Cali Cannabis Crisis
Cannabis
While still illegal from a Federal standpoint- the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) considers marijuana a Schedule 1 drug,* California was the first state to legalize medical cannabis with the passage of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996.
In 2016, California voters approved the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (Proposition 64) to legalize the recreational use of cannabis. In theory, the act would reduce crime associated with the illegal production, sale, and use by making legal, taxed weed readily available.
Sacramento legislators forgot to consult with privateer growers and the Mexican Drug Cartel, all of whom have been producing high grade weed in California for years.
The self-same Sacramento legislators also missed the Supply and Demand relationship during Economics 101. Too baked on weed to attend that day, no doubt.
Andy11M and David send, and are scheduled for a urinalysis screening.
California Pot Companies Warn of Impending Industry Collapse
The current system “is rigged for all to fail,” they wrote.
Leading California cannabis companies warned Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday that the state’s legal industry was on the verge of collapse and needed immediate tax cuts and a rapid expansion of retail outlets to steady the shaky marketplace.
The letter signed by more than two dozen executives, industry officials and legalization advocates followed years of complaints that the heavily taxed and regulated industry was unable to compete with the widespread illegal economy, where consumer prices are far lower and sales are double or triple the legal business.
Four years after broad legal sales began, “our industry is collapsing,” said the letter, which also was sent to legislative leaders in Sacramento.
The industry leaders asked for an immediate lifting of the cultivation tax placed on growers, a three-year holiday from the excise tax and an expansion of retail shops throughout much of the state.
The legal retail industry can’t compete price-wise with un-taxed wildcat distributors, surprise surprise. California has experienced a similar lack of success in reducing crime associated with illegal weed production.
Marijuana wars: Violent Mexican drug cartels turn Northern California into ‘The Wild West’
Beth Warren
COVELO, Calif. — Mexican drug cartels are muscling in on America’s burgeoning multi-billion-dollar marijuana industry, illegally growing large crops in the hills and valleys of Northern California.
The state legalized marijuana in 2016 for adult recreational use, yet the black market continues to thrive with thousands of illegal grows. Criminal syndicates, in turn, are cashing in across the U.S. on the “green gold rush.”
They’re undercutting prices of legalized products offered by permitted farmers who follow the rulegs and pay taxes.
And they’re exploiting workers, robbing and shooting adversaries, poisoning wildlife and poaching water in a state fighting widespread drought and devastating wildfires.
Lured by America’s push toward legalized cannabis, cartels have abandoned many decades-old marijuana farms in Mexico, moving their operations to Northern California where they can blend in seamlessly alongside legitimate grows, said Mike Sena, executive director of Northern California’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task forces.
“Why try to bring that bulk marijuana into the United States, when you can just grow it in the United States in remote locations like Mendocino County and then move it across the entire country?”
Government interference damaging private businesses is nothing new. One would think this is well understood and steps would be taken to ensure a safe product while mitigating the adverse impact on the providers.
Instead the Drug Cartels are reaping the profits while those playing by the rules suffer. Let’s Go, California!
Thanks, gentlemen.
*Schedule 1 drugs:
-The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
-The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical treatment use in the U.S.
-It has a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision.
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Border, Dick Stepping, Guest Link, Schadenfreude
You want me to pee in a cup? Fine! Let’s go! Who’s my observer? And who ever it is, you better turn on the sink so I can go.
Worst part about when I first got promoted to Sgt was going into the rotation to be an observer. Guy in my reserve unit couldn’t pee for FIVE hours, and of course I got saddled as his observer. Three guesses if he was going to melt that cup.
Someone please correct the spelling of my name, lol. Stupid phone posting.
Corrected, and I had to approve it, too.
A sailor in one of my commands was a hard core pot head, yet never pissed hot when tested. He was tested a lot, something to do with repeatedly rolling a 10 sided dice until his number popped.
Then sadly one day his test came back hot, and he was processed out. I asked how he flew under the radar for so long, and he said he added Clorox to his sample from an eye-dropper he carried for those occasions. This disqualified his samples as tampered with and were thrown out.
