California Pot Industry Warns of Imminent Collapse

[Ben]

This is not unexpected, given the CA plan was that legalizing pot would be their tax cash cow. What's interesting is that it looks like Newsom is going to help them out - something you would not see him doing for most other industries.

 https://news.yahoo.com/california-pot-companies-warn-impending-202704687.html?guccounter=1

Part of the claim is that illegal pot sells for half of what legal pot does. Interestingly, I recently read that the Oregon pot industry is also being hit by black market sales, but OR has much more lenient regulations and taxes for pot than does CA, and they are still making money (both legal pot shops and the state and cities) hand over fist.


On the tangent, I find I have been flip-flopping regarding my views on legal drugs. For a very long time, I was very much against legal drugs. Then as I got older I got a little more libertarian, and a combination of "who cares what other people do?" and a hope that things like no-knocks, that pretty much started via the war on drugs, might be reduced got me at least a little pro-legal drugs.

Now I'm back to being against them, and it's all from what I've seen over the border from me in Oregon. I go to Ontario OR a good bit. When I first moved here a few years ago, I didn't give a second thought to leaving my car unlocked pretty much wherever I went in Ontario. Now I constantly lock the car and also make sure to stay in condition yellow. Why? Pot shops. In just a couple of years of the dozen or so pot shops in this city, crime has gone up like crazy.

They are having more car thefts than ever before, more robberies, and you can see a whole new demographic of unsavory characters that have shown up in that city. Yet it's okay with the city council, because pot is making the city rich. They apparently sell more pot in Ontario than they do in Portland (partially thanks to Idaho potheads). You didn't see this when people were illegally buying their pot from the guy on the street.

Watching the quality of life deteriorate in this way has me going back to my old conservative ways.

[HankB]

If I were a pot smoker who hadn't completely addled his brain and was still functional, I'd grow my own rather than pay the artificially inflated prices heavily taxed pot shops charge.

From the story, it seems that a lot of people are either doing that, or buying from others who do.

[MillCreek]

^^^I don't follow it very closely, but I think in Washington, even if you need pot for true medical purposes, you cannot grow your own.  You have to buy it from a pot shop so the state can get their cut. 

[WLJ]

^^^I don't follow it very closely, but I think in Washington, even if you need pot for true medical purposes, you cannot grow your own.  You have to buy it from a pot shop so the state can get their cut.

But can you grow your own if you don't need it?

[ConstitutionCowboy]

Those who work for a living are being BURIED by those who vote for a living.

Aint that the truth! To vote for a living is to sell one's self into political servitude.

As for the pot crisis in California, well ............. Eh!

Woody

[HankB]

^^^I don't follow it very closely, but I think in Washington, even if you need pot for true medical purposes, you cannot grow your own.  You have to buy it from a pot shop so the state can get their cut. 

Even if growing your own is not allowed, when pot is legal the odds of being caught for growing your own are minuscule if you're discrete and keep your mouth shut. Going into business for yourself and selling your "home grown" weed (or even giving it to pothead "friends") is what will get you in trouble.

I bet there are a bunch of legitimate users (e.g., people who use it to relieve the side effects of chemotherapy) growing their own who are - and will remain - below the radar.

[MillCreek]

Even if growing your own is not allowed, when pot is legal the odds of being caught for growing your own are minuscule if you're discrete and keep your mouth shut. Going into business for yourself and selling your "home grown" weed (or even giving it to pothead "friends") is what will get you in trouble.

I bet there are a bunch of legitimate users (e.g., people who use it to relieve the side effects of chemotherapy) growing their own who are - and will remain - below the radar.

I think you are absolutely right.  I have read anecdotal stories of people with 2-3 plants for personal use. They aren't sucking up so much electricity that they come to the attention of the power company for a commercial grow farm, and you can't track the operation by smell.  There is a commercial pot farm about three miles away from me, and every time I ride my bicycle past it, I can start smelling it from about 1/4 mile away.

[Ben]

growing their own who are - and will remain - below the radar.

I have a friend from High School that I still keep in touch with and he has been growing his own (currently has an entire spare bedroom dedicated to it) for well over 40 years (in CA). He's 62. He currently claims it's all medicinal, but I know when he was younger he was growing it recreationally for himself and those of his friends who were loadies.

[grampster]

Interesting topic.  I have noticed that the north end of our fair city and north burbs of Grand Rapids has had and increase in burglary attempts, car theft, theft from cars.  I hadn't thought about the legal pot stores.  There is at least one that I know about and maybe more as I don't pay any attention to them.
Here in Michigan one can grow a few plants for your own use.  You have to grow them so they are not obvious to anyone going by your property.  You can also legally carry a small amount in your vehicle.  I think the tax at the pot stores have to charge is 30%.  Somebody told me that, so I don't know if it's accurate.

