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Economy
Gavin Newsom slammed for his approach to illegal weed as organized crime spirals in California amid...
2024-06-09
[Daily Mail, where America gets itsnews] …80% drop in raids by flagship taskforce
  • Governor created United Cannabis Enforcement Taskforce (UCETF) in 2022 to tackle thriving illegal weed trade

  • He has boasted of its achievements, but sheriffs say it has done little to help

  • One said it was like 'giving someone a garden hose to put out a forest fire'
It was never meant to be this way.
Unintended consequences?? Suzie, fetch my pearls — I feel an irresistible need to clutch!
Legislators had hoped that the mere creation of a commercial market for cannabis in 2021 would drive out the black market, while generating billions of dollars a year in taxed sales. But they failed to account for the reality that decriminalizing a vast and highly profitable industry would open the floodgates to organized criminals and opportunists, for whom the reduced risks of prosecution incentivized their growth.

Those who remained outside of the law have also been able to undercut legitimate businesses, which have been hammered with high taxes.

Unlicensed grows are now believed to outnumber legitimate farms by tenfold, while evidence suggests two thirds of every cannabis purchase is made illegally.

The creation of the taskforce was a tacit admission that politicians had been grossly naïve to believe that legalization would be the magic wand to rid the state of illegal weed.

It has been charged with coordinating enforcement efforts at state, local and federal level.

Since inception, the taskforce has seized around $400million in unlicensed cannabis through 256 search warrants. It has also eradicated 409,656 plants and seized 139 firearms.

But the number of search warrants it has served fell from 92 in the second quarter of last year to just 18 in the first quarter of 2024.
Related:
Gavin Newsom 06/06/2024 Newsom proposes defunding police, prisons, public safety as California faces massive deficit
Gavin Newsom 06/03/2024 Squalid wooden 'shantytown' springs up in Dem-run Oakland
Gavin Newsom 05/29/2024 California seeks to delay $25 healthcare minimum wage to ward off budget crisis, among budget cut proposals

Posted by:Skidmark

#3  Nothing new in California-Plank Owner 90-95
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2024-06-09 14:38  

#2  California will become Mexico with better plumbing.
Posted by: Super Hose   2024-06-09 08:32  

#1  Those who remained outside of the law have also been able to undercut legitimate businesses, which have been hammered with high taxes.

There is the buried lead. Taxes, licensing and regulation have stifled the legal cultivation and sales business so much that they cannot compete with the illegal weed trade. Arithmetic wins again!
Posted by: SteveS   2024-06-09 01:05  

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