Executive Director of the California Growers Association Hezekiah Allen brought a wry smile to my face when he said, ‘half of my board is third-generation farmers, people who grew up in the drug war, lying about what their parents did and wishing they were normal’ as quoted in International Business Times. I doubt very much NORML anticipated the catfights developing on the supply side of the industry, or shall I say the battle of the titans?
With the AUMA Ballot still almost half a year away, and nothing in stone yet, the industry that was relatively cohesive in the closet is now tearing itself apart in what some call seismic shifts. Like all revolutionary movements the game changers are having difficulty coming down the idea of regulation.
The complication derives in part from the product still being a schedule one drug, and a medicine. The three-tier model of producer-wholesaler-consumer used for alcohol would have been ideal from a taxation perspective, were it not for the decision to apply drug administration rules to a form of traditional medicine that works despite denials from some quarters.
This application of first world, high technology to an existing industry made up of the modern equivalent of peasant farmers is squeezing these contributors out. They do not think that way, and they are having difficulty coming to terms with requirements so strict they simply cannot afford to comply with them.
Is the end of our endeavors to legalize medical marijuana going to be squeezing these people out? Can this be another example of the American way where big business lobbies for standards out of the reach of the small entrepreneur? International Business Times has some harsh words for big business.
The CEO of California-based, Oakland Harborside Health Center Steve DeAngelo spoke plainly, when he told International Business Times, ‘… we deal with 700 to 1,000 small growers. These are people who have been coming to the shop for a decade. Now we won’t be able to do business with them anymore.’
International Business Times mentions Steve DeAngelo saying, ‘the person who stands to gain the most from the distribution requirement is Ted Simpkins, former head of the California division of Southern Wine & Spirits, the country’s largest alcohol distributor, and now CEO of River Wellness, a major new California marijuana distribution company.’
The article goes on to finger River Wellness as having, ‘spent nearly $150,000 lobbying and donating to key lawmakers behind the MMRSA.’ If this is true, and our jury is still out, then there may be reasons to revisit the intentions behind the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act of California.