50 grams does not threaten the tax revenue. I think the conversation started there, being a threat to government revenues.
If a hundred thousand people growing pot threatened those revenues, then the government would crack down and start enforcing the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act or whatever it was called in the 1930’s. A person growing a pound or two would be seen as a threat and BATFEW would sniff you out like a pot of sour mash.
Distilling a liter or four of brandy does not threaten them either and it’s as easy as pouring wine (even cheap wine) into an old pressure cooker with a condenser attached. Distill it on the stove. If you use your own wine (like a batch that didn’t turn out well) it’s pretty economical too. Quicker than pot, no watering, and your legal exposure is much shorter.
And if you make your own wine, you have all the stuff you need to crack corn, mix with Klages malt and some sugar, and ferment into a smelly sour mash...or so I’m told.
The ability to produce your own supply with no exposure is an inherent threat to the government’s revenues. If they can’t detect it, they can’t stop it. You say the BATF will sniff you out if you’re growing pounds... the whole point is that you don’t have to grow pounds. If you’re only growing for yourself, 50 grams every four months is all you’ll need.
It’s not one man growing 50 grams, it’s everyone who doesn’t want to pay twice as much for their weed growing 50 grams. If the government is getting into the pot-dealing business strictly for the money, as is (inexplicably) being advocated around here, of course the taxes are going to be massive. We’re talking about leftists here. That’s what they do, they can’t help themselves. And in this case, the public — the overwhelmingly majority of whom don’t touch the stuff — will not only support it, they’ll demand it. The same can’t be said for alcohol, which is consumed on some level by the majority of American adults. There’s no mandate to tax it into submission, therefore the need to produce your own supply is non-existent. It’s mostly done for hobby anymore.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Watch what happens with tobacco in the next year, after the April 1 tax hike. Tax revenues are going to plunge as home tobacco growing explodes (it’s already happening). And it’s much easier to grow long term supplies of pot than it is to grow tobacco (because people use tobacco in much larger quantities).