So, this has been on my mind for a while.

I'm probably one of the very few avid smokers that is opposed to legalisation. However, i support decriminalisation. I don't believe that cannabis corporations should exist. Small stores that aren't a franchise or a chain is OK with me.

First of all, it's called "weed" for a reason. It can grow anywhere, and prolifically. So, i don't really understand why people would buy legal weed, if there are no repercussions to growing your own. "But Psilo, where am i gonna get those dank-ass strains?" Which is another thing that kinda bothers me. The insane number of different strains. I understand that they have different effects, i am very familiar with them. But at what point does it feel like the same thing? I either get baked, or high. Does it really matter if it's Bubba Kush, Pineapple Express or some other ridiculous strain name?

"I don't have the "time" or "energy" to grow my own". I don't believe that for a second. Looking after a plant isn't hard. The only excuse that is sorta acceptable is if you live somewhere inhabitable and terrible like an apartment in New York. Even then, just do yourself a favour, and move outta New York/big cities. It'll do wonders for your health.

Secondly, the ridiculous amounts of confectionery and unhealthy foods being laden with THC. I don't get it. It's already there to smoke, or you can easily make your own edibles. Why the need to make gummi bears with THC?

Thirdly, the "weed" branded clothing. It really bugs me. Same as alcohol branded clothing. Why? Just why?

The thing that really infuriated me was something i glimpsed on the television at work. They were discussing the morality of "weed" branded leggings. For children. Would any alcoholic make their child wear a Jack Daniels t-shirt? Or Jim Beam pajamas? Does it really matter if your clothes are emblazoned with pot leaf designs? Just smoke the damn thing.


This sacred and medicinal plant has been exploited by greedy people, all over the world, but particularly in the US. A lot of the "mom and pop" stores in the US are suffering, because they can't compete with Corporate Cannabis.


This rampant capitalistic consumerism offends me on multiple fronts. Perhaps i'm just a frustrated Vedic guy, angry at the people who want to profit from cultural misappropriation and exploitation of something that is both spiritual and medicinal.


I have a feeling i will be in the minority with expressing this sentiment. Legal weed, i just don't buy it (no pun intended).

Decriminalizatoon of use still generally (under most models seen around theworld) means those cultivating it will be persecuted.. you dont agree with that, do you? Unless you mean the rare case where they include growing for personal use. But even in that case, and not to get too much into buying/selling talk, a person selling weed , a non-violent crime, still doesnt deserve to be locked up like a dangerous animal imo.. what is your opinion on that?

As for growing weed, i cant see why your argument is any different than food. Are you also as opposed to people selling vegetables? Because if you can grow weed indoor you can also grow lettuce. And if you're talking outdoors, only a small percentage of people can do that due to climate space etc. Even indoors many people dont have space.

I am also not a fan of unhealthy food but i dont see how weed with sugary stuff is any worse than just sugary stuff. Adults will (and should) do whatever the heck they want if it doesnt hurt others

You say this plant has been exploited under the legalization model, but hasnt it been exploited even worse under criminalization model? I rather its available with sugary food in a store than being sold by armed dealers.

That being said, i also am all for people growing their own, obviously, but you lost me when suggesting the government should have any more control over people's decisions... If you disagree with people supporting a certain market, you can always grow your own and ignore them.. but if its criminalized (or 'decriminalized' , what is happening is you are losing autonomy over decisiona that concern nobody but yourself, and more power is being given to governments that often dont have people's best interest in mind

I guess my definition of decriminalised is different in my head to the reality of the definition. In my head, it essentially means legal. Or more like, no one cares. My main gripe with legalisation can be summed up by the thread title. The capitalistic consumerist mentality.

I am not opposed to people selling vegetables. I'll repeat what i said "Small stores that aren't a franchise or a chain is OK with me". It just doesn't feel right to have a McDonalds of weed. It's just a plant, there's no secret sauce, no assembly, no immaculate preparation (it's a stretch to say that McDonalds strives for immaculate preparation). So why the need for all these weed factories?

