Quote Originally Posted by Presley Cannady View Post
Setting aside the moral question, criminalizing usage does have the effect of driving prices up--evidence of declining demand in absence of declining supply. The baseline fluctuating between 50 and 300 percent, if I remember, but it does clearly set the price higher here than it does in say Amsterdam.



Buying up the crop wouldn't necessarily drive down prices, in fact it shouldn't unless the government--as either a result of playing the futures game poorly or as a matter of deliberate policy--consistently undercuts its own position on the eventual harvest price or imposes a price that promotes illegal crop selling. The model here is farm subsidies.

I agree with point one. Criminalizing something usually starts a high price black market.

As for point two, the main idea was to remove the crop from the market entirely. If we (the US) decided to do something with the product beside destroy it then the economics of drug companies would or would not come into play.

You seem well versed in this area...what are your suggestions on how to handle it?