
Legal Weed is Hurting San Francisco's Hippies - sebg
http://priceonomics.com/legal-weed-is-hurting-san-franciscos-hippies/
======
seldo
Legalizing drugs cuts crime in two ways. Directly, by reclassifying a bunch of
formerly criminal drug users as just drug users. But also indirectly: it makes
them cheap, which makes them unattractive targets for organized crime. If
western politicians could just get over their taboos about drug use and let
idiots stuff themselves with whatever drugs they like, not just nicotine and
alcohol, we would make the US richer and safer.

And this isn't a hypothetical: more than 12 years ago, Portugal decriminalized
possession of all drugs -- from marijuana to heroin -- and plowed the money
saved by no longer jailing addicts into treating them. The result has been
lower rates of addiction and HIV infection, and higher rates of treatment:

[http://www.alternet.org/story/151635/ten_years_ago_portugal_...](http://www.alternet.org/story/151635/ten_years_ago_portugal_legalized_all_drugs_
--_what_happened_next)

Now possession is a misdemeanor, like a traffic violation, punishable by a
fine or community service, and accompanied by a screening for risk factors of
addiction, with encouragement to enter treatment programs:

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-
drug-d...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-
decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html)

It hasn't been a magic bullet, but nor has it been a disaster. And what _is_ a
disaster is the current policy: drug money fuels endless violence and murder
inside the US and across central and southern America.

The social fabric of my home country (Trinidad & Tobago) is being torn apart
by violence from drug trafficking, and there's nothing we can do about it as
long as the amount of money to be made by risking the drug trade is so
enormous. We can't lower the price, because we are not the market: the US is.

I wish more people in the US were aware that their paying $100/gram for the
occasional fun evening is paying for murder on the streets of my home town.
And I wish more people realized they don't have to stop taking cocaine; they
just have to lower the damn price.

~~~
JonFish85
"If western politicians could just get over their taboos about drug use and
let idiots stuff themselves with whatever drugs they like, not just nicotine
and alcohol, we would make the US richer and safer."

Seriously? I'm not sure if you're saying to legalize all drugs, but that's how
I'm interpreting this....

Legalizing addictive drugs will make us safer & richer? I feel like if we
legalized heroin, we'd have junkies all over the place running around stealing
whatever isn't bolted down just to get the next high. It affects far more than
just the user, it affects the families, the kids, the neighborhood, the town,
etc. Even if we taxed it, those taxes would likely go right back into having
more security: police officers, hospitals, etc.

Sure pot might be more or less harmless, but letting people stuff themselves
with any drug of choice seems very wrong. There are some drugs that I think
should absolutely be restricted very tightly.

~~~
exxar
"I feel like if we legalized heroin, we'd have junkies all over the place
running around stealing whatever isn't bolted down just to get the next high."

Why? Do you know anyone who doesn't use heroin now, just because it's illegal?

Highly addictive opiods such as percocet, oxycodone, codeine, etc. are legal
(although regulated). Many of the risks associated with heroin use derive from
its illegality, in the sense that people use heroin which has unknown purity
(i.e. can be cut with other drugs), use unsterilized needles, and take unsafe
dosages (i.e. there is no physician regulating the amount they consume nor
preventing addiction).

