What "intoxicating amount" would that be?
A single beer might get a teetotaler drunk, while it might take a six pack or more to get an alcoholic drunk. The same goes for smoking cannabis. One hit might get someone with no tolerance high, but someone with a high tolerance might need much more. That doesn't even begin to take in to account all of the different varieties of cannabis or different types of alcohol, which could have quite varied potencies.
You can actually kind of compare different alcohols by the percentage of pure ethanol in them, and with cannabis you can compare the percentage of THC, but there are so many other compounds in cannabis that can have an effect on your intoxication that they're really difficult to compare in a standardized way.
Even when sticking to one particular alcohol or cannabis variety prices vary tremendously based on brand and where they're bought (ex: a beer at the grocery store will cost much less than one at some trendy bar, a mass-produced generic beer vs some hand-made microbrew, etc).
When I hear such comparisons I really have to question what they're actually comparing and why they're comparing it and not something completely different. For alcohol vs cannabis prices, I struggle to understand how there can be any comparison.
"So let's get everyone hooked and in debt"
How many people go in to debt buying legal cannabis? If money's such a problem for them, it's trivial to just grow your own for free: it's a weed.
Anyway, if your goal is to keep people from going in to debt, the last thing you should be for is prohibition, which astronomically increases the cost of drugs far past their legal price.
"Doesn't mean I think you should be able to buy h when you hit 18."
Well, whether you think you should be able to or not, you can. Making drugs illegal has flatly failed to stop their availability. Like it or not, if you want them, it's not hard to get them.
The question is whether the state should continue to spend billions ruining people's lives by throwing them in jail or outright killing them during raids, breaking up families, propping up organized crime with illegal drug profits, corrupting the judicial and political system, etc.
To me it doesn't make sense, especially as it's so ineffective or even counterproductive (as people are drawn to the forbidden) in preventing drug use.
I'm a Seattle resident. No way that's correct. The pot is way, way cheaper.
Using fairly "middle class" products, percentage of a $15-20 gram that has intoxicating value is lower in dollar value than a draft beer ($6).
Even focusing strictly on value products, there's no single-unit alcohol product (40oz, tall boy, etc) that can compete against the common $3 preroll.
But they'll at least get treatment. Which we can also charge for.
Apparently I've angered the libertarians who can't concieve of Any bad consequences to anything. Look I Live in Seattle and don't see any bad side to the mj legalization currently. I also think we should have heroin treatment in many areas. And opioid. Doesn't mean I think you should be able to buy h when you hit 18. I know plenty of people who use alcohol and mj responsibly. Many who don't. I have anecdotal data on opiods and lots only know one person who used h personally and that didn't go well. More for meth, most had some pretty severe problems before or because of it.
But apparently I can't disagree with you, only the pure ideals are acceptable.