Just plain sugary stuff is just as bad, which ties into the capitalistic consumerist argument, not just the weed aspect. It's the fusion of the two things that irks me. Why is that necessary, or even appealing? I can just imagine the stream of thoughts as two stoners got the munchies and started eating gummi bears. "Duuuuude, like, gummi bears are like the best munchie food evaaaaar." "Toooootally dude." "What if gummi bears could also get you high?" "Duuuuuuuuude, that's like, a totally rad idea, dude."

It's like spray on cheese. Just why?


Just because it's possible, doesn't mean we need to pursue it. "Adults will (and should) do whatever the heck they want if it doesnt hurt others". Even if it hurts themselves? Like cigarettes, alcohol and excessively sugary/fatty foods? I'm not proposing a nanny state where everything is tightly controlled, but how can a nation be concerned about healthcare so much, and at the same time, have these products mass produced for mass consumption? It's seems a tad hypocritical (talking about booze, cigs and sugar here). Unless, of course, the whole purpose is to let natural selection run its course.

I'd rather the government not get involved at all. At any point, from the moment that seed germinates, to the moment the smoke enters ones lungs. A very, very unreasonable wishful thinking on my part. The only reason i can see why the US is slowly legalising it is because of tax revenue. Hardly any governments in history have ever truly cared about the welfare of it's citizens over the potential to make money.

These plants should not be associated with crime at all. The only reason why criminals sell it, is because of that "illegal" status. I guess my ideal world is where ganja is legal, but expanding your weed business beyond a certain limit is not. So you can't be a kingpin of legal weed, which is essentially the same as a druglord. That's why people vigourously pursue that weed money, isn't it? To live like a drug lord, and not have the worries of jail time hang over you. Defeats the purpose of the free market economy, but hey, that model isn't exactly great anyway.

Perhaps i'm too simple-minded here. I'm kinda equating my attitude towards ganja the same way i feel about DMT, and psychedelics in general. Don't buy it, grow it and learn for yourself the beauty of these plants. I dunno, it's just seems like a travesty to have people (individual people) earn millions upon millions of dollars, when you could easily grow it for free. Especially when a lot of that money comes from highly processed confectioneries. How about community gardens, where you take as much as you need? (Which won't work, since people as a whole are inherently arseholes) "So, should all fruit and vegetables also be free?". Ideally, yeah, but realistically, it can't happen. Just the cost of logistics alone, and the fact that fruit and veggies are bulky and supply us with nutrition. And the farmers have hectares upon hectares, and often all of that land is just monoculture. People don't smoke nearly as much as they eat.


I highly doubt i'll change any minds, and that's not my intention. Just wanted to discuss this, and see other people's thoughts and perspectives. I just don't like weed and money being mixed, that's all.

Because it allows for a quick production of a wide variety of cannabis at scale, satisfying the ever growing worldwide demand. In Germany, where cannabis has become legal for medical purposes, patients are desperatly waiting for their supply because Canada is hording all the weed for themselves atm.

Also, both patients and recreational consumers want to pay as little as possible and that is only possible by using more technology (automation).

There's no reason decriminalization couldn't be expanded to cover acts beyond possession. The definition that endlessness gives is the one generally applied to cannabis, but as far as a legal concept:



So we see there's no reason this couldn't apply to growing, selling, etc.

A few points to consider:

1) Under the current push to legalize, folks (generally poorer, blacker/browner folks) who are rotting in prison from prohibitionist policies are continuing to do so while generally richer, whiter "entrepreneurs" are now moving in to make bank on the formerly criminal product (even in states where it is legal for recreational use). The push for legalization has generally been cast as an economic issue (and to a lesser extent, a social issue, although even in the case of the social aspects, many of them are presented in economic terms) and we are seeing it play out (in the States) mainly within the economic arena. I would contend that the current trajectory of legalization is sidestepping or ignoring a number of pressing social issues in the arena. This is understandable, even justifiable to many people, because there's money to be made!

