Per the article:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/11/18/131118fa_fact_keefe?currentPage=all
They hired an “expert” in cannabis legalization. What?
Bah, nonsense.
Here’s how you introduce cannabis commercialization:
• Get pharmacies to distribute marijuana. Marijuana is a DRUG and should be managed like one.
• Price marijuana at half or less of the street value.
• One must be at least 21 years of age to purchase.
• Limit the single purchase amounts. 1 oz. per sale max.
• Allow personal cultivation up to a maximum dry storage of 8 oz. and a live plant count of 5 plants.
• Licensed growers only will be allowed production quantity cultivation.
The approach must effectively be a blending of the laws regarding the sale of cigarettes, prescription drugs, and alcohol:
One must be 21 to buy cigarettes and alcohol.
One must request cigarettes from behind the counter.
One must buy prescription drugs through a pharmacist at a pharmacy.
One is barred from producing sale-able quantities of tobacco or alcohol (moonshiners).
One will incur fines, penalties and jail time if you circumvent any of the laws regarding the production, purchasing or sale of cigarettes, drugs or alcohol.
Marijuana should be managed as if it’s a combination of all three.
As to pricing of marijuana – it’s obvious. One must severely undercut every illicit dealer in one swoop so as to eliminate, over night, the illegal cannabis network, from Mexican/Canadian grower, cartel, dealer, peddler — to customer. How do you destroy a competitor? Price the product so that competition is financially impossible.
Take all of the above and apply it to marijuana
– simple, transparent and strict.
Additionally, why not contract with cigarette manufacturers, have them bid for the job, to produce cannabis cigarettes. Have them dye the paper a green color (from hemp dye) and sell them by the pack. Why should cannabis be only sold in baggies? Why not fully productize the drug just like tobacco? (Vaping now is the preferred way of consumption so canna-rettes would be frowned upon.)
When small time commercial growers exceed their limits, the surplus will be added to the “general storage fund” of marijuana supply. All confiscated marijuana will be added to the general production supply.
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
http://qz.com/155981
Uruguay’s senate is set to pass an historic bill (link in Spanish) today that will make the country the world’s first to legalize marijuana.
The new law will let locals join marijuana social clubs, which will be allowed to grow the drug for their own collective consumption. It will also let individuals grow marijuana at home with a six plant limit. Neither individuals nor clubs, however, will be allowed to sell what they grow. The only entity allowed to deal the drug will be the government.
Under the new law, Uruguayans registered with the government will be allowed to buy up to 40 grams (1.4 ounces) of marijuana from government-licensed pharmacies. Private companies roped in to help produce enough weed to meet local demand will have to sell their crop to the government for distribution.
The hope is that legalizing marijuana’s production and sale (it’s already legal to consume it) will kill off the black market, which has driven up local drug prices and regional drug-related violence. Legalizing marijuana trade, according to Uruguay’s president José Mujica, will also free up the country’s police forces to tackle more serious illicit drugs, like cocaine, which soak up more government resources.
The government will rake in some extra cash in the process. The black market for marijuana is worth some $40 million. The government won’t earn as much; it plans to sell the drug for about $1 a gram, roughly 30% less than the black market price. But it can count on a lot of customers; Uruguay has a relatively high percentage of pot smokers for the region—third only to Argentina and Chile.
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