Interestingly enough, the price of good quality, illicit weed in a currently non-recreational state like WV (ie- no taxes) seems to be very good from what I remember as a yute in my teens. I spoke with a co-worker a few weeks back when I could smell the reek of what I suspected to be very good quality weed. He let me check out his stash which was the kind of holy grail skunk weed back in the day. I was told an ounce of that quality is about $150-160 any time he wanted it and that everyone had high quality stuff. None of what was available was “shitty weed”.

Googling the cost of dispensary weed showed generally higher prices for obviously taxable reasons. The black market is alive and well regardless of location and there is no shortage whatsoever. Once again, what was discussed and predicted at SF is spot on. Legal weed isn’t driving the criminal element out, it’s allowing it to thrive.

A friend who uses medical weed says the lure of saving a few tax dollars with illegal suppliers was ended when the local cops came along with evidence of fentanyl appearing in illicit sourced weed.

Fentanyl is going to appear in our food supply soon enough.

The black market for weed will continue to thrive. Quality product, sometimes better than what’s available at a dispensary, for far less. It’s finding the sweet spot in taxation. Enough to make the state some money, but not so much that people will source it illegally.

As far as the cartels… if you think they’re bad in Colorado, Missouri, etc., take a trip down here to sunny AZ. Looking at the arrests that happen when they run drug interdiction campaigns on I-17. It’s all people from Mexico from cities in Mexico. 90% of the time they have a suitcase full of fentanyl. There’s not a single illicit substance here in AZ that the cartels don’t have their hands in.

The situation is pretty bad in Oklahoma.

Weed Wars: Oklahoma law enforcement fights uphill battle against illegal marijuana | KOKH (okcfox.com)

OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — Oklahoma's medical marijuana industry has boomed since State Question 788 passed four years ago. But that booming business has also caught the eye of some nefarious criminal organizations across the globe.

"It is like trying to hold the ocean back with a broom," says Mark Woodward, spokesperson for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.
OBN has been at the forefront of this weed war since it started, when the agency first started noticing illegal grows cropping up in the Fall of 2020. At that time, major grow areas like California, Nevada and New Mexico were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But Oklahoma was open."It was really an ideal location for people who were trapped during the pandemic and unable to move their products to the black market," says Woodward.

It wasn't just Covid drawing the criminal side of the business to Oklahoma. Woodward points to cheap land in the state, inexpensive licenses, and some of the loosest restrictions regarding marijuana in the country. Those things combined caught the attention of some of the most notorious criminal groups around the world."We've had some that are tied to Mexican drug cartels. We've tied many of them to Chinese money laundering organizations," said Woodward. "But we've even got criminal organizations from the Eastern bloc of Europe, tied to Russia, Slovakia."These groups have all found ways to skirt current state laws, making themselves look legitimate with "straw" or "ghost" owners. That, plus a glut of thousands of marijuana grows across the state, makes it much harder for OBN to track these illegal operations down.In all, Woodward says the agency has shut down around 200 illegal grows over the last two years, with another 2,000 under investigation. Agents have seized 200,000 plants and around 30,000 pounds of processed marijuana in that time according to Woodward.It's all worth billions. But it's just a fraction of what these criminal groups can bring in."When they're growing for $100 a pound and they can sell it for $4,000 a pound in Flushing, NY or Brooklyn, NY, so that's $3,900 a pound profit and sometimes they're moving two to three thousand pounds at a time to the East Coast," said Woodward.

OBN says these busts are also coming with much more than just weed seizures. Woodward tells us, with these types of groups in play, all sorts of crimes are on the table."We're finding prostitution. We're finding human trafficking, sex trafficking, and gambling operations," says Woodward. "And a lot of violence."That violence was on full display in November, when OSBI reported four people were "executed" at a grow facility outside Hennessey in Kingfisher County. Woodward says, while this scene garnered headlines, it isn't the first killing related to the black market business. But he's also not sure they'll ever have an exact count."There have been other homicides that we're aware of, but we're not sure how many we will never know about potentially," said Woodward. "There's a lot of workers on farms that are undocumented. Nobody would know if they were missing."