My point is not that heroin is a safe drug, or that anyone should take it. But
drug laws are applied with incredible inconsistency. Cocaine, which is
potentially addictive and dangerous, is a Schedule II drug, while marijuana
and even hallucinogens such as LSD are Schedule I drugs (meaning they have
strong potential for addiction and no recognized medical use, which is simply
untrue). Addictive opiods marketed as prescription drugs, meanwhile, are legal
with regulation. Not to mention alcohol and tobacco, two highly addictive and
unhealthy drugs which are perfectly legal.

~~~
vidarh
A pet peeve of mine since you mentioned codeine, that neatly shows just how
fucked up government regulation in this area can be:

There's good evidence that restrictions on quantity of
acetaminophen/paracetamol sold in a single transaction reduces overdose
deaths. E.g. in the UK it is estimated that restrictions to 16 (in regular
shops) or 32 tablets per sale (in pharmacies) has saved 600+ lives since 1998.
There are still 100+ deaths a year from it, though.

Yet the sale of pure codeine is substantially more heavily regulated than the
sale of co-codamol and other variations of paracetamol/acetaminophen or
ibuprofen mixed with codeine at ratios that means that anyone with a serious
codeine addiction finding themselves unable to get a prescription or find a
dealer for pure codeine might find the mixed products available over the
counter as their only source at times. Yet chances are they will have to take
a potentially dangerous dose of other painkillers to get their codeine high.

So, we have evidence that people often intentionally or accidentally die of
acetaminophen/paracetamol as well as ibuprofen overdoses. Yet we consider it
acceptable to require codeine to be mixed with these (and other) drugs for
over the counter sales.

Codeine alone is one of the safest opiates we know, with a substantial safety
margin for use, but also _highly_ addictive, and so chances are a subset of
users will get sufficiently addicted to be unable to properly control their
usage, even in the face of taking substantial risks.

In other words: Fuck off and die a painful death if you get addicted enough to
fail to manage to resist (or pay attention to) taking too much of the other
drugs it's mixed with. Oh, and when you die, remember it's because we
intentionally ensured you had a supply that was effectively mixed with poison.

That codeine addiction is often the result of its extensive use as a
prescription painkiller and in hospitals exactly _because it is so safe_ on
its own just makes the whole thing more offensive.

------
rdouble
I lived for years right by the Haight entrance to GGP. I wouldn't call the
participants in the drug scene there hippies. There were a lot more crusties
and gutter punk types, along with stereotypical thug dudes and tweakers. A lot
of people were really aggro and there was some sort of fight nearly every day.
A friend of mine would buy her pot over there and her dealer was a clean cut
looking late 20s guy from the avenues, who used a cane because he had been
shot in the leg. Gun violence didn't seem very hippie to me, either.

One of the odder things to me about the area (everything was odd to some
degree, including my presence there) was that there was so much drug activity
right next to the police station.

~~~
fizx
I live on the alley across the street from the primary SF Mission District
Police Station, and hard drugs are regularly dealt outside my door.

------
rwmj
Well, good. Proper regulation is the whole point.

Edit: You (probably) do want control cannabis sales to teenagers. Citation:
[http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-
wheel/201208...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-squeaky-
wheel/201208/study-finds-regular-marijuana-use-damages-teenage-brains)

------
josh2600
I feel like the topics Priceonomics covers have been getting less interesting
over time. I suppose that's natural for a content engine, but this piece left
me feeling sort of disenchanted.

I'm used to graphs and visualizations on Priceonomics, and there was a
distinct lack of hard data from this piece. It felt much more subjective than
what I'm used to.

In short, I don't doubt the conclusion, but this doesn't feel like a normal
priceonomics piece. Just my $.02.

~~~
rdl
Yes. It's not just the decline of quality analysis/execution, but the actual
topics are becoming dumber (and more overtly political). I wish they had a way
to filter based on bylines. Generally the articles by Rohin Dhar are awesome.

~~~
Cyranix
If you use NewsBlur to subscribe to their feed, you can use the "intelligence
trainer" feature to filter based on author, tags, or phrases in titles --
works quite well almost always. (Not sure if other feed readers have the same
capability.)

~~~
rdl
The genius of the blog was taking on the surface boring topics and, through
quality analysis, doing something awesome. That might be hard to identify
programmatically.

------
ihsw
Imagine for a moment if meth were legalized -- production would move beyond
shady basements with lax safety measures, distribution would move beyond
inner-city gangs and other unpleasant cartels, consumption would move beyond
lonely apartments and back-alleys, and storage would move beyond dirty needles
and shoddy pipes (it could even be refined into pills).

Now realize that the entire pharmaceuticals industry is born from this desire
for safe production, distribution, consumption, and storage of drugs -- and
the hypocrisy of selective drug prohibition.

