[cmyr]

> - The black market is always cheaper.

anecdata: I'm in canada, which has legalized marijuana recently. The black market is cheaper, but all but the most die-hard stoners I know like to buy government weed, because the product is consistent and you know what you're getting.

> - Even in a legal market how many people are always buying their own?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but in a legal market even if I don't buy something directly at least I have vastly increased faith that i know what something is.

> - If everything is legal then it's even easier for people to spike drinks and the like.

Who knows, but I strongly doubt that there is a large pool of potential rapists at large who are currently stymied primarily due to the difficulty in acquiring GHB.

> - Purdue Pharma marketing issue writ large. > - Patients pressuring their doctors to prescribe, or alternatively feeling pressured by their doctors to use a particular drug.

There are definitely a bunch of social and policy questions that would need to be addressed when considering legalization, sure.

> - If it's legal it's easier to purposefully or accidentally overdose (e.g. alcohol today). Especially if it's also cheaper.

Almost certainly not, as the majority of overdoses are the consequence of people not knowing what they're taking, or not knowing how to take it.

[Spivak]

Hell even in states where it's illegal people prefer to drive to a state where it is legal or get it shipped compared to "street weed." This isn't to say that the market has dried up or anything but it's clearly an inferior good in the economic sense. As soon as as an alternative of comparable price entered the market people immediately switched.

[notch656c]

Die-hards make up the most volume for recreational substances. Alcoholics by far consume the majority of alcohol sales, for instance.