These cases have also stretched OBN thin. Woodward says every agent investigating illegal weed farms is one that's being pulled off of looking into fentanyl, meth, and other hard drugs.There could be some help on the way, though.Woodward says lawmakers have committed to providing more funding for the agency to bring in more agents. But until then, he says the agency just has to keep pushing."We want these people to know that we're going to aggressively go after them. And hopefully, they won't look at Oklahoma as a safe place to move their operations," says Woodward.

https://okcfox.com/news/local/...her-county-cannabis#

quote:

Originally posted by john1:
"That violence was on full display in November, when OSBI reported four people were "executed" at a grow facility outside Hennessey in Kingfisher County. Woodward says, while this scene garnered headlines, it isn't the first killing related to the black market business.

I'm glad you brought that up. This case from just three weeks ago is a perfect example of the multiple layers of problems with even so-called "legal" marijuana farms.

This medicinal marijuana farm less than an hour outside Oklahoma City was a "legal" state-licensed marijuana grow operation, but one that was actually tied to a Chinese organized crime group. They had paid off a local Oklahoman to get them to obtain the state marijuana grow license, because in order to get a license one of the requirements is that 75% of the business must be owned by a US citizen and Oklahoma resident, but this on-paper "owner" had no direct dealings with the grow operations or the foreign criminals who actually ran the grow and received the profits, and merely collected $2,000 per month to agree to be on the paperwork and not ask questions.

On 11/20/22, one of the Chinese citizen criminals involved in financing the grow operation decided they weren't getting enough of a cut of the profits, and showed up at the farm, taking a half dozen of the Chinese citizen workers hostages and saying he was going to shoot them if the other criminals who owned the farm didn't pay him $300,000 within 30 minutes. When he didn't get his demanded money in time, he then followed through with his threat by executing 4 of the hostages, wounding a 5th, and trying to shoot a 6th. He then fled to Miami where he was caught and arrested two days later. Further investigation revealed that this same criminal group is involved with a grand total of 63 "legal" medicinal marijuana farms in Oklahoma.

Best of all, Oklahoma has so far only legalized medicinal marijuana, and yet is dealing with massive issues like this. And now there's a vote on the ballot for March to further legalize recreational marijuana in Oklahoma. So this kind of stuff is only scratching the surface of the potential issues Oklahoma will experience if they continue further down the legalization rabbit hole.

I am not buying the argument that everyone can just go and buy the illegal weed.

My credit union is in a suburb of Denver, Littleton. It's a upper middle class area. There's a dispensary right across the street from it. I sat in the credit union parking lot for about 20 minutes one afternoon and watched "who" was going into the dispensary. It was all upper middle class soccer moms driving BMW's and Benz's. They did a very, very brisk business. I highly doubt anyone who was going in there knows how to get weed from an illegal dealer.

Soccer moms are not going to downtown Denver to buy weed from some street thug.

So you believe that soccer moms didn’t get weed before legal weed?

Are you trying to be serious? That only “downtown street thugs” are the only ones that sell drugs?

quote:

1967Goat

If you need something....I gotta guy.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
So you believe that soccer moms didn’t get weed before legal weed?

Are you trying to be serious? That only “downtown street thugs” are the only ones that sell drugs?

This. These fine folks didn’t just take up smoking weed because dispensaries opened up. And there are plenty of middle and upper class dealers.

quote:

It was all upper middle class soccer moms driving BMW's and Benz's. They did a very, very brisk business. I highly doubt anyone who was going in there knows how to get weed from an illegal dealer.

For those who can afford it the legal stuff is both more convenient and, well... legal. So less risk.
For others, saving a buck is worth the risk.

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
I am not buying the argument that everyone can just go and buy the illegal weed.

My credit union is in a suburb of Denver, Littleton. It's a upper middle class area. There's a dispensary right across the street from it. I sat in the credit union parking lot for about 20 minutes one afternoon and watched "who" was going into the dispensary. It was all upper middle class soccer moms driving BMW's and Benz's. They did a very, very brisk business. I highly doubt anyone who was going in there knows how to get weed from an illegal dealer.

Soccer moms are not going to downtown Denver to buy weed from some street thug.

