The right to grow your own

Worth noting: NORML makes a point about the upcoming legalization debate that should be obvious, but about which reformers will need to be vigilant.

Allowing for the legal, personal cultivation of cannabis provides consumers with the option to grow their own product should commercially available sources offer cannabis that fails to meet the consumers‰ needs because it is excessively expensive, too heavily taxed, or of inferior quality. The mere threat of consumers exercising this option should be sufficient to assure that the legal market for cannabis will be responsive to the needs of consumers, and will not be exploitive.
So when any organization or any state or federal legislator proposes legalizing cannabis, either for medical use or for personal pleasure, but forbids the consumer from growing their own cannabis, those of us who lobby on this issue must insist on amendments to permit personal cultivation.

Update: Alex disagrees.

I don’t care how tightly regulated regulate the market is as long as the controls are primarily civil rather than criminal. I don’t care if you can “grow your own” as long as somebody is allowed to grow it for you, legally, and sell it to you legally, and you are permitted to use it legally, as an adult. […]
Marijuana partisans should recognize this if their goal is to get legislation passed and not simply to spend time thinking about utopian alternatives to the status quo.