Legalize it!

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by RobH4413

I'll be honest and say that I really don't know nearly enough about the global market, but why isn't tobacco imported if such was the case.

It seems that the same logic should be applied there. Marijuana can grow in North Carolina... where there are plenty of tobacco farms.

That's my whole point. We could grow pot in NC, but companies would have to either:

1) Buy more land for fields, raze them, fertilize them, irrigate them, plant and then harvest. This requires major capital investment (purchase of the land, contracting an agricultural engineering firm to raze, capital equipment to irrigate, engineers to design the irrigation, supplies to fertilize, etc).

2) Stop growing tobacco in existing tobacco fields and start growing weed there instead. This requires little capital investment but cuts into tobacco revenues. There would be a net zero incremental impact to overall revenues from the combined sale of weed & tobacco.

Tobacco isn't imported because we've had the infrastructure in place for tobacco harvesting since the 1800s. We make the stuff very cheaply, and then tax the living shitake mushrooms out of it.