Smokers of this persuasion speak of marijuana being grown by
machines, in huge industrial farms with artificial fertilizers. Good-tasting marijuana of high potency, they fear, will go the way of the good-tasting tomato replaced by a mass-produced plant. They shudder at the prospect of buying marijuana through a vending machine. And connoisseurs worry that under legalization, the very best varieties of marijuana would become unavailable, although others question this assumption and point to the growth of the wine industry after the end of Prohibition. "Don't forget," says one optimist, "that in this country, if you want to buy something, there will usually be somebody who wants to sell it to you."Strangely enough, these grim scenarios of legalization are not shared by the dealers, who would seem to have the most to lose if marijuana became legal. Rightly or wrongly, many dealers are under the impression that they will benefit significantly from legalization, which will give them the opportunity to be recognized and employed as marijuana professionals. A dealer from California suggests that he and his colleagues might find employment as buyers or even tasters for the large tobacco companies, or whoever ends up selling marijuana to the public. A few dealers speculate that after legalization their current role could continue, since many customers will prefer to buy marijuana in the manner to which they are accustomed. A Colorado woman has developed a plan for the national licensing of dealers. "But how can you license compassion?" she asks skeptically.
Many smokers who are not dealers tend to be skeptical about these predictions. Lenny observes that the people who will benefit from legalization will not be those who are experts in marijuana but rather those who are skilled in business and marketing. "Why else," he asks, "are heads of companies moved from one concern to another with little regard for what the product is? To make money, your experience has to be in making money."
The future, as imagined by marijuana smokers, ranges from the obvious ("save your roach-clips, they'll soon become collectors' items") to the paranoid ("there will be secret smoke alarms in every community that react to the smell of burning marijuana by sending a signal to the nearest police station") to a dreary continuation of the status quo ("I wonder if I will still be sneaking joints when I'm forty, fifty-two or sixty-five?" ) to the wildly optimistic ("by the end of the century, marijuana will be delivered automatically to each household by special tubes, just as electricity, gas, and water are delivered now") .
Speculating about the future raises a number of fascinating and difficult questions. Under legalization, who would be given the right to sell marijuana, and where would it be sold? Who would be allowed to buy it? Will it be legal to smoke on the streets, or in other public places? Will there be commercial brands that compete for customers? Will there be advertising, and where will it be allowed to appear? Will consumers stick to one brand, as they do with cigarettes, or will they purchase different brands of varying strengths for different occasions, just as they now purchase beer, wine, Scotch, and gin? Will the THC levels and the country of origin be printed on the package? What other information will appear? Will legalization inevitably result in a weaker product? Will marijuana be sold in joints, or in bulk, or both?
The question of packaging is especially interesting to smokers. Prepackaged joints would offer convenience, but since THC is unstable and begins to break down as soon as the buds and leaves are crushed, this would almost certainly result in a weaker product. Perhaps there will be special stores for those connoisseurs who prefer to buy exotic brands in bulk, similar to stores selling exotic coffee beans to those willing to pay for them.
"We will never see a seed again," predicts one smoker who believes that prepackaged joints are inevitable. And a woman who dreads the idea says, "If it's sold that way, my kids will never see how beautiful it can be. They may never know what a ripe bud looks like."
For years there have been rumors to the effect that tobacco companies have geared up to produce marijuana in the event of legalization and that names like Acapulco Gold and Panama Red have been registered as trademarks. These rumors, accepted as old facts by many smokers, are entirely without evidence. Michael Aldrich reports that a group called Amorphia sent somebody to go through the files of the U.S. Patent Office in 1970 and found that nobody had registered the name Acapulco Gold. Amorphia applied for the name, hoping to use it to market rolling papers; the application was refused because Acapulco Gold is a generic name for a kind of marijuana, and generic names cannot be copyrighted.