Posted on 07/15/2021 12:38:52 PM PDT by Mariner
Nearly five years after Californians voted to create a legal marijuana industry through Proposition 64, the illegal weed market is as big as or even bigger than it was before the ballot measure passed.
The end of prohibition at the state level was supposed to be the beginning of a highly regulated marijuana market served by legitimate, taxpaying companies (even though marijuana remains illegal under federal law). Legalization was billed as a way to tame the Wild West-style marijuana industry, which often flouted environmental and health strictures and was a bastion for organized crime.
It hasn’t worked out that way for a variety of reasons. Nowhere is the failure of Proposition 64 more apparent than in the deserts of Southern California, where a booming illegal marijuana industry has spread across the arid landscape.
In the last several years, more than a thousand marijuana plantations have sprung up between the Antelope Valley and the Colorado River, Times reporters Jaclyn Cosgrove and Louis Sahagún found. Authorities say the illicit farms are responsible for forced labor, violence, water theft and the destruction of fragile desert habitat and wildlife.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has identified 500 illegal farms in the area in recent flyovers. In one raid, the department seized 373,000 pot plants and more than 16 tons of harvested marijuana with a street value of more than $1 billion. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has come across 860 illegal growers.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
This in a state where neighbors trade quart jars of buds like others trade tomatoes.
I'm genuinely surprised there's a legal market at all. It must be tourists.
280 to 300/oz has been the standard for a long time.
Unless you use cop math
Not surprising since the idea was came from potheads. Dopers aren’t noted for thinking things through.
But of course all we will hear are more explanations about how legalization wasn’t done right. Sound familiar?
yep greed! greed of California. reasonable taxes would solve the issue, BUT NO!
“But of course all we will hear are more explanations about how legalization wasn’t done right. “
It’s impossible to regulate a crop that’s easier to grow than tomatoes.
The dope growers made a deal with government under the stupid assumption they could control the supply chain.
They were both in it for the money.
“CA drives the price of pot to over $300/ounce with crazy taxes...and wonders why “illegal” grows are expanding.”
That’s the same price it was 30 years ago.
I’m pretty sure California is lost and can be written off
“the department seized 373,000 pot plants and more than 16 tons of harvested marijuana with a street value of more than $1 billion”
Umm, even at $300/oz the cops’ math seems to be off by a factor of ten.
That’s funny! I love that image. Its legal here in Michigan but very placid.
$140 - $160 here in CO. Around harvest, you can find them $100 a zip.
Each of the 373,000 plants should produce at least a pound of buds.
$4,800 (per pound, retail) X 373,000 = $1,790,400,000.
People who completely ignored the law to grow MJ when it was illegal are hardly likely to obey the law now.
Ah, I wasn’t considering the plants, just the 16 tons figure.
Lol. True enough. All you have to do is throw seeds on the ground and come back later.
I haven't heard any stories like this from legalizer Alaska; have you?
BTW, from the article:
"There has never been enough enforcement against illegal cannabis operators. Even repeated crackdowns haven’t made a significant dent in the black market because of weak and underutilized penalties.
"Proposition 64 downgraded illegal cultivation from a felony to a misdemeanor punishable with a $500 fine and up to six months in jail. That was intended to address a real disparity — enforcement of marijuana laws had disproportionately affected Black and Latino men, leaving them with criminal records that make it harder to get a job or to advance in their careers. But the practical effect is that the penalties are not stiff enough now to deter illegal pot businesses."
Only the government could screw up something like legal pot...
Gee. Maybe then it’s true that only a moral people can be free. Whaddya know?
Equally true is that government force can't make a people moral.
The Rats are going to try to disprove that and simply create another mass human tragedy.
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