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California's Legal Pot Industry is Biggest in the World, with Sacramento Ground Zero
Unregulated market remains major concern with $8.7 billion in black market sales[CaliforniaGlobe] California’s legal recreational and medicinal cannabis industry is not only "the biggest government-sanctioned market in the nation," but also the "biggest legal marijuana market in the world," a new report issued by the Governmental Accountability Institute says. Individual cannabis permits in the state have sold for as much as $17 million. There were more than 7,500 active cannabis licenses in California in 2020, including 910 retail dispensaries. However, the reach of the unregulated market remains a major concern as estimates have revealed about $8.7 billion in black market sales. Thus, taking legal and illegal sales into account, the California market sold a whopping $12.0 billion in cannabis and related products in 2019. This makes the legal cannabis market in California about $3.3 billion in sales. The GAI says, "evidence suggests that the current California framework allows for increased corruption in a system where ’money talks.’" Where California’s pot industry gets dodgy is how many politicians and dozens of former government officials are involved. GAI found many left government to work for cannabis companies and the lobbying firms representing them. And the tangled web of state and local regulations has only boosted corruption. "Part of the problem is rooted in California’s dual regulatory structure, which forces cannabis businesses to comply with state and local government requirements," GAI reports. "With the approval of state cannabis licenses in the hands of city councils, ’a conflicting patchwork of local laws’ has emerged. Ultimately, with this type of decentralized permitting, ’corruption can span from the highest to the lowest level of public officials.’ Since then, California has become a focus in the FBI’s investigation. At issue is whether local officials have abused the cannabis regulatory systems that they helped create." While the FBI has successfully taken down elected politicians in several California cities for "questionable business practices, which included paying as much as $250,000 cash in a brown paper bag to city officials," the state’s capital, GAI found that Sacramento, is ground zero for dubious public-private interactions between local and state regulators and the industry. "Sacramento has even attracted national headlines because of its connection to a scheme that violated federal election laws." GAI explains: One of the key individuals linked to Sacramento’s cannabis licensing scandal is Joe Devlin, an experienced political consultant who helped shape the policies and standards of the local and state cannabis markets and eventually became Sacramento’s first "Cannabis Czar." (more at Link) Posted by: Philter Gelatin8647 2021-03-25 |
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