The words play in my mind “Yo, what the fuck, are you serious?” I’m not sure those were my exact words but its likely close. There were a lot of fucks said, and with all the fucks, I’ve learned to care less.
When you are alone, and something bad happens, and you are in disbelief those words utter as a question we ask ourselves. Also known as “did I let that happen?” a rhetorical question to ourselves when there is no one to blame but yourself. Even if you are the victim in the court of law, for goodness sake, you allowed an unjust event by failing to prevent; therefore you are guilty. After understanding the fault starts with you, you realize that those close to you could have played a role.
Your small circle or those close to you know you take risks and break the law which is why there is an unwritten and often unspoken moral standard. The truth is as stands, morals, and laws are not the same. You can break laws and have high morals while many laws can be morally wrong. The moral and lawful paradox exist in no more significant element than the underground and regulated drug game.
In the underground market, I’ve uttered those words “are you fucking serious?” after cash and a stash of marijuana was stolen from me. Today, ten years later, it’s important to know if regulated marijuana reduces the crime rate. At the Institute of Labor Economics, a study provides evidence that the legalization of cannabis across US states may induce a reduction in crime.
The authors of Crime and the Legalization of Recreational Marijuana delivers data that supports the argument; recreational marijuana may lead to a decrease in rapes and thefts while alcohol binge drinking might also decrease in recreational markets. No matter if you are a king-pin or low-level drug dealer, if you get robbed, you don’t call the authority, you morally take things into your own hands. At the same time, while the jealous and lazy thief finds your stash, pharmaceutical companies shift their death liability through disclaimers and protect innovation with patent laws.
The drug dealer who gets robbed doesn’t call the authority, but the pharmaceutical company proactively protects their drugs through intellectual property, trade secrets, and patents. What are patents and intellectual property? It’s important to note that laws are human-made, they exist because we made them and if you understand the law and abide by the law, you don’t necessarily have to agree with them.
Intellectual property rights are like any other property right. They allow creators, or owners, of patents, trademarks or copyrighted works to benefit from their work or investment in a creation. Patent protection is an exclusive right granted for an invention a product or process that provides a new way of doing something, or that offers a unique technical solution to a problem. A patent is worth pursuing when you are solving a problem that people are willing to pay for the answer. The protection can also relate to or be in the process of solving a problem. For example, Tesla Motors owns hundreds of patents to produce electric cars. Those patents are directly related to the need for luxury electric vehicles. With protections in place, no other person or entity has the right to recreate or redistribute a solution without the creator’s consent.
In actuality, what these types of protections do is create higher pricing, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. If intellectual property limits the recreation and redistribution of drugs than the originator has full control. I do not disagree with this idea, I believe creators should protect their work and ideas, but as it relates to peoples health, it is a problem.
Imagine if pharmaceutical companies could not patent their work, other creators, entities, and businesses would find ways to better serve the market, continually competing, improving, and driving lower prices. Concerning marijuana, we won’t see many patents on marijuana because consumers have the power over businesses. Someone tell the 16-year-old boy he can’t grow weed in his parents back-yard because he’s infringing on some private capital groups patent and his parents will tell you to screw off. It’s not that he needs to protect his growing technique for profitability purpose, he needs to protect his growing so the neighborhood kids don’t steal from him.
In MA, you’ve never heard of a licensed marijuana business being robbed, because it hasn’t happened and the likelihood is low. The state requires high security which includes, setback laws, fences and security systems. For a home grow or underground dealer, there aren’t any measures of security accept moral security.
