Posted on 01/01/2018 4:40:21 PM PST by Mariner
It was six hours past midnight, but the crowd inside the Berkeley Patients Group counted down the seconds.
“Happy New Year,” they yelled at precisely 6 a.m. as a cashier rang up the cost of three joints, a $45.37 purchase representing one of the first recreational marijuana sales in the state.
The moment marked the launch of a new industry in California, one that’s heavily regulated and taxed, with revenue reaching several billion dollars per year.
The day has been long anticipated by cannabis advocates who pushed for voters to pass Proposition 64 in November 2016, largely decriminalizing marijuana and allowing for the commercial sale of products to adults 21 or older.
Earlier, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin and Democratic state Sen. Nancy Skinner joined a couple dozen people outside the Berkeley Patients Group waiting for the first sales.
“I’m stoked about this historic moment not just for Berkeley but for the state of California.” Arreguin said. “This is a long time coming.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
...a cashier rang up the cost of three joints, a $45.37 purchase representing one of the first recreational marijuana sales in the state....
Personally, I’m saving that $45.37.
Those are nice, fat pre-rolls at $12 a pop. Probably with some kif or hash oil. The rest is the tax.
Just exactly the way it happened with repeal of prohibition, right?
The great depression happened during the prohibition era.
Billions of dollars and untold lives have been wasted in the war on pot, to little effect beyond expanding government police powers.
These are facts. Make of them what you will.
Nanny liberals going for the worst parts of two worlds.
Maybe something will go right. Like long overdue self discovery.
Yep, and AZ will be next.
Ken Kesey blew through there 50 years ago with the Acid Tests. California will change very little because of this. Just another pothole on the road to ruin.
I have no idea of the conversion factor but at the price quoted in the article, people are going to be stealing plants out of gardens.
Not well
This is the result of Soros spending millions pushing pot.
He’s already moved on to heroin in Seattle, Washington.
Another effect has been the enrichment of violent criminals.
LOL
What the hell is the Scrooge McDuck?
“The west is gonna be the weed basket of the rest of the country until it goes national.”
Like I said in my opening comment: Nothing changes. Or will change.
I know, right? Just another excuse to tax.
Want to get rid of drugs?
Let the government run it, they’ll f@$€ it up in a year.
At this rate cocaine is gonna be cheaper than grass.
Next thing you know we’ll have a underground black market.
‘Nothing changes. Or will change.’ That would be the best case scenario. Those ‘groups’ who utilized MJ sales to finance their ‘operations’ will now require a different revenue source. Let’s hope that source will be as ‘benign’ (violence level) as their former income endeavor......
Nothing changed today, there was already de-facto legalization for years. “Medical marijuana” was a joke, anyone with $19 and an iPhone could get a medical marijuana ID card and buy all the weed they wanted (not taxed either). So basically this proposition was completely symbolic, everyone who wanted to smoke weed years ago was smoking years ago.
I’ve been offered it free by the fistful over the past year and seen more growing than I ever imagined back in high school, the state trying to manage 3 digit taxes off of it is going to be a zoo...
Try to drop me a freepmail before that goes off...
Douche.
A Consequence of Geography. Any group of people would be successful if they had California's geography.
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