Commercialization historically has never fared well for the Mom n Pop operations/small guys. Remember how Lowes n Home Depot put tens of thousands of small hardware stores out of business. And every last one of us to some degree played a part in the demise of the small boutique hardware stores. How you say? Well with everyone wanting the best deals for the cheapest prices corporate America with the help of many administrations up on the hill devised NAFTA and no duty imports for 3rd world countries. With that came the demise of goods and commodities being manufactured here in America and opened the flood gates to cheaper goods. Companies started going offshore and set up their manufacturing operations off US soil to keep down the cost of making the goods and commodities America needed. All the while We (myself included) were loving the low prices and deals we were getting from Big Box stores. Life was good!!! Shit was cheap, but only a few realized that WE were part and parcel to the demise of manufacturing here in the US......... Look what happened to the steel and automobile industries for starters. Some parts of Michigan are now nothing but shells/ virtual ghost towns left over from the boom and bust era of American made automobiles.
Then lets look to prohibition of alcohol. I would ask how did that work out for the small guys bootlegging in the Ozarks and Appalachia's? Along came the big boys and with the lobbyist with deep pockets up on the Hill went to war against the small guys with the ATF/ Revenuers. The war against alcohol at first was a war on the organized crime leaders during the prohibition years. Then after full legalization of alcohol the war returned with a vengeance only this time is was directed at the poor and disenfranchised mountain folk that a lot of times "Shine" was their only source of income. I would like to add that it was Prohibition that was the primary cause of the "Federal Personal Income Tax" coming in to being. Once all of the saloons and bars were shuttered at the start of prohibition the Feds had to come up with a way to recoup the losses from not getting the alcohol taxes they were enjoying during the alcohol boom years.
The only good I see coming out of legalization is the War on Cannabis is coming to an end and good people wont be locked up and have their lives ruined by a drug felony conviction. Along with the realization that weed truly does have medicinal qualities.
However that is a Utopian outlook at best, as this will only be true if The Man doesn't regulate to the point that once again the war will return to protect the interests of the Big Boys of Cannabis and see any one outside the corporate structure as a threat to their bottom line. Much like what happened to the bootleggers.
Someone earlier in this thread talked about 10 years till we see full legalization. I'm not sure how long it will take, I do know this it will take as long as it takes for all of the "Key" players meaning: political, corporations, Big Pharma etc etc to get all of the infrastructure in place and then once and only then will we see full on legalization. And if you believe, in my opinion, that this bodes well for any of us common folk, you then in my mind are delusional.
And I believe in my heart that this will be the case. The craving for cheap goods by and large is like a cancer in our country. Yes as with the elite today there will always be a demand for expensive goods and commodities (yachts, caviar, yada yada) that only 1-2 % of America can afford. At the end of the day, most Americans live month to month and will gladly pay for commercial goods as long as it is cheap. And those types of folks are the vast majority of who the cannabis consumer base will be. This will allow commercial Big Box growers to flood the market with inferior goods and still make obscene profits.
In my mind, if you think that Big Corp is going to play nice and look out for the boutique growers, I would say as Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank says " I will crush you like the cockroaches you are" I believe we would be delusional to think we are going to be allowed to play nice in the same sand box. History says NOT!!! If I have offended anyone that was not my intent. I am just expressing my take and opinion on this topic.