[Nick1911]

I think you are absolutely right.  I have read anecdotal stories of people with 2-3 plants for personal use. They aren't sucking up so much electricity that they come to the attention of the power company for a commercial grow farm, and you can't track the operation by smell.  There is a commercial pot farm about three miles away from me, and every time I ride my bicycle past it, I can start smelling it from about 1/4 mile away.

Also agreed.  I'd say it's broadly applicable to victimless crimes.  The nature of them means that there is no one to report it; it's very difficult to detect if the perpetrator does their thing and keeps quiet about it.

[Ben]

Interesting topic.  I have noticed that the north end of our fair city and north burbs of Grand Rapids has had and increase in burglary attempts, car theft, theft from cars.  I hadn't thought about the legal pot stores.  There is at least one that I know about and maybe more as I don't pay any attention to them.

Certainly a lot of factors come can come into play. I wonder if the crime and undesirable residents increase would be the same in my example city if there were only one or two stores instead of a freakin' dozen. Or if Ontario were not on the border of a non-legal state which created a demand to support all the extra pot shops.

[Ben]

And from Oregon:

https://www.kivitv.com/news/awash-in-illegal-pot-farms-oregon-plans-millions-for-relief

[Pb]

Is MJ harder to grow than other plants?  I'm trying to figure out why is is still expensive if it is legal.  I mean, tobacco isn't that much. 

[Ben]

Is MJ harder to grow than other plants?  I'm trying to figure out why is is still expensive if it is legal.  I mean, tobacco isn't that much. 

Taxes, regulations, and a very big expense - air filtration for the greenhouses to keep the freakin' skunky smell out of residential communities. The whole reason a lot of these states made pot legal is because the state and local governments figured they could step in and take the place of the cartels - making all the money via their cuts from the growers and sellers.

[Perd Hapley]

This is not unexpected, given the CA plan was that legalizing pot would be their tax cash cow. What's interesting is that it looks like Newsom is going to help them out - something you would not see him doing for most other industries.

 https://news.yahoo.com/california-pot-companies-warn-impending-202704687.html?guccounter=1

Part of the claim is that illegal pot sells for half of what legal pot does. Interestingly, I recently read that the Oregon pot industry is also being hit by black market sales, but OR has much more lenient regulations and taxes for pot than does CA, and they are still making money (both legal pot shops and the state and cities) hand over fist.


On the tangent, I find I have been flip-flopping regarding my views on legal drugs. For a very long time, I was very much against legal drugs. Then as I got older I got a little more libertarian, and a combination of "who cares what other people do?" and a hope that things like no-knocks, that pretty much started via the war on drugs, might be reduced got me at least a little pro-legal drugs.

Now I'm back to being against them, and it's all from what I've seen over the border from me in Oregon. I go to Ontario OR a good bit. When I first moved here a few years ago, I didn't give a second thought to leaving my car unlocked pretty much wherever I went in Ontario. Now I constantly lock the car and also make sure to stay in condition yellow. Why? Pot shops. In just a couple of years of the dozen or so pot shops in this city, crime has gone up like crazy.

They are having more car thefts than ever before, more robberies, and you can see a whole new demographic of unsavory characters that have shown up in that city. Yet it's okay with the city council, because pot is making the city rich. They apparently sell more pot in Ontario than they do in Portland (partially thanks to Idaho potheads). You didn't see this when people were illegally buying their pot from the guy on the street.

Watching the quality of life deteriorate in this way has me going back to my old conservative ways.

I'm (so far) in the second phase, as I don't see the justification for stopping people from making stupid decisions for themselves. I wonder if the increase in crime you're seeing is part of the larger trend, and not due to drug policy.

Then again, maybe it's just more evidence that we can only be a nation of minimal regulations if we self-regulate through religion, keep our families intact through old-fashioned, straight-laced social pressure, etc.

[Ben]

I'm (so far) in the second phase, as I don't see the justification for stopping people from making stupid decisions for themselves. I wonder if the increase in crime you're seeing is part of the larger trend, and not due to drug policy.

Maybe, but this area of the country hasn't seen the big crime increases (e.g., mass lootings) you see in the bigger cities and blue states. There's not enough evidence for 100% correlation, but pot shops + crime increase (including robbing said pot shops) seems a bit more than coincidental. If it were an overall trend of more crime, I would expect to see similar increases in nearby cities and towns, but there aren't any.

