"4) In a competitive, legal market, the successful firms will be the ones which offer the best product - the firms with the best drugs, the highest standards of quality and ethics, the nicest stores, and the best customer service. Why buy from dodgy drug-dealers when you can walk into a beautiful store and get great customer service?"
Really? So Walmart and Amazon have the highest standard of quality and customer service..really??????
"Why buy from dodgy drug-dealers when you can walk into a beautiful store and get great customer service"
Because money talks. The government will tax and regulate drugs. Many users will not want to pay a higher price for a lower quality product (quality might be THC levels, etc).
Why go to dodgy virus-laden websites to download software and music when you can go into a beautiful store with great customer service?
I'm all for the legalization of MJ, but I feel like common sense goes out the window in any of these discussions.
If the community is all about stopping the violence, why not boycott all cartel grown drugs?
Because Bayer and Amazon can drive the bastards out of business much faster, simply by being better organized.
As long as all the growing takes place within the legalisation territory (i.e. nothing is sourced from illicit operations in foreign nations) then I see no reason why violent organisations would dominate legal trade of psychoactive substances.
1) It eliminates legal risk, so drug production becomes instantly a much more lucrative activity, enticing more people to do it.
2) Profits are reduced as the market becomes more competitive.
3) The cartels are unable to pursue their "normal" extralegal means of suppressing competition, because the parties they might seek to suppress now have legal access to state protection.
4) In a competitive, legal market, the successful firms will be the ones which offer the best product - the firms with the best drugs, the highest standards of quality and ethics, the nicest stores, and the best customer service. Why buy from dodgy drug-dealers when you can walk into a beautiful store and get great customer service?
In short term yes, cartels may attempt to protect their monopoly, but in the long term, legalisation dooms them as cultural dinosaurs unable to compete in the new legal, open market.
Edit: This analysis depends upon low taxation. High taxation will still incentivise extralegal selling, but it probably makes the black market a bit safer regardless.