The other night we compared the end of Prohibition to the move in some states to legalize pot. When Prohibition ended in 1933, the states came up with their own individual ways of regulating alcohol sales. Some states to this day are "control states," which means that you buy your booze from the state instead of, say, a licensed private liquor store.
That's why, as Rachel pointed out, in some states, you end up buying beer in a place that looks like a prison. And that's why the state of Utah (a control state) will helpfully order Mezcal for you and serve as your personal sommelier!
In our story, though, we made a mistake. We included Washington on the list of control states. Turns out, as of this past June, after more than 70 years, Washington is no longer a control state. Voters in the state approved Initiative 1183 in 2011, which privatized alcohol sales in the state.
As it turns out, the control state model is in flux in other states, too. In Pennsylvania, state lawmakers have tried (and so far failed) to introduce legislation that would privatize alcohol sales. In Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell was defeated last year in his attempt to privatize that state's ABC stores. In New Hampshire, too, they've had lots of back and forth about attempts to privatize alcohol sales -- at least partially.
So nearly eight decades after the end of Prohibition, some states are still trying to figure out exactly what role they should have in the sale and distribution of booze -- which makes the control state model being applied to pot all the more interesting.
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I once lived in a "control state" and while I do remember that the alcohol was a bit "cheaper", I also remember it was he!! to try and get alcohol on Sunday - see the "control state stores" were closed. So I learned quickly to keep a "hidden" reserve for Sunday....How that will apply to marijuana, it's anyone's guess - but I say stock up on Saturday......
I visited a "dry county" recently in North Carolina. My friends got ticked off when we went to buy some beer and discovered our misfortune. After they left I hung around and later showed up at camp with two gallons of some pretty good 'shine. They were about to drive all the way to the next county to try their luck!
Did I say gallons? I mean quarts. (Would not want you all to get the wrong impression)
Next we will have them carrying signs for Mary Jane.
@Zora.....grow it during the week. No healing on the Sabbath!
I only have three things to say about "control states": Oklahoma, Georgia, and Alabama.
Pot cures that (click here).
McDonnell might have succeeded in Virginia if not for Republicans' absolutist anti-tax ideology. There was a not unreasonable argument that government shouldn't be in the liquor business, but state stores also bring in a lot of money, and they weren't willing to propose anything credible to replace that.
As someone who used to travel the country and experience the control state concept I have noticed that often it is a Republican governor or Republican legislature moving to privatize the liquor industry under the guise of selling the license to offset state deficits. The liquor rights are often sold at basement bargain prices to pals or allies, who then are free to rake in millions.
Another example of how government can do some things cheaper than private (and for profit) industry.
PA has always had state liquor stores, but our T-Party governor wants to change that. Figures, doesn't it. Our legislative body is also GOP now. They'd privatize anything. I'm waiting for them to privatize the military one day if they get in power.
As for pot, I have no problem with it being legal and treated by the feds as they did alcohol after prohibition. We need to stop criminalizing drugs across the board.
Disclosure: I don't take drugs or smoke pot myself, so it isn't as if I have a dog in this fight. It just seems right to do it and we need the revenue. Other countries have done it successfully.
We called them Blue Laws a few years back.
No sales on Sunday. No stores within a certain distance from a church or school. What happened to those laws? In Texas, we had to drive from one dry country to a wet one. Go figure.
PA has s l o w l y moved towards the free market.
You buy beer by the case at a private 'distributor'. But, he can't sell you a six pack- for that you have to go to a bar or a 'pizza joint' that has a liquor license (they can't sell wine or booze.) SOME supermarkets can sell a six pack or a bottle of wine.
State stores did indeed resemble prisons, with a guy behind a counter, and you told him what you wanted. For choice, you went to Jersey. Or Maryland. But the State Cops were/are known to lurk at the border. Taxes, ya know!
Now the State Stores have happily embraced the 20th C- you can stroll the aisles with a shopping cart, and on select evenings they even have tasting events!
All this makes growing and smoking your own seem like Paradise!
Funny this thread is here just now. About an hour ago, I made plans with a friend to go to NJ on Sunday to the wine "superstore" because the selection in PA stinks and you can't buy it on Sunday except at "certain" stores which are farther away than popping over the Tacony-Palmyra bridge to Cherry Hill, NJ - 15 mins!
I lived in Florida for awhile and I have to say the ONLY thing I miss about not living there is that I cannot buy beer and wine in the supermarket (Ha, you thought I was gonna say waiting in line for 7 hours to vote, dint ya?). It was pure heaven to buy a steak and matching wine or chips, salsa and a 6 pack of Corona and not forget the limes!
As to PA going private, they've tried for years to figure out how to do it, but run into obstacles - like no one wants to buy and run a liquor store at the location where the state store presently is. This leaves the State with lots of properties they can't get rid of. Then there is the lost revenue from the tax and the private guy wants to run the place by using family members who he will not pay "on the books" rather than hire the people who are already working there and paying them a decent wage and benies. See lots of probs.