Like I said, I was going more towards "live and let live" until I saw negative changes in my AO. Now "not in my backyard" has a higher weighting for me than their freedom to do drugs.

[BobR]

Is MJ harder to grow than other plants?  I'm trying to figure out why is is still expensive if it is legal.  I mean, tobacco isn't that much. 

Not hard at all to grow. When I was in high school back in the late 60s we would disperse seeds around a few ponds out on the impact areas on the ranges out on Ft Sill. It grew just fine without any tending. You could also find it growing on the edges of the Red River south of Lawton going to Texas.

bob

[dogmush]

Places in Europe that are famous for legal MJ don't seem to have an added crime problem. We also don't see added problems from Pot Shops in FL since the recent medical marijuana legalization. At least if there is more crime, it doesn't stand out from the background of meth head crime.

I wonder what it is about how Oregon is doing legal pot shops that is causing the extra crime.

[Ben]

I wonder what it is about how Oregon is doing legal pot shops that is causing the extra crime.

I can't say that it's all of Oregon. My example is just this one data point that I've been watching change. Not that it does or doesn't have anything to do with it, but it IS a historically, very, very conservative area. Just WAGing it, but I would guess at least 75% of the pre-pot shop county population would have been against legalization.

[Bogie]

I don't really see a problem with the baked folks, or even those who provide their party favors...
 
It's other stuff that may run on the fringes, such as meth...

[AZRedhawk44]

If I were a pot smoker who hadn't completely addled his brain and was still functional, I'd grow my own rather than pay the artificially inflated prices heavily taxed pot shops charge.

From the story, it seems that a lot of people are either doing that, or buying from others who do.

There's CONSIDERABLE wrath from the MJ consuming crowd for the last 50+ years in regards to this issue.  My understanding is they will be damned before they will contribute one red cent to the same government that imprisoned thousands of growers/dealers/distributors, by means of legalized MJ taxes.

Most of the MJ market is still black market out of principle.  And legalizing weed has lowered the black market price since risk is now a lot lower and hobbyist level production is less risky.  Honestly, it's probably MORE decentralized now than it was when it was fully illegal.

[Bogie]

So, how would one go about acquiring some good seeds?

[BlueStarLizzard]

I would say the crime element probably has a LOT more to do with governments trying to regulate the stuff like they do the other heavily taxed vices on a group of people who have already been breaking the law for decades.

[zxcvbob]

So, how would one go about acquiring some good seeds?

That's a good question (Academically, of course.) I've heard that people buy seeds in Scandanavian countries, but they how to smuggle them back to the States?  Perhaps there's a black market for seeds here.  I wouldn't know.

[Andiron]

This is not unexpected, given the CA plan was that legalizing pot would be their tax cash cow. What's interesting is that it looks like Newsom is going to help them out - something you would not see him doing for most other industries.

 https://news.yahoo.com/california-pot-companies-warn-impending-202704687.html?guccounter=1

Part of the claim is that illegal pot sells for half of what legal pot does. Interestingly, I recently read that the Oregon pot industry is also being hit by black market sales, but OR has much more lenient regulations and taxes for pot than does CA, and they are still making money (both legal pot shops and the state and cities) hand over fist.


On the tangent, I find I have been flip-flopping regarding my views on legal drugs. For a very long time, I was very much against legal drugs. Then as I got older I got a little more libertarian, and a combination of "who cares what other people do?" and a hope that things like no-knocks, that pretty much started via the war on drugs, might be reduced got me at least a little pro-legal drugs.

Now I'm back to being against them, and it's all from what I've seen over the border from me in Oregon. I go to Ontario OR a good bit. When I first moved here a few years ago, I didn't give a second thought to leaving my car unlocked pretty much wherever I went in Ontario. Now I constantly lock the car and also make sure to stay in condition yellow. Why? Pot shops. In just a couple of years of the dozen or so pot shops in this city, crime has gone up like crazy.

They are having more car thefts than ever before, more robberies, and you can see a whole new demographic of unsavory characters that have shown up in that city. Yet it's okay with the city council, because pot is making the city rich. They apparently sell more pot in Ontario than they do in Portland (partially thanks to Idaho potheads). You didn't see this when people were illegally buying their pot from the guy on the street.

Watching the quality of life deteriorate in this way has me going back to my old conservative ways.

It's strange,  isn't it?  I made the same journey.  Naturally conservative, to a socially liberal Libertarian, to... I don't know.  Conservatives conserve nothing, and the Left and Libertarians have lead us to the current hellscape.

Politics have made strange bedfellows for me in the past few years.  Mosley wasn't wrong with his predictions of the future.