal Canadian company.

tilray.ca/en/news/tilray-announces-record-harvests-and-new-strain-availability/

>our production schedule would deliver 50 kg of premium medical cannabis per week on a consistent, ongoing basis.

There are plenty of companies out there that have nothing to do with the cartels.

Yeah and what are the tax rates like?

Last I checked dispensaries make very slim profits and are barely above water.

in 2010 the US consumption of weed was at (reasonable estimate) of 35-45 billion dollars in weed, and in the last 10 years it has doubled, so it's safe to say in the last 6 it has at least shot up another 50% bringing it up to 52 - 68 billion today. this is being conservative with a 50% raise despite it being 6 years instead of 5

cnbc.com/id/36179677
cnn.com/2015/10/22/us/marijuana-use-up/

DOMESTIC production went from 1k metric tons in 1981 to 10k metric tons in 2006, given the 50% revenue growth since then we can guess a 50% weight growth as well, bringing it to 15k tons minimum (again, conservative)

drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/marijuana/international-statistics.html

>50kg a week production = 2.866009 tons a year

15,000 tons DOMESTIC PRODUCTION for the US a year, using your favored company as a model we need 5,234 legal companies in operation at the same level to cover the domestic growing industry alone. This does not factor in whats shipped in outside of the US, smaller, or bigger companies

the biggest comapany last year was

furthermore, legal weed in colorodo brought in 1 billion from colorodo last year. there's 2 states outright legal so we can say 2 billion since colorodo is the leader. hell I'll give every of the 25 states legalizing medical use a billion for themselves as well - so were now at 27 billion

that leaves us with 25 - 41 billion dollars for weed sales not in legal form and a requirement of 5,234 legal companies at the same level of your example company to operate just to cover the DOMESTIC growing of weed in the US.

currently from waht I can find the biggest legal weed operation has managed to pull in 80m in total revenue for a year (this may be incorrect, shit was worded weird, still reading), which would be .15% on the high end, note that is POINT fifteen percent.

hows that for facts?

keep in mind this is giving all DOMESTIC growing weed the total monetary value of the US weed industry, completely removing the 100% illegal weed being smuggled in's value, which in turn inflates the presented value of the legal weed in discussion

Thanks for doing the research... Now can you see that not all weed comes from the cartels?

sure, .15%

and the guys that buy that will still happily spend on cartel weed when theyre not in that cushy little blanket zone which will further fund more shit like murder and human trafficing and gang war

i never said all weed comes from cartels. thats the failure argument you have decided to try and turn this into.

the discussion was weed consumption inevitably funds much more devious crimes, and used cartels which deal in multiple things beyond drugs such as gang war, murder and assassination, kidnapping and ransom, human trafficing/sex slave, gang war, etc as an example.

if youre too immature or IQ is too low to comprehend

TL;DR even your little legal weed continues to feed and grow the habit of someone who will inevitably fund much worse, life harming crimes through its indirect repercussions.

TL;DR you paid too much attention in DARE class as a kid.

If my buddy is a nice American citizen growing weed that's taxed at the state level, decides to sell it to me, and then I decide to sell it to someone else, how the fuck is that contributing to human trafficking?

Some fucking canadians in hockey jerseys driving weed over the border isn't going to lead to someone overdosing.

Get real. You've been watching Reefer Madness too many times.

Open up Google for 5 seconds, you dummy.

time.com/3801889/us-legalization-marijuana-trade/

>U.S. Legalization of Marijuana Has Hit Mexican Cartels’ Cross-Border Trade

i love the "i ignore the important parts of what you say so i can act like you didnt explain that already" thing you do

mass legalization:
>I chain smoke
>I buy cigs every day in houston
>i fly to ny for vacation
>I buy cigs at corner store in NY
nofussnomuss.jpg

minor/localized legalization:
>I blaze on the daily
>i buy weed legally every day in CO
>I fly to tx for vacation
>i buy blunt off guy in club
justgavecartelmoney.mp3

feeding habits that result in different chain-of-effect, negative repercussions in the other 99% of the country will inevitably fund those negative repercussions at some point.

