Illegal Pot Grows in America's Public Forests Are Poisoning Wildlife and Water
npr.org
npr.org
The fact that the epa doesn't have the authority to shut down production of this stuff is insane. Most things that are banned multinationally also face production bans for obvious reasons.
How? It's not even anywhere near in their purview.
> Most things that are banned multinationally also face production bans for obvious reasons.
The chemical is also produced in Mexico (AFAIK by Viakem and Pyosa) and Brazil (by FMC Quimica do Brasil), and elsewhere. It is imported illegally from outside the country for these ops as far as I'm aware, so whether FMC Corp is producing it or not is immaterial to its availability in the U.S. for these ops.
[0]https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cannabis-leg...
Consider that many people wish to ban animal cruelty -- sounds fine, except these laws tend to boil down to "every animal must be treated as a pet" even though that is not an economical proposition for the vast majority of animals that exist. Even if you just ban "killing puppies" now dog breeding is essentially illegal as the most effective way is to kill the young you don't want.
That really wouldn't be such a bad thing, IMO. Dog (and cat) breeders, by and large, exist to produce animals to maximize certain aesthetic norms, often to the detriment of their health. Given how many unwanted animals are killed in shelters each year, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to limit their production a bit
I write these posts because there is a lot of sentiment here and elsewhere that is frankly anti-science. In direct relation to the example, anti-GMO advocates and the FDA have strongly resisted the DNA modification of dog breeds and other nonconsumable organisms so frequent litters and culling is all that is left. Looking further back you see the same thing with chemistry and biology kits, with electronics kits, etc; the end result being if you do anything more than go home to watch TV or play golf you are assumed to have some fantastically dangerous hobby that gives babies cancer.
I have no idea what sorts of dog breeders you're familiar with, but the culling of puppies is not by any means a standard practice among breeders.
Not really. Canada exported asbestos until 2012.
Have you considered banning this shit, America?
>Traces of the pesticide carbofuran can no longer remain on food sold in the United States, whether domestic or imported, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2009/2009-05-11-093.asp
You can actually buy it right here:
Also, the US has a lot of influence. They could get chemicals outlawed in other countries if they really wanted to. I mean, they got the whole world to adopt biometric passports, and they managed to get banks worldwide to agree to their reporting requirements.
But when it's about dangerous chemicals, they throw their hands in the air. Presumably because the industry needs some place to buy their poisons.
If most businesses had to deal with the myriad of weekly/monthly legal changes and expenses that those grower/dispensary owners do most would just pack it up and exit, add to that they have no real choice in banking and remain largely a cash based business.
The thing is, as we have seen with Canada, even if it is legalized at the Federal Level access to banking will still not be a sure thing. Most dispensaries still cannot have normal bank accounts to pay vendors/staff/bills etc... this kills their productivity.
Honestly, their is no cure-all to it, unless you see a massive resurgence in community based gardens specifically for cannabis, which would be my personal ideal situation.
But, Career politicians backed it despite having a very good Medical system in place, in order to get as much tax revenue from what was otherwise an illegally sourced substance.
If anything, I think they'll continue to tax more as they will have to pay for 'task forces' to monitor and stomp out these 'illegal' grows. Businesses will have to continue to add Value Added services to compensate for the added expenses and you'll have am eventual race to the bottom and consolidation (like in Colorado) of Market Share from a handful of players/cartel which may fall into the hands of a Phillip Morris type conglomerate--think juul vape.
CA had proposed a novel system in place that would, on paper anyhow, protect the Mom and Pop shops; but the taxes and regulatory framework and legal landscape is not hospitable to a small business venture unless you have substantial financial backing anymore.
I was against recreational being legalized for that reason in CA, and I preferred it stay Medical only. It wasn't a perfect system, but it allowed for competition with existing and mature legal framework enabled by the Compassion Act in 1996. The only thing it seemed to offer was some degree of protection from the DEA raiding a legal and compliant business, but I'm doubting this may be the case anymore as these task forces will need something to do to justify their existence.