2) Corporate control, monopolization, or even out-of-state competition all threaten the prospects of local control/autonomy of growers/collectives/providers/etc. Again, apologies for focusing on the US, it's just what I know. In the US, we have uneven legal terrain; some states are legal medical/recreational, some states are entirely criminalized. When a currently criminalized (or decrim, or "less-than-legal") state looks to legalize, groups/individuals who already have a leg up in legal states swoop in and, in some cases (such as DC) actually muscle out would-be local owners, owing to their current advantages as far as know-how, attorneys, licenses, etc. I think it's pretty simple to argue for non-corporate, local-centric, worker control of industries/work in general, so I won't make the full argument here other than to say it should be so.

3) In a capitalist framework, whether being produced legally, or illegally, there is an extremely high likelihood that exploitation is going to accompany any product. That's the nature of the beast. Again, worker co-ops or federated collectives would be one way to combat this, and honestly, seem to be somewhat viable within the frameworks being proposed by many places that are engaged in legalization (for medical or recreational). As with most of these efforts (within a capitalist context) a major question is whether they will face absurd competition from corporations (seems likely) selling, perhaps, an inferior product to less-informed consumers, but able to use economies of scale, massive amounts of capital, and industrial agricultural techniques to try to muscle out the competition. Throw in questionable legal practices and frivolous lawsuits (to say nothing of taxpayer subsidies) and there does seem to be quite a bit to consider in this realm, imo.

There's no reason every aspect of cannabis couldn't be completely decriminalized and treated like a vegetable or any "herbal supplement" or most other plants, imo. I think it would prevent a lot of the corporate or governmental control of the issue.

I think about commodification a lot and how so many experiences and products in the US become commodified after being introduced. A good example is yoga; what started as a fringe, hippy thing has now become the norm for soccer moms everywhere.

I have also noticed this process at work in the psychedelic community through the creation of the psychedelic subculture. There are many themes now commonly associated with tripping, and I hear about them to the point of disliking them myself. These themes are the stuff that so commonly appears at places like https://www.reddit.com/r/LSD/ Funky colors, crazy visuals, cool blotters, heroic doses, etc.

The process, like you noted, has been at work with weed for a while. I meet many "stereotypical" stoner types (who wear the weed apparel you are talking about) who engage in "weed culture" because they think it is cool, for example. However, even with all of these factors of commodification at play, I still find that it is impossible to commodify the subjective experience one has while high, especially while meditating high and not engaging in any cross-cultural interactions.

By this, I mean that no matter how much weed is commodified, I still find that when I meditate high late at night in a quiet dark room, I have an experience that is outside of the grasp of commodification or weed culture. I fly through realms that advertisements could not emulate.

Naturally, molecules are commodities. Every LSD or psilocybin or DMT molecule is the same as any other, making them into standardized commodities. Cultures naturally build up around these substances. Regardless of these facts, I believe the subjective mental experiences that we have while on drugs are the truly important part. With this, any sort of legalization is good as we can spread the molecules to more people who can have these subjective experiences.

Also, I like to think that using these substances naturally makes you question yourself and society, which is kind of a build in feature of psychedelic drugs absent in other commodities. If this is the case, even if they are commodified, we want as many people as possible to use them and wake up to the subjective nature of our culture and society, so we can hopefully make the world a better place.

Cultural misappropriation? Of a plant?

And while its use may sometimes be "spiritual" and medicinal, most people consume cannabis to become intoxicated, to escape, same reasons they drink alcohol.

I'm for complete legalization, and growing your own. Decriminalization is not enough, we must legalize.

Actually, it's several orders of magnitude greater than that! I believe (if I'm not mistaken) that at least some of the scholarship on the earliest "formalized" (systematic?) texts on yoga indicates that they were written by ascetics. It seems to me that you could not ask for a more antithetical trajectory than from asceticism to lulu lemonism...from abstention to consumption.

And that's not a trivial manner, imo. How many of those soccer moms are actually working on personal/psycho-spiritual self-improvement? How many are there for the social element or some form of one-upmanship? I think commodification carries with it an inherent loss of substance/meaning.



