The Nike analogy is a bad one. Ms. Respeto should have said something like "You'd never see a law saying you can only sell cigarettes or booze in San Fran if they were made in San Fran." Which is true and makes her point more effectively.

Oh, and pot dealers are "shocked" to be asked for receipts? Jesus christ... It's called accountability stoners, get used to it.

While the lurking presence of mutual and hedge-fund managers usually seems sinister, it might be a good thing, or at least not a terrible one, in this instance.
If those types of people can do anything well
(aside from personal enrichment), it's put pressure on people in government to ease strict regulations on things. A more open and easy system of commerce for marijuana? Please.

The stoners are all going to be pushed out as selling pot becomes a small-margin competitive business, where sloppy business practices=failure and corporations will soon provide the PBR of THC delivery.

Good idea and a good first step but legalization wouldn't work for all drugs.

@4:

I don't think they'll be pushed out as easily as all that; some, certainly, but pot growers have traditionally been very good at the adaptation thing, so I expect a fair number will figure out the new system - once there's some consistency on the regulation-side.

And while this will no doubt attract the interest of large-scale producers (I can just imagine R.J. Reynolds and their peers jumping on this, if for no other reason than to counter the eventual phasing out of their tobacco operations), I also expect things will run more like alcohol production has in the U.S. in the past couple of decades, with a few large conglomerates mass-producing a product of moderate potency (ala your PBR comparison), but at the same time leaving lots of room for the craft-producers who would be more akin to small-batch distilleries and microbreweries.

There's always going to be demand at both ends of the spectrum: people who want a milder high will be attracted to the mass-produced products, while those looking for truly ass-kicking bakage will gravitate toward the smaller producers of higher THC content product.