I'll bet good money that those Benz & Beemer driving soccer moms are also buying from a neighbor who's driving a Benz or a Beemer too.

quote:

Originally posted by CPD SIG:

quote:

Originally posted by 1967Goat:
I am not buying the argument that everyone can just go and buy the illegal weed.

My credit union is in a suburb of Denver, Littleton. It's a upper middle class area. There's a dispensary right across the street from it. I sat in the credit union parking lot for about 20 minutes one afternoon and watched "who" was going into the dispensary. It was all upper middle class soccer moms driving BMW's and Benz's. They did a very, very brisk business. I highly doubt anyone who was going in there knows how to get weed from an illegal dealer.

Soccer moms are not going to downtown Denver to buy weed from some street thug.

I'll bet good money that those Benz & Beemer driving soccer moms are also buying from a neighbor who's driving a Benz or a Beemer too.

A white collar friend of mine gets his from a bank Vice-President. There are plenty of white collar dealers IMO.

Open season/ no bag limit on cartel members, men,women & children. Leave ‘em we’re they drop.

quote:

Originally posted by recoatlift:
Open season/ no bag limit on cartel members, men,women & children. Leave ‘em we’re they drop.

Don't be an asshole. You want innocent people dead, do it yourself, tough guy.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
A friend who uses medical weed says the lure of saving a few tax dollars with illegal suppliers was ended when the local cops came along with evidence of fentanyl appearing in illicit sourced weed.

Fentanyl is going to appear in our food supply soon enough.

I'd believe the local cops saying that as much as I believe in the tooth fairy.

It's a good way to get people to buy the legal (taxed) stuff though.

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
I'd believe the local cops saying that as much as I believe in the tooth fairy.

It's a good way to get people to buy the legal (taxed) stuff though.

In my years smoking, I never got ahold of, or heard of anyone who got ahold of laced weed. I'm not saying it's never happened, but I will say I think it's essentially urban myth status. I have gotten so high I couldn't do anything but lay down with my eyes closed and hope for it to end. I've seen others do the same, however, it's usually been in a situation where others were partaking from the same supply and nobody else got that fucked up, so I know it to be the case that you can get unreasonably, ridiculously twacked out of your mind off nothing but the real deal. I could see people thinking they got ahold of "laced weed" if they got that messed up smoking it alone and didn't know better. I mean, that cop and his wife who called 911 a few years back because they were so high they thought they were dying from some edibles comes to mind.

After a little searching, it looks like there's basically no lab verified reports of fentanyl showing up on weed anywhere. I dunno how much I trust Webmd, but this makes sense to me:

quote:

Fentanyl has indeed been confirmed to be present in certain street drugs, including crack cocaine. But have laboratory analyses confirmed the drug’s presence in marijuana?

According to the Ontario Harm Reduction Network (OHRN), there have been no laboratory-confirmed cases of fentanyl laced cannabis. The rumor that drug dealers lace weed with fentanyl to cause clients to develop drug addiction is not substantiated, or financially sound. According to OHRN, fentanyl has a high-profit margin, whereas marijuana has a low-profit margin. In other words, lacing marijuana with fentanyl wouldn't make financial sense.

Additionally, fentanyl's high potential for fatal overdose makes it a bad option for producing dependence. “The idea they would enhance dependency does not hold water because of the lethality of [fentanyl]. That’s truly a myth,” Weinstein says.

https://www.webmd.com/connect-...nyl-laced-weed-myths


Really, I don't see it happening for one good reason: With all the competition in the weed game these days, why would you risk killing off a customer? It's not like anyone's knocking down dealer's doors to get an oz - if you don't answer the phone, they can just go down the street to the store or a dispensary. No, when I was getting "medical" weed from a dispensary, I also told myself there was zero risk of it being screwed with, but honestly? How would anyone know? It goes from grower to dispensary to "patient" and that's that. Same controls and measure of trust in place as buying it from a friend who knows a guy, save that they test it for THC and CBD content and have the fancy foil bag packaging.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:
The black market for weed will continue to thrive. Quality product, sometimes better than what’s available at a dispensary, for far less. It’s finding the sweet spot in taxation. Enough to make the state some money, but not so much that people will source it illegally.