Then came the day he forgot his Clorox, and his Admin Discharge came through shortly after.
That’s a lot of work just to smoke pot.
I guess we wont be paying off the National Debt with taxes in weed as promised. Did you see mt surprised face?
😐
Maine currently enjoys a 10% tax on sales.
Each succeding month has been a record breaker.
MS13 doesn’t thrive in cold weather.
Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, and Buffalo would disagree.
It’s almost as though there is something different about Maine. Can’t put my finger on it. Something that makes it different than the other states….
Shhhh……
Don’t come here.
Just like these idiot politicians who plan to discourage smoking while at the same time generating billions to fund their utopian ideas. The only thing it does it pour more money into organized crime and terrorist organizations.
https://www.syracuse.com/state/2015/12/ny_losing_big_with_nations_highest_cigarette_tax.html
Hahahahahha! Suckers!
I’ll have you know my Forefathers threw the King’s tea in the harbour for a 2% tax increase. When the Crown got angry and sent his henchmen after ‘em a bunch of tricornered hatted ‘Yankee doodles’ took to beat the Sovereign’s Lobsterbacks to death with tomahawks.
It’s a human right to evade taxes, my New York Brothers and Sisters! Smuggle on, Patriots!
The whole Eric Garner Incident back in 2014 was instigated by the attempt to arrest him for selling untaxed cigarettes. A morbidly obese man resisted arrest and died in the ensuing struggle. All of the Democrats immediately condemned it, but it was their outrageous tax levied on cigarettes that caused the untaxed cigarette smugglers to thrive. Kind of like how they are always bitching about the rich not paying their “fair share”, but don’t demand that Al Sharpton pay his back personal and business taxes.
Got that right. Taxes are a weapon, intended or unintentionally, end up hurting those the profess to help.
Hartford CT: 70-something mil rate, Htfd Public ‘Schools’ pay some of the highest per student costs in the state, kids are basically in prisons with plenty drugs, locked into a perpetual poor people making machine… vote themselves higher taxes (indirectly, but that song remains the same)
But it’s the people in the ‘burbs fault, on which I agree. Everyone wants to hang together in this state. It’s a sight to see. I’d like to see Senator Blew-them-all’s taxes, you know, to make sure he’s ‘paying his fair share’.
Only the government could take a slam dunk and screw it up. You tax the crap out of something and people go back to their original suppliers. What did they think was going to happen. It is legal here but I never touch it, too much to loose. Way to go, you greedy morons!
Kalifornia Capitalism at it’s best as the Mary Jane buyer goes to the lowest seller. Can’t beat that deal.
They are just supporting those Mom & Pop operations.
National Geographic Channel had a segment on their show Trafficked. It explained Cali’s pot industry is getting strangled by regulations and I dare say Taxes. Add in competition from the Mexican Cartels and the Asian Triad along with banks not wanting to finance operations it’s better to just stay illegal.
I ain’t got a dog, or a Cheeto, in this fight but this should be a no-brainer. We MUST cut off the gangrenous limb known as California.
Warning: The author uses a false premise in the opening paragraph to frame the article… for no reason, but whatever. Keep doing you, brah.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisroberts/2021/11/30/california-police-are-letting-legal-marijuana-business-get-robbed-cannabis-industry-claims/?sh=777fbcec69c4
George Floyd’s fault. Surprised he didn’t blame Trump in the first sentence.
Just couldn’t shoehorn it in this time but he strikes me as the type that has a voodoo doll of 45 on his desk right next to the bong shaped like a phallus.
From the Forbes link:
“And according to outraged and bereft cannabis business owners, police are encouraging this crime wave by not responding to reports of break-ins—arriving hours later only to ask owners to file a police report, if they respond at all—or, in at least one recorded instance, appearing to stand by and watch as unarmed thieves robbed a legal marijuana store blind.”
Sounds to ol’ Poe that the Cali police are treatiing these drug stores the same way they treat any other, like…say…Walgreens?