But if anyone can ignore the right way to do it and just blast ahead with his plan, it will be Guv. "JustCloseYourEyes" Corbett. You betcha, he'll dig a hole and push us all into it.
Yo, Guv, just sell the 6 packs & wine in the supermarkets and watch your sales soar! Just saying. . . . .
I was *surprisingly* heartened by Nandra Chitre's statement last week on behalf of DOJ: "The Department's enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged. In enacting the Controlled Substances Act, Congress determined that marijuana was a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance." That bit of double-talk says what it says.
It's also overly specific, perhaps on purpose...our government knows that the rescheduling of cannabis is currently before US Appeals Court in DC.
This lawsuit brought by Americans for Safe Access is challenging the Drug Enforcement Administration over their 40-year-old Schedule 1 classification of "marijuana" - actually the bastardized name for what are the C. Cannabis Sativa and C. Cannabis Afghanica (Indica) plants. Given the breadth and depth of the medical studies now being brought before the court (in addition to the case filed by a veteran being denied his VA benefits due to his cannabis use), it is quite likely "marijuana" - as the Feds call it, will be reclassified sometime next year.
This may seem inconsequential to the general public, but scientists in the United States have been unable to study the cannabis plant in medical labs for the last forty years due to this overly restrictive classification (brought about by the Nixon administration after their rejection of the Shafer Commission Report of 1971), and countries such as Spain, Israel, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom have taken the lead in developing medicines derived from the cannabis plant that are showing positive results in the treatment of illnesses such as Crohn's disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, even cancer. Also, PTSD - we have many veterans returning home now needing appropriate medical care, and cannabis has been shown to be effective for those symptoms as well.
Long before 20th-Century prejudices, based largely on oppression of racial minorities at the turn of the last century, cannabis had an honored place in the pharmacology of many diverse cultures and was first noted as a valued medical herb by the renowned Chinese physician, Shennong, in the 2700 century, B.C.
Dr. Donald Abrams, M.D. (UCSF) is currently one of the most famous contemporary proponents for the use of cannabis in the fight against cancer. He would be an excellent source of information on the topic.
To ignore the study of cannabis as a medicine is to further demonstrate that our politicians are completely in the tank to Big Pharma and Prison for Profit, not to mention totally complicit in the further bloodshed in Mexico due to our misguided "War On Drugs"
This story needs more in-depth analysis and Rachel is one of the few in the business with both the foresight and the brains to fairly express the issue. And attention so desperately needs to be paid to this issue... It is a matter, literally, of life and death.
And thank you again, TRMS staff, for not making light of this issue in your story about legalization in Colorado and Washington. For many patients, cannabis is medicine - and it is no laughing matter.
PS - And I'm *high as a kite* as I'm writing this post. Do I sound like a "stoner" to you...man? I'm just a middle-aged adult treating debilitating illness with a medication that actually WORKS.
For years I suffered with insomnia. The doctors prescribed all kinds of awful meds that made me feel like hell the next morning or made me walk and eat in my sleep and even go out and get in my car while sleeping. I woke up in the car in my underwear once. That's when I quit the mind bending drugs and switched to pot. Now I smoke before bed and when I wake up in the middle of the night I take a few more hits and I'm good for the night. And I don't wake up all stupid and slow and hung over.
For some reason, I'm suddenly dying for a brewski.
But it's 4:20 there isn't it?
I remember we took a car trip across country to NY once, and We found no signs advertising Liquor Stories in some states. Yes, they were state owned and no Bottle filled shelves, Instead they was one bottle for each brand showcased as if they were the crown jewels. I just assumed until then every one did it the same way. I can buy it here in Wal-greens Drug store, or the Grocery store, or as you say by the Case in Outlet stores. Now I can just drive across the boarder to Mexico and buy it at a discount. No taxes.
In both Michigan and Ohio, listed as control states, you can buy liquor at liquor, grocery and convenience -- aka party stores in MI -- stores, and at gas stations in Ohio.
If they were to treat it like they do beer and wine here in Minnesota it wouldn't be bad, if you are making it for your own use or to give away as gifts, the head of a household can make up to 500 gallons of wine per year, someone would have to figure out what that equivalent amount of marijuana would be, it should be perfectly legal for any adult to grow up to that amount without government restriction, taxes or any other hassles.
However, if you are planning on selling it, you should need a sales licence, it should be tested and labeled for THC content, CBD content would be nice to know as well, and taxed. Also, like tobacco, beer and wine, no sales to minors.
Despite the continual mantra about freedom in this country we rarely are able to make decisions for ourself in a lot of matters that are really silly. If people want it fine, if they don't fine. It should be their choice. Where are the get government / police out of my private business people. Oh, they are the same ones who want government to dictate what you consume, whether you can purchase contraception, whether you can decide what your future is going to be, etc, etc.
I currently live in a control state where the state is slowly very slowly going private.Doing this is taking way longer than it should. It is my suspision that the state LCB really does not want to give up this plum of state revenue. You see they not only get the built in profit 20% or so but they charge the consumer 6% sales tax on top of that. So you see in this age of ever tightening state budgets it is a sticky wicket to say the least.