I will say this: While I don't fundamentally disagree with your point, I will say the one thing the state run stores have over the street supply is consistent availability. Before, it was feast or famine, and the famines could be long. Now? You don't have to buy a Q(uarter)P(ound) and try to make it last until you get more, you can buy a few grams and then bop on down to the place on the corner when you run out. To me, that's really all the state sanctioned stores bring to the table - you know they're never going to be dry. I've gotten everything from mind-blowing stuff all the way down to what we called "mids" and "dregs" in Florida. Just absolute shit weed. I remember looking at the guy behind the counter and saying "dude, are you kidding me?" He replied "that's why it's $8 a gram." I never did see what I'd call total shit weed in a dispensary. In Washington at least, their quality level started at about the 75th percentile of where the retail places get, and going up maybe another 25-50% better in terms of quality for the same prices or better before the tax scheme took hold. If they could get the quality and consistency to where the medical dispensaries were for same prices or better and allow people to grow their own, I could see the black market if not vaporizing, at least shrinking to a degree where the problems that have arisen are greatly reduced. As it stands, going to a retail location where there's a line out the door, getting your ID scanned, being on cameras, and paying street prices or better for moderate quality weed (the best top shelf stuff was $30-40 a gram), and waiting for the place to get robbed... it doesn't feel welcoming.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:
Shit is terrible.
Rural Colorado is awash in cartel activity. Southern areas are about as wild west as Juarez. I have family that lives near a lot of it and it's sketchy A.F. when I'm down visiting them. Open carry and slung rifles are the norm.

Yeah, I attended an investigators' conference in Colorado a year or two after their initial legalization, and the horror stories from the Colorado LEOs about the resulting massive uptick in organized crime (and all its ripple effects) was eye-opening. Some of them even admitted that they had bought into the hope that marijuana legalization just might make law enforcement easier, not harder, which turned out to be a pipe dream.

Colorado was the first, and got to be the guinea pigs, so it's a more forgivable. They get to use the "we didn't know" excuse. But when the same pattern gets repeated in each new state, yet supporters willfully ignore the evidence and continue to claim stuff like "legalization will lower crime" or "legalization will curb illegal grows and smuggling", it's inexcusable.

I lived in La Junta Colorado (SE CO) from 2007-13. The shit was getting too real for us so we packed up and left. Open gunfights along Highway 50 and surrounding areas between cartels was crazy. Friends were at a restaurant in Rocky Ford, CO that was a backdrop for a drive-by which was promptly covered up with no coverage by the media. It's insane to think that this shit is happening in our country. It would be one thing if it was a one off occurrence, but it happens daily and nobody in the government seems to care.

Looking up a local store near me, a gram of flower is $6 or $25 for an 1/8 oz. W/ 16% tax, this is like $7 or $29 out the door.

Talking w/ a young lady I worked w/, I couldn't understand why her boyfriend bought from the bm rather than someplace w/ lots of choices and assurance of what they were purchasing.

But I'm assuming $7 would last a good weekend. That doesn't seem that much (to me)unless you're a chronic smoker. Are most tokers smoking a gram/day normal? Sounds like = to a pack of cigs cost wise.

quote:

Originally posted by dsiets:
But I'm assuming $7 would last a good weekend. That doesn't seem that much (to me)unless you're a chronic smoker. Are most tokers smoking a gram/day normal? Sounds like = to a pack of cigs cost wise.

I have no idea what is normal for stoners as every last one I've ever gotten to know wanted to be high all day every day.

My next door neighbor starts around 6AM, continues on until at least 9PM. Sometimes one joint an hour, sometimes two. I know how many because when she smokes, you smell it for around 10 minutes even with a slight breeze blowing continuously. That's about how long it took me to smoke a cigarette so I figure that's about how long it takes to smoke a joint.

It's pretty much already this way in Mexico. The cartels openly hunt each other, and anyone else who gets in the way. It doesn't stop anyone from doing business.

In the Philippians, Rodrigo Duterte declared open season on drug dealers and users. A lot of people got killed. Again, it wasn't even a speed bump for the drug business.

If there's enough money to be made, people will take the risk.

quote:

Originally posted by recoatlift:
Open season/ no bag limit on cartel members, men,women & children. Leave ‘em we’re they drop.