~~~
wycx
If all drugs were legal, would people still take meth?

I suspect meth is abundant now because of logistical reasons i.e. it can be
manufactured in the country it is sold, using precursors that can also be
obtained there (legally or otherwise), rather than having to grow plants
(coca, poppies, marijuana) which can be seized whilst growing or being
imported from overseas.

A good drug policy would make meth seem like the bad idea that it is by
providing superior alternatives.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
Before prohibition, dextroamphetamine was vastly more popular than
methamphetamine. I'd love to see a return to the good old days of
dextroamphetamine in every corner store. It would save so many people from
meth and coke.

------
unethical_ban
If I'm supposed to care, I'm failing.

It is always a rough transition when government changes its policy to one of
more morality and fairness. Protected business interests who have shaped their
business model around shitty laws now are at a disadvantage to businesses that
can spring up around new rules. That doesn't mean our laws shouldn't change
for the better.

~~~
riggins
_If I 'm supposed to care, I'm failing._

I don't think you're supposed to care. I just think its an interesting
observation for a couple reasons.

One, there's modest historical significance to the hippie movement, especially
in SF. Hippie culture dying out is news worthy.

Two (less interesting, more obvious), is to note that people who sold drugs
illegally are hurt by legalization. That's not given, it's possible that
people who sold drugs illegally would be the same people who sold drugs
legally .. but that doesn't seem to be the case (or more interesting, the
profit margin got squashed).

~~~
dubfan
Hippy culture largely died out in the early 1970s. What's newsworthy is that
there are still people who believe it's a viable lifestyle.

~~~
marssaxman
Did it die out, or did it just go mainstream? I see organic food, recycling
programs, yoga, and co-ops everywhere. The local Safeway has a cooler full of
kombucha bottles on display twenty feet from the front door. People are more
likely to frown at you for smoking cigarettes than marijuana. We may not look
or dress like hippies from the '70s but many of the the social trends they
pioneered seem to be more popular and successful than ever.

------
notjustanymike
"There were lots of customers and they made enough in a few days to travel for
a few weeks. Now though..."

Man, rough life. I really feel for those guys...

~~~
Freestyler_3
Where is the post about people working for an entire year to go on vacation
for a few weeks? Yes, rough life these guys, selling plants for extremely high
prices so they can do fun stuff with the money they took. Almost sounds like
capitalists.

------
rdl
If only we could do this federally, and then do exactly the same thing to
Mexico's narcos.

~~~
anigbrowl
I agree, but there's a qualitative difference here, in that the hippies that
are the subject of this story don't tend to kill or even beat up people. I've
never sold any weed, but I've known enough hippies to recognize that they're
basically benign black market traders rather than organized criminals, and the
fact that they are sidelined in a new market is a problem for them.

Lots of people (who were not hippies) were interested in buying weed, while
hippies were happy to supply the willingness to take a moderate legal risk.
However, non-hippies aren't all that interested in other things that hippies
like, such as hemp weaving or handicrafts - at least, not to the extent of
providing hippies with any sort of livable income. So the choice is to either
supply other, more risky markets - in other states, or with 'harder' and
potentially more dangerous drugs - or find some other kind of employment. But
other kinds of employment aren't really compatible with being a hippie, and
while I don't think that's a fantastic thing to aspire to I respect that some
people would rather live simpler, non-materialistic lives, or part of their
their lives, and this is increasingly hard to do in a society that fetishizes
private property.

~~~
strlen
Except the actual folks around the Golden Gate Park area do beat up, stab,
shoot, and often kill people. These people aren't hippies in any sense of the
word. They're low-grade gangsters.

War on drugs[1] is a cure far worse than the illness it tries to cure:

It's one thing to idealise the hippie culture of the 60s, it's another to bend
the facts of what GGP panhandle neighbourhood is really like to fit that
narrative. I am sure there are actual hippies out there, but it's unlikely
that they're in SF or even Berkeley.

