DOPEY LOGIC ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

It's easy to grasp the economics of the situation.

It's the logic behind it that sets the mind spinning.

The stories about the cost of medicinal marijuana, which soon can be
sold to people with prescriptions at eight dispensaries across the
state, contain more turns than a lighthouse staircase.

It's bizarre to think the cost for a legal substance -- medicinal
marijuana -- must be made the same price (or more) as its illegal
version -- street marijuana -- to keep those who buy it legally from
profiting by selling it illegally.

So, dispensaries are planning to price their pot at $300-$400 an
ounce, which is reportedly what the drug costs on the street. But that
leaves the typical cancer patient spending $500 or more a month to get
enough for adequate pain relief -- in addition to the $100 annual fee
the state plans to charge people to use the dispensaries.

It's as though Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes came up with a
new law of economics during a long evening with Cheech and Chong. It
may not be Nobel Prize-winning thought, but it seems unique in the
annals of commerce.

One can imagine the case studies in college textbooks, where
supply-and-demand theory crosses paths with charts created by M.C.
Escher, the fellow who drew staircases that only went up and never
down.

The issue is "diversion," which is what potheads say they have in mind
by lighting up, but this time it means taking a substance prescribed
as a medicine and selling it as a recreational drug.

Then the textbooks will have to explain why, if the state law
governing the dispensaries says they must be nonprofit enterprises,
they can still make money and pay substantial salaries whose amounts
don't have to be made public.

Because they don't deal with the general public, like nonprofits such
as homeless shelters or volunteer fire departments, dispensaries fall
under rules covering private nonprofits, such as condominium
associations or even private golf clubs (which, come to think of it,
also make money on the quality of their grass).

Where are patients whose monthly stipends run around $700 going to get
$500 for a drug?

Well, we also read that in California, where dispensaries are already
legal, voters may soon legalize recreational pot, which may bring the
price down to around $38 an ounce.

Now, there's a potential boost for interstate commerce.