The experience may be inherently un-commodifiable, but the compounds, rituals, and even applications are definitely at risk of losing something in the commodification process. I've fleshed these points out elsewhere, so I'll just present a sketch here and can elaborate/link if needed.

-Look at the problems that crop up with the explosion of retreat centers for ayahausca and other drugs.
-Consider the charlatans running around trying to sell "psychedelic self help" or "healing" sessions
-Look at the manner in which tech execs, entrepreneurs, and tech press is rebranding LSD, not as a boundary dissolving agent, but as a tool for maximizing profits through greater worker productivity in environments of creative problem solving
-MAPS is working hand in hand with the government to provide the military apparatus with therapeutic compounds (MDMA) to treat troops who carry out imperial campaigns. Consider the implications just for drone warfare
-Then there are nonsensical statements by execs about how drugs will save the planet (while they continue to pillage it).
-The limited scope of transformational festival "attitudes" and "culture" that increasingly seem to trend towards escapism/consumption
-And most generally, there's the messaging of consumerism/the PR industry: you are incomplete, you need things to fill your inherent void, the manufacturing of desires, etc.

Psychedelics can catalyze and facilitate tremendously boundary-dissolving and paradigm-shattering experiences. However, if they can be recontextualized purely as agents of bliss, distraction, medicine, etc. in the explicit service of dominant culture, a serious amount of their greater social power could be lost, imo. Not because it ceases to be there, but because the individual is essentially in a position where they have been culturally-conditioned to see the psychedelic commodity as whatever consumer culture says it is.

In the current landscape, there are a plethora of narratives, many of them holdovers from the first psychedelic revolution, and the psychedelic landscape, taboo as it is, is, in many ways, wide open for personal narratives and interpretation. In a commodified context, psychedelically-naive individuals will likely have to fight against/deprogram culturally-proscribed uses and narratives in the process of (or prior to) having the types of transcendental/unbounded experiences of which you refer. At the moment, it seems like "the psychedelic experience" is up for grabs...and in a pretty major way.

you should all visit ontario, canada. move permanently over here even.

here cannabis is going to be a government monopoly soon, 80 stores in 1 year, 200 stores in 2 years. apperently lots of money in it and people in power want it all. as the government of ontario is extremely well skilled, always has been, at criminally squandering billions of $, plus, you know, all that corruption also costs a pretty penny.

boom shakalaka.

as for the yoga thingie, don't even get me started. i began my yoga journey, somewhere in early 80s and i am sorta traditionalist in that regard, sanskrit, ascetism and all that that fascinated arthur avalon... what people refer to as "yoga" these days is just mothing more than "yoga pants", if you catch my meaning... 2 weeks ago i went to a "yoga expo"... wft... i could have bought a beanie that bestows its wearer "siddhis", i kid you not, and of course countless pairs of "organic" (!) yoga pants... mind friggin boggling.

THIS

snozz, you da man. respect.

I'm agreeing with most, if not all, of Snizz's points.

About the yoga, people should speak truthfully, and not claim that they are practicing yoga. They are practicing pilates. Pilates is yoga, without any spirituality. "Pseudo-spiritual" yoga is also just pilates, just with a pinch of delusion. It's just stretching.

How many of those soccer mums, or those yoga pant-ers know the difference between Hatha yoga, Raja yoga and Bhakti yoga? I would suspect very, very few.



EDIT: Just saw this, which is quite irksome.

Personally, i find the whole discussion about intellectual property rights tiresome.
If someone whose culture i don't share suddenly starts smoking DMT so be it. Good for themn! If yoga is just "pilates with a pinch of delusion" to them, then that's what they have chosen or are capable of experiencing.

Why judge them for how they are as people?
Why does it take away from your own spirituality which you deem to be more "true" for whatever reason? What does their way of life have to do with yours?

It's not a need, it's a business opportunity.

I think making money off people's stupidity does more good than complaining about it.