The legal market in California is too expensive (due to taxation) and this is a symptom.
California’s illegal market prices are equivalent to legal prices in Colorado.
Most places take debit cards. In Colorado, there is a chain that takes actual credit cards.
Again... not true, at least not in a legal sense. What Industry do you work in? Yes, they accept debit cards, but they function on a whack-a-mole model. There are only a handful of Startups, one actually a YC backed company, operating out of CA that do so, but other than its done under the guise of other businesses.
Most have several bank accounts setup in different entities to keep that alive, all of which are subject to confiscation and withholding of funds which compound the cost of doing business.
What's even more skewed is how some players in this space get access to banking but most do not; case in point, Helping Hands in Boulder, CO. The owner, colloquially known as Crypto Mom in our circles, has access to banking but still explores other options by accepting Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies. Her situation is VERY unique, but her son became a LN developer in the process, too, which was a funny caveat.
Like some pesticides or mold with your bud? How about some vitamin e in your vape juice? Those taxes pay for something, and as a consumer I want to know I'm getting what I paid for and nothing more.
We will see a lot these articles ranting against California taxes in the lead up to the elections by the conservative media because they are beginning to hate how much better the state does towards its residents with funding to provide services. Don't forget that almost all the social progress we're seeing in this country is from that state.
> how much better the state does towards its residents with funding to provide service
This is surely a joke, however, right?
Sadly here in Ontario, the legal weed sold directly to consumers by the government arrives moldy often enough that it's well known.
I mean that’s the whole proposition of black markets, to subvert the state.
Not all of the costs in manufacture/sales are taxes and almost all of the regulatory costs are build on the backs of death or harm to people.
Legalized marijuana was to pacify white, rich pot smokers. It was never the intent of California to encorage the use of marijuana, to make it avaliable at a lower price than the illegal market, or to allow non-white, non-rich people to benefit from its sale and use.
But, they saw the obvious cash grab and decided to move forward with it all costs to pacify their main voting constituency. Some good intentioned people may have played a part in trying to get to where it is, but I think it was mainly to consolidate Market Share for a mega corp to take it over.
abusing pesticides + free land - potency tests - health tests = lower cost.
You can grow six plants yourself in CA legally outside all year round in socal. A single good harvest of six autoflowering plants will yield you 6-24oz in 3-4 months for probably $100 on your end if you didn't have any supplies, maybe another $50 for good seeds. So you yourself can grow pot for ~$6-25$ an ounce.
Imagine what the wholesale price can fall down to if you take advantage of economies of scale. But it doesn't, because in the legal market taxation and licensing add huge costs to what otherwise should be the business of selling tomatoes, and the illegal market rides the profit off of the established market rate that customers are used to paying.
Just to state the obvious, the real problem is the fact that it's not more widely available, so you still have high illegal demand in surrounding states.
California black market?
Colorado recreational market?
That's absurd!
What basis are you supporting this on? I just went back home to SoCal in the Summer and I bought 2 pre-rolled joints of high end CBD dominant strains for $6/each in Downtown LA before a show. Which is a really good price.
I live in Boulder and a single pre-roll of whatever will cost you about the same if not more as CBD has been put on everything to make it more expensive here. So anything that has a higher number than 0% of CBD will command a higher price.
The truth is, once you're in the Industry paying for weed itself becomes absurd as you get to know too many growers (pros and amateurs alike) who just want you to experience their harvest and are too happy to just give it to you, in addition to growing your own you may exchange for fun.
Your statement is an outright lie, though; yes, CO MJ Industry already went through its saturation period, and prices have adjusted, but the taxes are upwards of 50% for the Dispensary owners and that is reflected in the price.
Personally speaking: I honestly thought more people would have gotten their hands dirty and grown with the advent of legal recreational in both states, but most who do use seldom do. Its odd dilemma, I was never a stoner so growing it was always the most fun of the entire process.
