It is time we leapfrogged over the indecision. And got on with the business of earning tax on $2.7 billion annual sales of marijuana for the State of California. It is not the industry’s fault legislators framed Proposition 64 less than optimally. If our ancestors took as long to frame the founding statements, they could still be debating the niceties too.
And what about the mom-and-pop businesses that rely on the income? They need certainty big business with corporate advantage is not going to lever them out. Behind the scenes, recreational marijuana is selling well as it always seems to have done in the Golden State. We are trying legalize a reality not embargo it in perpetuity.
One might have thought that with two decades of regulated medical marijuana under our belt we would have at least learned something. Although granted there is still some confusion regarding what is legitimate at city and country level. The holdup is an apparent obsession with tidying these details up at the same time. For the life of me, I can’t see the problem with having two different systems for a while. Surely, this is what the population envisaged?
I am inclined to agree with the news website Salon that the differences would be a challenge to reconcile. For example, Assembly Bill 266 provides for just a few medical marijuana distributors, and they have to oversee pesticide contamination too. This runs counter to free enterprise insofar as recreational cannabis goes. And presumably the deregulated business direction in which the country is moving?
However, I don’t agree that the diverse tax and inventory regimes are an unsurmountable problem. While it is true authorities need to be able to track and trace the two medical marijuana varieties, they could treat them as two separate businesses in the early stages and leapfrog over their self-imposed indecision.
This happens all the time with big corporates and multi-nationals. They toe the line because the penalties for not doing so are harsh enough to make them. There is nothing to prevent a medical dispensary from applying for a recreational license. They would just need to keep the stock in different premises, and manage properly.
Thus I do not agree medical marijuana dispensers will necessarily be at a disadvantage by not controlling production up the line. They are making good money or they would not be in business. And as I wrote previously, they always have the option to diversify. Free enterprise has a habit of singling out the fittest.