starting to wonder if you're a highschool dropout, desu. I cant dumb this down much more

having a lesser effect =/= having no effect

i never said legal weed isnt having any effect on cartels/higher crime, i said it still funds cartels/higher crime, which it does. these are different statements.

until mass legalization happens, all weed sales legal and illegal will inevitably still fund organized crime and in turn worse activities via cause and effect. this will continue to be true and the scales will slowly tip as more and more becomes legal until were finally at an all/mostly legal situation. at some point during that process weed sales will be of no use to crime sindicates and have little to no effect. Much like right now, the positive effects of legalized distribution has little to no positive effect currently.

really, you cant grasp this?

>I chain smoke
>I buy cigs every day in houston
>i fly to ny for vacation
>I buy cigs at corner store in NY

What does smoking cigarettes have to do with any of this...?

You're lost bro. lol

houston is a crossing grounds for sex trade due to the mexican boarder and the gulf. about a decade ago we had a HUGE sting operation that went on through multiple busts and uncovered GIANT organized sex trade and people trafficing. many of them were illegal immigrants promised a new life in america only to be forced into enslaved prostitution, or outright kidnapped and drugged/beat until submissive. many die due to their treatment and are tossed out not unlike chicken production farms.

these operations are being run by giant organizations that operate in many other formats, including drug trafficing.

i witnessed this, and it opened my eyes to the cause and effect of all illegal practices. some are much less damaging than others. Drug selling is not one of the lighter ones. for example, music piracy does not result in mass enslavement, kidnapping, and murder.

>all weed sales legal and illegal will inevitably still fund organized crime

Ok let's try this one...

I grow my own weed. I sell it. I'm American. I'm not part of a cartel. I don't murder anyone. Everyone gets good weed. Nobody dies. the end.

you...can't comprehend what an example is? you REALLY are unable to understand the context of that example being used to show what mass legalization does? please tell me youre not being serious and this is just your method of tyring to get an edge in the debate?

If not, I now see I'm dealing with someone in special ed.

>do prices matter when buying and selling for profit?
Your brain has rotted friend

okay, confirmed special ed now.

Weed is not cigarettes dude. Apples and oranges.

ur mom is special ed

the product had nothing to do with the point. The point was to explain what happens when something is mass legali vs bubble legal. i could have used buying a soda as an example.

jesus fuck. I -really- hope youre just trolling me and not actually this retarded

You're right and that's the general consensus among people that have been in the game.

You can still make money growing your own tabacco and selling it illegally. I personally know people who make a little bit off selling their apple pie moonshine.

Is it the type of profit margin that funds cartels? No. Not even close nor could it ever be. Because there are legal industry giants who corner the market and will probably continue. With the full cooperation and subsidization of the United States federal government.

With a drug like say methamphetamine it could be a decade before the cartels would find something else because they stopped being market effective. But it would happen. Cartel organization spent years of R&D countless dollars and lives to get honed in on their markets, all while (partially)opposing the United States.

It will take a while to undo them but legalization is the answer to cartels. We're obviously no good at guirella war or border security. So that's the only way to do it. It's a hard thing to swallow

i agree with everything you said

like you said, bob the mountain man selling his moonshine - yes its illegal, but its a form of illegal that is not in any way direct or indirect funding violent/detrimental crime (random/rare cases not in mind). the habbit fed by alcohol sells (drinking alcohol) does not do this because violent crime has little to no connection to the alcohol trade in america at this point.

but anyone selling or buying weed in the US currently does (be it legal or illegal), due to the close and direct connection crime organizations currently have with it, which in turn funds the other, much more violent/detrimental crime they take part in.

like i said before, even those legally selling/buying right now will inevitably provide resources to illegal operations that deal in other more violent crime via indirect means

and yes like you said, this will be the case until legalization is the rule and not the exception any more. i agree that its the right direction to go in, but that doesn't mean it's 100% not helping the problem as it builds. it's not the fault of the action, its due to the design of the current situation, but its still there.

I'm glad to have another intelligent person here, dealing with that other guy was really making me lose faith in the current generation.

>moving goalposts: the thread