(And I don't mean to imply eating gummi bears is stupid... that's not for me to judge)


Or maybe just live and let live.

Not judging them as people. Judging the choices and perceptions they have formed, not saying it's good or bad. It just seems inauthentic. They're not hurting anyone, but the inauthenticity contributes to the lack of communication. I'm a metal head, so the most common word used in the metal scene to describe someone like that is "poser".

My own spirituality is my own. I don't force it on others, and i don't get influenced by others. I'm just an observer. We will all be dead in less than a 100 years, so nothing really matters anyway.



War is also a business opportunity. Is that good? I will repeat, just because we can, doesn't mean we should.

Making money off stupidity serves two purposes. It continues to indulge said stupidity (perpetuating this never ending cycle), and creates a pathological desire to exploit others for capital gain. Same thing is occurring in "mainstream" music, TV shows, movies, all the useless "smart"phone apps, literature and basically any human creation. That's the problem with the purely capitalistic framework. It utilises the "get rich quick" mentality, and may have disastrous effects on the future.

So should we live in a totalitarian regime, dictated by communist overlords who watch and control everything humanity produces? No. But it would be nice if people took a step back from their money making schemes, ruminated on their actions and goals, and then came up with something fruitful. Does the world really need a new COD game every year? Does the world really need that new "smart"phone every year? Does the world really need that novel fad technology that isn't anything new (ahem curved TV's and monitors)? Getting slightly off topic, since weed just grows. Humans don't create weed. Humans create greed.

I know exactly what you are talking about..and then there are the discussions about certain genres.....especially judging what is "true" black metal seems to be a favourrite past time of the metal head.

I prefer to stay away from these identity politics and do not find anything problematic with people listening to metal and ...idk...beyonce at the same time. Some would say they are poser, some would say they're even more authentic..why care. Where is the harm?

Identity is the strongest ego construct there is, and it constricts by definition.

I'm not a fan of identity politics either, and I believe my post sketched out a variety of points that have pretty much nothing to do with identity politics and a lot more to do with the actual societal impacts of commodification (via social institutions like the military, silicon valley, PR firms, drug tourism, etc.).

Here's one example that I'll expound on briefly.

Consider Aubrey Marcus, trust fund kid, turned "boutique marketing firm" founder, turned questionable supplement peddler and psychedelic enthusiast. A couple years back, Marcus did some drugs and came to the conclusion that "huachuma is the medicine that might be able to bring the whole planet together.”

Ok...sure, fine, whatever. But let's examine the contradictions here. Someone who (thanks to significant family connections/capital) went from pushing "brand development and ecommerce" schemes (see: Thorstein Veblen on conspicuous consumption) to pushing dubious health supplements and other bizarre consumer products now turns around and says that "huachuma is the medicine that might be able to bring the whole planet together.”

And we might agree with his sentiment...yet his businesses have relied on actively exploiting his workers (and/or would-be consumers...formerly known as people) and contributing to environmental destruction. If he were really serious about "bringing the whole planet together," I would posit that he wouldn't be waiting on huachuma to do it for him, but maybe change up his day to day actions and role within society.

This sort of new agey "psychedelic rapture" take on psychedelics is, imo, incredibly damaging and has the potential to recuperate at least some of the revelations psychedelic experiences can offer. Consider if psychedelics are no longer seen as catalysts, with the real work resting firmly on your shoulders when you go back to chopping wood/carrying water, and instead, become the "end" in and of themselves. That is, if we just do enough psychedelics, that will somehow magically heal the planet/bring us all together (because then we'll all be awoken beings, or we'll unlock our latent superpowers as Pinchbeck suggested, or the Gaian spirits will save us, or some other such nonsense) no action needed on our part, just take the drugs and wait for salvation.

Personally, that doesn't strike me as an issue of identity politics, but as one of structural analysis.

I understand there are certain phenomena in Western culture you don't like (and I guess that can be said of anybody).

The thing with capitalism, however, is that demand creates supply and not the other way around.

If Google doesn't release the next phone everybody wants because "maybe the world doesn't need it", Apple or someone else will.

