I’m a simple man and I like simple things. I like good food I like to work hard I like to learn new things and skills I like to save What are some of the simple things you like?

For whatever reason, speaking about the cannabis industry on YouTube is a major no-no. Very few videos I’ve made get demonetized and suppressed by the algorithm the way content about the cannabis industry does. That’s unfortunate, because it is a near-perfect real-world example of the Cantillon Effect, and a useful case study for applying the four economic forces. I grew up in Oregon, where cannabis was never treated as a serious criminal offense. If you were caught with weed, it was a misdemeanor and you paid a possession fine. For many people, it was a popular and quietly profitable side hustle. The illicit drug market is heavily influenced by pop culture and by laws that make the risk-versus-reward tradeoff extreme. At its core, this is supply and demand. If you take something people want and make it illegal, you don’t eliminate demand — you increase price. Sex, drugs, and firearms all demonstrate how prohibition creates extreme value through risk and limited supply. In Oregon today, the opposite problem exists. An overabundance of cannabis production has driven prices sharply lower. Supply has overwhelmed demand. Prices are now determined not just by availability, but by the disappearance of risk and by access to surrounding markets. When cannabis was illegal, projecting massive profits was easy. Once the risk was removed, the value evaporated. The uncomfortable truth is that cannabis is essentially worthless. Anyone can grow it, especially when it’s legal. The availability is nearly endless, and the volume that can be grown and harvested has completely overwhelmed the market. As a result, prices and projected tax revenues are collapsing, cutting into state budgets and creating shortfalls in social programs that were designed to fund behavioral health services and drug rehabilitation. This is the exact opposite of what was expected. What was sold as a massive tax windfall has proven to be a limited resource with no meaningful long-term benefit. That raises the question: what could Cantillon and 3 other economic theories have taught us about this outcome ahead of time?

Trying to educate myself to help navigate this economy.