(Background: spent sometime time in Inner Sunset in ~2009-2010 and walked to
Haight; know a lot of folks who also attended USF Law in that neighbourhood).

[1] I'll also note that by drugs I generally don't mean marijuana. I have zero
interest in marijuana, but to put it in the same category as heroin, cocaine,
or meth seems odd. We _do_ need to decriminalize the "harder" drugs as well
for both moral and pragmatic reasons -- bulk of drug war violence (especially
in the US border states and south of the US border) is not over marijuana.

~~~
anigbrowl
Obviously I'm generalizing, and I quite agree that there are 'low level
gangsters' as well (though I think you're rather overstating your case). Not
trying to one-up you, but I've lived almost 20 years in the Bay Area, most of
that time in SF and most of that in the Sunset. I'm intimately familiar with
the the Haight, hippie subculture etc.

------
applecore
According to free market principles, this will free the street kids and
hippies to pursue other, more productive work, and therefore increase wealth.

~~~
jusben1369
Hahaha. The problem here was that there was no free market in the first place.
The Hippies are more akin to your cable company or some other state sanctioned
monopoly or oligopoly now being opened up to real market forces. Inflated
profits due to protection almost never ends well.

------
omni_
This is a good thing.

One of the main reasons that cannabis has failed to be fully legalized in
California is because greedy dealers want the industry to stay small and
contained. I remember seeing tons of "Vote No" signs in Mendocino and Sonoma
counties regarding legalization (which are huge cultivation areas,) and have
known many growers and distributors who were vehemently against legalizing it.

~~~
ojbyrne
Huge cultivation areas but very low population areas. According to [1] - those
areas had no significant effect on the vote. But lobbying by Prison Guard and
Police Unions, and Alcohol companies (!) did.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Humboldt-Life-Americas-Marijuana-
Front...](http://www.amazon.com/Humboldt-Life-Americas-Marijuana-
Frontier/dp/1455506761/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374869327&sr=8-1&keywords=humboldt)

~~~
omni_
According to Wikipedia, Sonoma County has over 483k residents. That's a "very
low population" area?

~~~
ojbyrne
Actually from what little I know, Sonoma County isn't really part of the main
weed growing region:

"The Emerald Triangle refers to a region in Northern California so named
because it is the largest cannabis producing region in the United States.
Mendocino County, Humboldt County, and Trinity County are the three counties
in Northern California that make up this region."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Triangle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Triangle)

------
rhizome
Priceonomics sure seems to have a high regard for its belly-button lint. Their
motto is "Priceonomics: The Price Guide for Everything," ...and the value
guide for nothing, I presume.

 _Here in Priceonomics’s home city of San Francisco, however, legalization is
also eroding the easy drug profits that have been a lifeline to the remnants
of the hippy scene._

Yes, lets all lament the demise of the "Haighth"[1], while ignoring the
political, artistic and, well, non-weed legacies of the late-60s San Francisco
subcultural landscape.

1\.
[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=haighth](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=haighth)

~~~
anigbrowl
I don't think you can disentangle them. I used to be close friends (until I
moved abroad) with the then-head of the Haight St. merchant's association, who
had opened up the first 'head shop' there and had been intimately involved
with the cultural scene there since the 60s, often as curator and sponsor, as
well as with a lot of political issues (beyond the scope of a HN comment).
That guy arrived in SF as a young man during the summer of love and made his
seed money selling LSD before setting up a more conventional business, and I
presume weed as well. I don't think you can sensibly the political and
cultural changes in isolation from the recreational drug use.

tl;dr it's totally interconnected, man.

~~~
rhizome
_I don 't think you can disentangle them._

Yet Priceonomics attempts to do so.

~~~
anigbrowl
That wasn't my takeaway, but I see your point.