Imagine being a cop with the DAs they’ve got out there…
I don’t blame them Police for being conservative with potential use-of-force incidents.
The heartbreaker is that because of the federal status on these shops many of them operate with increased margins on; insurance, banking (if they can be banked), rent, taxes (vis-à-vis what may or may not be deductible), etc.
Quite a mess they’ve made for themselves. Now they’re out of pot to sooth the sting of getting robbed!
It is legal for recreational use here in Michigan. I had quit for almost 40 years but recently began smoking a bit at bedtime because of diabetic neuropathy which make my feet throb at night. I use a private supplier for the same reason. Why pay higher prices for the same quality?
Any port in a storm, brother.
Bill, ol’ Poe has had serious foot neuropathy for years and kept it reasonably tolerable with heavy daily doses of Gabapentin.
Then a few year back Miz Poe came across this formulation of an essential oil nightly rub which has effectively ended those nighttime stabbing pains:
1oz carrier oil (she uses coconut)
3 drops geranium oil
3 drops lavender oil
2 drops bergamot oil
2 drops tea tree oil
2 drops eucalyptus oil
Rub it all over tops and bottoms and between the toes.
She uses only Young Living brand oils, which are among the most expensive, but the relief from those lightning jabs of pain and the much improved sleep are damned well worth it.
You get a nightly essential oil foot rub from your wife? Now that’s living.
Imagine what your young Rakkasan-self would say. 😉
In your dreams. Like so many handjobs, these are self-administered…✊✊✊
I too, use Gabapentin. However, my nephrologist (kidney doctor) has tried to limit me to 100mg daily. Even that amount messes with my equilibrium. I wish there was a suitable sub out there. I’ll try your concoction though and see if it works. Thanks.
Has been legal federally for over 3 years up here and the sky hasn’t fallen. The only good thing Turd-eau has done for Canada.
If only they could find a way to counter the ChiCom fentanyl that is killing far more people than COVID.
“Lured” is the wrong word. Isn’t it likely the Mexican cartels might have begun planning movement to California when Sacramento started buzzing about legalization? Or, maybe cartels funded the buzz?
Probably decided to move north about the time that California was proudly proclaiming themselves a sanctuary state and a white minority state. They want to be North Mexico, it seems like the cartels are willing to give it to them.
CA is Calizuela.
Mexico is nowhere near as screwed up as Venezuela.
As pointed out above, many a business in this Country has been taxed or regulated out of business. The Bad Idea Fairy is still alive and well. And who didn’t see all of this coming?
California
Screwed up the business of growing and selling
Weed.
….
Weed.
…
Any idiot can grow and sell weed.
California screwed up … weed.
…..
Calizuela, indeed.
As usual, they shit their own collective nest and now have to sleep in it. Unfortunately, shit like this makes the moonbats migrate to infest other locales and turn them to shit like they did with Portland and Seattle!
Illinois has legalized pot, or at least made it to where they can profit from it as well (tax). Not sure what the tax is, but I hear it’s frikken expensive.
Funniest part to me anyway, in my area, it’s located next to Illinois state Police headquarters. Don’t get caught walking from dispensary to the car you parked on the state cops rather large, convenient parking lot.
I wonder if the cops are/were told to look the other way when this happens because you know, tax money.
Both sides (cartels & gooberment) are gonna have chapped asses when growing weed becomes as accepted (and legal) as growing tomatoes and zucchini. (I can see the over-the-back-fence discussions and seed swapping)
And what becomes of all that backyard garden grown excess zucchini (weed)? It’s given to the neighbors and becomes zucchini bread (Alice B brownies).
No matter which side of the “Do It”, “Don’t Do It”, fence you are on, consider this:
By their own admission, the US DEA has spent 1 trillion dollars since their beginning.
$1,000,000,000,000
Now, are drugs any more scarce than since they started? Are there any fewer street corners where one can find drugs.
The case can be made that with the onset of US DEA, they caused transportation/distribution prices to rise, making it more lucrative for the cartels and other big crime organizations.