Source: I live and work in Colorado, and I was in Fintech within the Industrial Hemp Industry for the past 4 years. But I grew up in SoCal all of my Life, where weed was always more accessible than alcohol or cigarettes.
I pretended I didn't work in the Industry and asked about the credit card and debit card POS and all the bud-tender could say is that it works for now.
>“The illegal market is competitive because legal marijuana is so expensive to produce under Prop. 64,” said Dale Gieringer, director of Cal NORML, which supported the initiative though it preferred other regulations.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-08-14/californ...
Could well be those poison the environment with organic poison or fertilizer.
California is more expensive than it needs to be, but by no means is it way above normal market for the non-legal states. Never mind the array of products and the (near) guarantee you aren't paying for trash.
Seems like another lie, cartels can now launder product and expand reach.
I say all this as someone who does not care what people inhale or ingest. But look at it from the point of view of the teetotalers and bureaucracy.
It looks like a fucking mess and now we are being told that we should do the same for heroin to reduce fentenal deaths...
I don't have a solution but I am not sure more of the same is gonna help at all.
Yes. That's pretty much what I said. A lot of those using it as a selling point didn't actually care that much about the benefits to the state of a new taxation stream.
That said, I'm willing to believe that a lot of people assumed that people were willing to pay a lot more to go with a vetted legal source (or would only go with a vetted legal source) than has, in fact turned out to be the case.
There's at least some evidence I've read that suggests legalization hasn't led to a lot of increased use. If that's the case, it's reasonable to assume a lot of users already knew how to acquire pot in the black market and don't see a lot of reason to start spending more to go legal.
That is interesting if legalization has not increased use by much, I would have thought there would be an increase. Any trend on underage use? Kids no longer think it's cool due to parents?
I hope that the effort for federal legalization succeeds but I think there are people looking at this and seeing that the negatives are not being negated but instead amplified.
Uncoolness has been suggested with medical marijuana possibly even further accentuating a shift.
I guess, to the degree that usage hasn't gone up all that much, one can imagine a number of explanations. Regular users already had their sources. Sure, there are older, probably wealthier, people who don't mind a sometimes smoke or edible but also weren't willing to risk buying it illegally. But I imagine this group are mostly pretty light users.
A normal sales tax should be the only tax on any legal product. Essentially equality in taxation. Sales taxes should only be used to raise money to run the government — it shouldn’t be used to manipulate markets or purchases habits. That isn’t what freedom is.
But when you open a legal market with 30% tax in competition with an existing, much more expansive market with an automatic 30% discount, of course it is going to fail.
Buy an ounce at the illegal dispensary across the street from the legal club, and it will come in one bag, you get to inspect the product before you buy to see how fresh it is and its quality, and it will be cheaper and sold tax free.
No, it doesn't; there is no legal marijuana market in California, just as there is no legal market in California for products violating the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Everyone involved in the marijuana trade (including investors) in California is breaking federal criminal law, and if they are successful enough potentially the drug kingpin law. This is actually, from what I gather, aquire important factor in the business dynamics of what is frequently mislabeled as the “legal” marijuana trade in California.
The “non clickbait” headline obscures the truth: illegal drug producers have no qualms about illegally using land and illegally using pesticides. The key part of the story is that these are illegal pot growers — this is key to the story because if pot were less regulated, like sorghum for instance, costs would drop to commodity levels and take the profitability out of illegal operations.
Anecdotally, taxes approximately double the cost of marijuana in California. There's some benefit in taxing things that are bad for people, because you discourage the behavior, but it seems like wiping out organized crime by lowering taxes on the legal market here would be a bigger benefit.
I suppose a sophisticated illegal op could make that offering, but that would be a level up.
Now that NPR's gotten so commercial (listened to Science Friday lately?) should we expect more of this kind of spin? Sad, NPR, sad.