Cut red tape to save cannabis in the state
Remember when allowing the legal sale of marijuana in California was going to be such a panacea for the state?
After a century of active state-sanctioned prohibition, which harmed thousands of lives, and cost untold hundreds of millions of citizen-earned tax dollars, the underground cannabis market would finally be brought out into the sunshine in the Golden State.
The financial benefits that would be reaped for Sacramento and our cities!
The safety it would bring to the trade, with its bans on dangerous pesticides and herbicides, and its elimination of the exploitation of often undocumented workers!
The freeing-up of law-enforcement budgets to concentrate on real crime and public safety!
Formerly incarcerated Californians who had been hounded down the decades for the supposed crime of pot transactions and possession would see their records properly wiped clean, and, if they so desired, could get first in line for opening up licensed shops, like liquor stores for weed, with the same kind of regulations. Nothing too onerous. Don't sell to the kids and don't become a neighborhood nuisance, Easy enough to get set up in every city in the state, right?
Sadly, if that's the way you think it's gone for the legal marijuana business since California voters approved Proposition 64 in 2016, you've been smoking too much herb.
Taxes, regulations, over-regulation, the pressures of competing with the still-vibrant underground sellers — they all have driven legal cannabis cultivators to the brink of going out of business, and into despair.
“Despite the challenges of growing an illegal crop, including enforcement raids that still scar residents, the `war on drugs' kept product scarce and prices high,” CalMatters reports.
As one longtime resident and veteran of the business puts it: “Everybody was making so much money it was insane.”
Not so much in the late winter of 2023.
A pound of fancy cannabis that might have fetched $1,000 or more several years ago is now selling for just a few hundred dollars — not enough to cover expenses and taxes.
Legal sales in the state fell by 8% last year to $5.3 billion, according to tax data from Sacramento, marking the first downturn since actual legal sales began in 2018.
Farms are closing down, and thousands of unemployed and under-employed cannabis workers are looking for new jobs, or are leaving the growing region entirely. What's the answer?
It doesn't take a Harvard MBA to analyze the industry's problems. If lawmakers and the governor don't deregulate, lower or temporarily eliminate taxes and make it possible for the mom-and-pops to compete, the legal industry that Californians said they wanted to legalize seven years ago is simply going to disappear.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature last year did eliminate one cultivation tax after farmers begged for some relief. But that was too little, too late.
Much more needs to be done. And undone.
“State Sen. Mike McGuire, a Democrat who represents the north coast, blamed Proposition 64 for setting up family farmers for failure with a litany of `suffocating rules,” as CalMatters notes. “He is preparing to introduce legislation this spring that could undo some of those regulations for small growers, including an `antiquated, cockamamie licensing structure' that requires them to keep paying annual fees even if they fallow their land because of the price drop and a ban on selling cannabis directly to consumers, something that is allowed for other agricultural products.”
California needs to change those strictures and more to save the industry. Individual cities and counties as well need to cut their crazy red tape tying up retail businesses. And one promising big change is in fact being looked at by the state. Department of Cannabis Control Director Nicole Elliott has requested an opinion from the state Justice Department on negotiating deals with other states to allow weed to be exported there.
Neighboring Nevada and Arizona, for instance, are huge markets for California wine. Why not for the second-mostfamous California crop as well?
It's not a violation of the First Amendment to cancel `Dilbert'
Something that has been bothering me for years has recently come up again in the wake of the Scott Adams controversy, and that is the interpretation of the right to freedom of speech.
The First Amendment protects people from prosecution or arrest when expressing an opinion.
It does not protect people from consequences for those opinions. I have recently read many letters online stating that the first amendment protects Adams and allows his opinion, and therefore publishers shouldn't be cancelling his comic strip “Dilbert.”
That is not correct.
The publishers have every right to cancel his strip if they feel his comments do not agree with the views of the paper; that is their first amendment right as well.
Please stop equating the freedom of prosecution with the freedom of consequences.
— Terrence Mangold, Placentia
Canceling `Dilbert' was a knee-jerk reaction
I'm so tired of other people making decisions for everyone else regarding censorship and the canceling of people and their livelihoods.
If something “offends” you, why not just stop reading it, looking at it, or listening to it, and then move on?
Why must we all give in to the demands of a few squeaky wheels?
What truly offends me is the high-and-mighty paragraph on the front page of the newspaper, explaining why it was necessary to join the cancel culture and get rid of “Dilbert.” Hysterical knee-jerk reaction to the perpetual whiney and woke.
What Scott Adams said was wrong, but why cancel `Dilbert'?
For the past few years we have been living in a cancel-culture society. Now if somebody is offended by remarks from an individual, the individual is canceled instead of being suspended or some other punishment.
Scott Adams, the creator of popular comic “Dilbert,” said some racist remarks about Black people, which he obviously believed were true.
People in authority were offended by his remarks and decided to cancel his comic in hundreds of newspapers instead of just suspending the comic for a period of time or some other punishment. His remarks had nothing to do with the content of his comic. Now us fans of the comic are deprived of it.
By contrast, Don Lemon, a popular host on CNN, made some disparaging sexist remarks about women and was criticized and punished for it, but he was not canceled. He is back on the air.
It's obvious that there is a double standard in this country.
It's an overreaction to drop `Dilbert'
Regarding the ban on “Dilbert.” I think the paper's editorial board is overreacting. Racism and bigoted speech is detestable, but I never saw any of that in the cartoon strip, unless of course people feel Mr. Adams is prejudiced against clueless pointy-haired bosses. I always felt it was a decent replacement for the “Far Side.” Bring back the strip. Let your informed and adult readers make their own decisions.
`Dilbert' termination is not a free speech issue
To my fellow readers who are whining about the First Amendment with respect to the very correct decision to axe Dilbert from the comic pages: You might try reading the First Amendment. This is not a First Amendment issue. The First Amendment prohibits the government from censoring speech.
It says nothing about decisions by non-government entities, including newspaper publishers. You have the right to prohibit anyone from entering your home. In the same way, without exception, newspapers have the unequivocal right to decide what they publish on their pages. And what they don't.
`Dilbert `will be better than replacement comic
I'm sorry but the “Loose Parts” comic strip is about as funny as screen doors on a submarine. I need to start my day with a laugh. Please bring back Dilbert.
Scott Adams isn't a racist
So, the paper jumps on the woke bandwagon and bans `Dilbert' from the comics. I suggest you read what Adams said about the Rasmussen poll questions.
In my view, the racists were the ones who answered “no” to the poll. Adams is no racist and you all know it.