California’s struggling marijuana industry is crushing some local economies, as overproduction and inept regulations have caused the wholesale price of cannabis to crater as much as 95 percent.
While lower prices may be good news for consumers, they’re destroying the livelihoods of marijuana farmers. Just ask the residents of Humboldt County in Northern California.
Laura Lasseter, the director of operations for the Southern Humboldt Business and Visitors Bureau, told SFGate on Sunday:
The economy here has crashed.
She explained:
The economy in Southern Humboldt is in crisis mode, and 90 percent of that crisis mode is because of the cannabis industry.
According to Lasseter:
Humboldt County—once a thriving epicenter of marijuana farming—is on track to lose 50 to 70 percent of its cannabis farms, according to Lasseter.
In a nutshell:
[S]tate overregulation, bureaucratic delays and increasing competition from massive pot farms have put many small farmers out of business.
Joshua Sweet, who runs two cannabis farms, told SFGate:
Before regulation, left to its own devices, this community was safe [and] vibrant socially, culturally and economically.
Sweet said:
Within five years of regulation, it has completely collapsed. Nobody is making any money.
This is yet another example of how:
“[F]rivolous big-government intervention hurts the average person.”
Corporate farming has been the death knell for small farmers, who simply cannot keep up with their huge competitors.
SFGate reported:
Originally, California voters approved a legalization plan that limited cannabis farms to only 1 acre for the first five years of legalization.
But in 2017, the state created a loophole for companies to infinitely ‘stack’ smaller licenses so they could expand their pot farms to more than a million square feet.
Humboldt County Supervisor Michelle Bushnell said:
[M]any local marijuana stores have shut down and she sees little hope for a recovery.
She told SFGate:
I have been here my whole life, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it this bad.
Wendy Kornberg, the owner of a small pot farm, said:
[A]ll of [my] fellow farmers have either closed down or are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Everyone is struggling. We all had to raid our kids’ college funds.
The situation is just as dire 110 miles away in Douglas City.
Chia Xiong told the Los Angeles Times:
[P]eople say you live paycheck to paycheck, but there’s no paycheck to live off of.
Xiong and her husband, Xong Vang, are struggling to maintain their 3.4-acre farm amid constant licensing delays.
“Farmers thought legalizing marijuana would aid the industry.
Instead: Inefficient, expensive licensing, and costly delays.”
The Times reported:
Critics of licensed farming worried that an influx of commercial growers would wreak havoc, causing ecological destruction and eroding the community’s sense of safety and trust.
Accordingly, some filed lawsuits, causing a massive backup in the system.
In December, the Times reported:
Following a lawsuit, a Superior Court judge last year invalidated nearly all licenses that had been awarded, ruling that the county approved them without requiring growers to document potential environmental impacts and measures to prevent harm.
By early November, just 44 licenses had been reapproved, and about 300 farmers, including Vang and Xiong, are still waiting.
As a result of these bureaucratic frustrations, some people have resorted to illegal farming to scrape by.
One such farmer who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Times:
[T]he illegal market is better. We don’t have to pay the fees and taxes.
NOTE: Overproduction has also severely damaged the environment and led to the mass theft of water from local rivers and streams.
This is ironic since drought plagued California constantly touts itself as an eco-champion.
Trinity County District Attorney David Brady told the Times:
“The environmental damage we are dealing with is horrendous.”
The tragedy unfolding in the blue state underscores once again that big-government interference often causes more problems than it solves.
And the Age-Old debate: Left-wing arguments about the harmlessness of recreational marijuana ingestion are misleading at best.
Studies suggest that “recreational” marijuana is problematic—unsafe and unhealthy—especially for young people.
For example, there are untold numbers of us who grew up in the 1960s and ’70s and have brothers, sisters, cousins who are now grandparents and even great grandparents of multi-generational families of their own that have been all but destroyed by the mind-altering drug culture.
The results of some studies below:
Two recent studies found a link between marijuana legalization and traffic deaths.
Moreover, a 2020 Harvard Health report said the drug could damage the heart.
Other studies suggest marijuana could be a gateway drug for opioid abuse.
Recent research also indicates that regular pot use can increase the risk of psychosis and stifle motivation.
Anyone who visits cities such as San Francisco—where open drug use is condoned and encouraged—can see with their own eyes the destruction this causes.
A side note to consider: The communist/globalist leadership of America is using a seemingly endless array of tools to diminish and even destroy America and American culture. Could the legalization of harmful drugs be another of those tools of destruction?
This one is not on Pfizer but on drug cartels aided by San Francisco leaders. #Fentanyl #BayArea #USA pic.twitter.com/KeTFXHz3jI
— Citizenj17
(@citizenj17) January 13, 2023
It’a not nice anymore to live in downtown San Francisco. Your tax $ r mostly used to feed drug habit of users, reviving them w/narcan instead of City investing in high quality public education. I bet conference attendees experienced taste of SF today pic.twitter.com/62k2Pqvf0a
— Old Fashioned SF (@powellmarket415) January 10, 2023
Final thoughts: The brilliant idea of moving to California and getting rich quick via the marijuana industry is proving to be something less than a brilliant idea.
Too many people with that same idea flooded the market, and over-production along with government taxation and intervention have killed the livelihoods of many life-long residents and farmers as well as the livelihoods of the more recent arrivals.
Government intervention and the notion of something actually being too good to be true are destroying California’s marijuana industry.