And how can we know what the world needs? We each have different opinions.
We can fight over who knows better what the world needs, or we can just let people decide what they want for themselves (as long as it doesn't harm anybody).


You can't fault the businesses that profit from war, they're just doing their job within the framework of demand artificially and wrongfully created by the state.

You may think a business is unethical for manufacturing weapons that kill innocent people, but it's the state waging the war and buying those weapons.


People don't become stupid because the market created a product for stupid people. They don't go like "Hey, here is this silly, completely useless product that no one wants, so let's buy it so the manufacturer is not disappointed."

Making money off stupidity reduces the amount of stupidity by taking power (money) away from it.

If you honestly believe this, I feel sorry for you. Even IF the state apparatus wasn't in the hands of corporations through processes such as the monetization of speech, regulatory capture, and manufacture of consent, there would still be a pretty simple argument against your assertion...namely that they are responsible for the foreseeable effects of their actions. And given that the state apparatus IS in the hands of corporations, your point appears to be even more detached from reality.



It appears you are unfamiliar with the genesis of the PR industry. Here's a relevant quote:



You also seem confused as to what "markets" are. Basic economic theory states that a market is based on informed consumers making rational choices. But if you examine the most rudimentary commercials, you see that they're not intended to create informed consumers, quite the opposite. And this is, of course, aside from questions of externalities and systemic risk that the dominant actors in market relations generally ignore (especially when they know they're getting bailed out by the state in the event of economic calamity).



Again, this represents a fundamental lack of understanding of how consumer society has been engineered. It also evidences a pretty significant lack of understanding of the ecological costs of these consumer-focused endeavors. That is to say, these products are harming numerous people and threatening the existential security of humanity as a whole (See: climate change).

You seem to be arguing that "the market" will sort things out. But that's just not how state capitalism functions. Many components of these systems literally require enforcement via the barrels of many guns (and threats of incarceration or other coercive force). All in all, I find your assertions to be pretty severely divorced from historical context and the evidence at hand.

Consumerism attitudes towards cannabis exist, whether it's legal or not.
And more importantly, cannabis is and will be a big busines, whether it's legal or not.

Drug cartels are probably the biggest corporations on the planet atm. The war on drugs is a busines model as well, generating a lot of revenues.
The current legal status of cannabis only has a catalysing effect on the dark, capitalist dimension of the whole drug trade.

The drug cartels are extremely powerfull. Just as the british empire used opium profits to finance the tea trade, the cartels use drugs to finance other businesses as well.
Human trafficking, prostitution (the worst kind of slavery), arms trade, child pornography, extortion, endangered animal and plant trade....the list goes on and on.
And to the cartels, there is no difference between cannabis or heroïn and cocaïne.

Legalisation is not going to end this, but i don't see how it could make things worse.

To users and growers though, it makes all the difference in the world.

I live in the Netherlands, where cannabis has a semi-legal status.
Because of this, the Netherlands has become an international hub in the drug trade. It cannot be denied that the country has become a magnet to international criminals.
There are big 'chains' of coffeeshops. The mcdonalds of cannabis, you could say.
but there are also coffeeshops here, that aren't. coffeeshops that grow their own weed, or buy their weed from growers they personally know.
I consider it a major advantage that, if you want to buy weed, you do not automatically will have a lot of blood on your hands because of it.

Not even close

Even if you accept the DoJ's (likely inflated) estimate that "Colombian and Mexican cartels take in $18 billion to $39 billion from drug sales in the United States" and keep in mind that that's combined gross (not net) revenue from a multitude of cartels, the combined cartels wouldn't even be within the top 250 corporations (ranked by revenue) if we use the $39b figure. And if we look at other figures suggested (such as a total street value of $6.6 billion, according to a RAND corp study) we see that even as a unified bloc, the cartels aren't even close to being in the top 500 corps. As individual entities, they're even smaller. And if we compare atrocities committed by corporations and states to cartels, I think we're likely to find similar orders of magnitude