------
Apocryphon
Could the reverse of the gateway drug theory be true? If marijuana and
"lighter" narcotics were to be legalized, might potential addicts and users
flock to those drugs instead of riskier substances like cocaine or heroin?

~~~
redwood
Perhaps but another key point is that mj is a gateway for dealers more than
anything else. Removing it as an entry point into the biz will almost
certainly mean fewer players in the biz, I believe.

------
zackmorris
Legal Beer is Hurting Boise Hipsters

News at 11. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Since Idaho is so behind the times on
the legalization front, hippies are most welcome here. So if any hippies are
reading this, there are many markets opening in the gateway states that lie
between the cool states. Another way to look at this is, marijuana
legalization will lead to the liberalization of the states that are behind the
times, which is probably why fogies are fighting against it so vehemently.

------
jusben1369
For every sad Hippy in the 1st World there's hopefully 100 great stories in
ravaged 2nd world countries up to their eyeballs in corruption funded by the
distorted profits of an illegal trade. Maybe Marijuana really will be the
"gateway drug" The first drug that marches us towards a path of i) legalizing,
ii) taxing, iii) treating addicts and iv) reducing prison populations.

------
dobbsbob
They can still make LSD that wont be legal anytime soon.

In Canada price of weed dropped to $80/120 per oz of AAA kush since washington
legalized and more exports come out of california

~~~
syncopatience
It's my understanding that LSD production is far more complex and resource
intensive than growing marijuana.

~~~
dobbsbob
It is but san fransisco hippies are known for making some of the best LSD like
greatfull dead fluff and liquid. Most of the LSD I did in highschool was from
California or from Nicholas Sand who fled California to Canada to run a giant
lab until 1996. So California/SFO is like ground zero for LSD manufacturing
and underground hippie culture that still exists

------
krosaen
“The hippy kids used to be able to sell their weed real easy at high prices,”
he tells us. “There were lots of customers and they made enough in a few days
to travel for a few weeks. Now though...”

"Many are homeless by choice: Some are the transient underemployed or
unemployed that hop railcars across the country."

[http://24.media.tumblr.com/f57b0d94ce4e855c44891a68b21abe20/...](http://24.media.tumblr.com/f57b0d94ce4e855c44891a68b21abe20/tumblr_mn7hc0DIR11rmibjxo1_500.gif)

------
wilfra
Very disappointing to see no data of any kind on the Good Old Days other than
the word of some people they met in a park in San Francisco. Needless to say,
their word is extremely unreliable.

Two claims specifically are pretty obvious exaggerations/blatant lies:

That a marijuana dealer can make 4-times more selling in New York than in
California[1]. And that street kids used to make enough in a few days to
travel for weeks[2].

[1] Unless the difference is purely a matter of volume, price alone cannot
account for that big of a difference, as the article seems to imply. Marijuana
is more expensive in New York but it's nowhere near 4-times more expensive.

[2] I sold marijuana in the bay area in the timeframe referenced in the
article, between roughly 1999 and 2001 (in the dorms, to friends and friends
of friends and friends of friends of friends etc). Yes the prices were higher
than they are today ($50 an 8th was standard) but wholesale prices were also
much higher. In the end I was lucky to clear $100 an ounce, after smoking
myself - which the street kids surely do. They'd have to have been selling a
half pound or more per day at full retail to make the claim even remotely
possible.

And a small piece of anecdotal evidence - I went to Haight Ashbury in search
of some weed not long ago. I asked some street kids near the park. I was
quoted $60 an 8th and they were unwilling to bargain. The quality was low -
probably over 100% markup from what they paid. Those kinds of margins were not
possible in the Good Old Days glorified in this piece.

Cliffs: don't take the word of street hippies on how great things were in the
past.

~~~
lnanek2
+1 for real data points. Thanks!

That said, people who bum around can go a long time on very little cash.
Imagine if you only had to pay for food and sometimes got it free crashing
with friends with chickens, etc.. Housing - crashing places, parks outside,
tents, etc.. Transportation - hopping trains.

