(A Candid Review of Can Legal Weed Win? The Blunt Realities of Cannabis Economics (UC Press; $24.95))
Robin Goldstein and Daniel Sumner, two economists and professors at UC Davis—once known as the aggie school—ask a question that others have asked before them and that others will surely ask again: “Can legal weed win?” By “win” they don’t mean beat the competition and receive a prize for the best weed at a fair or smoke-off. They do mean, can legal weed—weed that is licensed, taxed and regulated by the state—triumph over illegal weed in the marketplace. So far, as they point out, that hasn’t happened for a variety of reasons, including the preeminent fact that illegal weed is less costly to the consumer, and that all other things being equal, consumers buy the less costly product.
The strengths and the weaknesses of this book derive from the reality that the authors are not now, nor have they ever been, players in the marijuana industry, the marijuana subculture and the marijuana agricultural juggernaut. Still, they aren’t exactly impartial, though they aim to be fair and accurate and explore and answer all the questions they ask, even when they don’t have definitive answers, like what will the weed world look like in 25 years.
As economists, rather than storytellers who offer anecdotes, they present facts and figures, and offer charts and diagrams to buttress their arguments. If there is one thing that they are certain of, it is that the weed world that currently exists is not what weed activists and aficionados wanted ten, thirty or fifty years ago. In the most hard-hitting sentences in the book which arrive in chapter six, the most anecdotal chapter in the book, Goldstein and Summer write that back in the day, “some activists thought they could have the best of all worlds, regulate, legal, weed so thoroughly that you make it perfectly safe, bring in lots of tax dollars to the state, make entrepreneurs rich, eliminate the illegal weed market and make the new system inclusive of the formerly illegal operators who suffered under criminal laws.”
They add that “legalization has brought about none of the above, anywhere in North America.” They say North America, because they include Canada along with the US in their study.
I would tell them that not all activists and weed farmers wanted or want to go legal. They want to operate outside the law and outside the state bureaucracy.
Goldstein and Sumner point out that Thomas Carlyle, the British critic of capitalism, called economics, “the dismal science.” Despite the fact that they are economists and view the world from the perspective of economics, their book isn’t dismal or depressing. The authors are surprisingly whimsical, with a penchant for puns and word play. I think it’s cool that they call it “weed” and not marijuana, cannabis or grass. Still, for all its charm and exuberance, the book tends to be repetitive.
The authors hammer away at their main points. That might be a virtue for some readers. It’s nearly impossible to miss the major arguments that are put forth. There are also plenty of minor, albeit valid points: that compliance with state and local rules is a fantasy; that legality has led to innovations in packaging and more variation in price; that California is behind other states in total revenue per capita from sales of legal weed; that Oklahoma has created a cannabis system that might be worth exporting and copying elsewhere; that the industry evolves faster than book writers can keep up with it and be current.
I’m not sure that all of their points are accurate; they say, for example, that investors in legal weed all lose money. I have anecdotal evidence that suggests the opposite. There’s a lot of cash washing around the Emerald Triangle, a place I have explored in my book, Marijuanaland: Dispatches from an American War.
Do I recommend this book? I do and I don’t. UC Press is to be praised for publishing it. Not that long ago, books about cannabis were not welcome in academia. If you want pure entertainment and stories about outlaws on the run from lawmen, this book is probably not for you. And if you want a guidebook for how to grow weed this is not it, either.
But if you do want sober analysis about economic losses and gains, profits and market fluctuation then it is for you. Anecdotes could have fleshed out the story they tell, especially when they point out that illegal weed slips into the marketplace, despite labeling, record keeping and tracking and tracing. Why not include stories from growers who have beat the system and who make and launder big bucks?
Can Legal Weed Win? looks at Humboldt, but unfortunately not at Mendo, Lake or Santa Barbara, where commercial cut flower growers have switched to cannabis flowers. So, in some ways this book doesn’t sufficiently describe regional and local differences in the world of weed, which is more complex than the authors indicate.
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