The legalization of marijuana has been the greatest financial boon for cartels, gangs and China. We the people are the losers.
“Greenfield indicates legalizing marijuana provided the cartels and the Triad with a profitable and semi-legal market that gives them a base to expand their efforts trafficking in even more lethal drugs (all of which are as addictive as legal opioids). Moreover, the legal marijuana business is collapsing. Greenfield writes that “Medmen, which once promised to be the Apple of weed, fell from a $3 billion valuation to a bankruptcy with $411 million in liabilities.” The County of Santa Barbara envisioned tens of millions in profits every year from pot grows and retail sales, but the income is now barely paying the cost of regulation and enforcement, and now they are bearing the cost to distribute Naloxone to avoid even more fentanyl deaths, not to mention the associated costs of the homeless generated via their drug addictions.”
Mexican Cartels and China’s Triads Love Liberals
by Andy Caldwell, Santa Barbara Current, 6/30/24 https://www.sbcurrent.com/p/mexican-cartels-and-chinas-triads
If you think the war on drugs was a failure, then consider the decriminalization of drugs along with the schizophrenic aspects of both these policy failures. Whereas “just say no” was simply a weak slogan, saying yes is a disaster. Our government simply became the advance man for organized crime amidst a tsunami of death and destruction.
County supervisors are mighty proud of themselves these days, having scored a $4.2-million settlement that was their cut of a larger $4-billion-dollar judgement against opioid manufacturers. The suit had to do with so-called deceptive marketing and the failure to warn patients of the addictive nature of the drug along with the damages associated with deaths from overdoses.
In my opinion, the lawsuit, and the war against legally prescribed opioids, such as oxycontin, was a crime against common sense because most people taking these drugs were not taking them to get high but because they had chronic pain conditions. Hence, when the self-righteous nanny state succeeded in intimidating manufacturers and doctors from producing and prescribing these legal drugs, the patients, still living in pain, turned to illegal drugs to cope. Hence, the do-gooders unleashed an unholy torrent from the pit of hell on the American public, now known as the fentanyl crisis, which is killing more people than legally prescribed opiates.
That failure was just for starters.
Legalized Dope a Bust for the County
When voters legalized marijuana and our county’s own version of the Doobie Brothers (Supervisors Lavagnino and Williams) dived into what they thought was going to be a pool of never-ending cash for the county, they were not the only people planning to go swimming. That is, 80% of the marijuana consumed in our state is from illegally grown pot. As Daniel Greenfield reports in Front Page magazine, while greedy and gullible politicians hoped to make millions off pot grows (while ignoring the deleterious impacts of cannabis) and retail sales, the drug cartels are making billions.
Further, across America, the Mexican drug cartels now have competition from the Triad, China’s version of the mafia. These criminal enterprises are not just selling marijuana, they are also selling the drugs that supplanted legal opioids, namely heroin and fentanyl, and murdering people who get in their way.
Greenfield indicates legalizing marijuana provided the cartels and the Triad with a profitable and semi-legal market that gives them a base to expand their efforts trafficking in even more lethal drugs (all of which are as addictive as legal opioids). Moreover, the legal marijuana business is collapsing. Greenfield writes that “Medmen, which once promised to be the Apple of weed, fell from a $3 billion valuation to a bankruptcy with $411 million in liabilities.” The County of Santa Barbara envisioned tens of millions in profits every year from pot grows and retail sales, but the income is now barely paying the cost of regulation and enforcement, and now they are bearing the cost to distribute Naloxone to avoid even more fentanyl deaths, not to mention the associated costs of the homeless generated via their drug addictions.
Oregon’s “Free-for-all” Drug Daze Ends
Our politicians brought the knives out for legal opioids while rolling out the red carpet for marijuana and other drugs. For instance, Oregon decriminalized the possession of hard drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and meth along with the “therapeutic use” of hallucinogenic mushrooms. The state has since reversed course, as one state senator explained, because decriminalization turned into a “free-for-all of public drug use, increased fentanyl, with opioid overdose deaths increasing exponentially, and Oregon becoming seen as a national dumpster fire.”
San Francisco, oblivious as always, has nonetheless decriminalized mushrooms and is now delivering free beer, wine, and vodka shots to homeless alcoholics to cut down on hospital visits and jail time.
Huh?
That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it.
Cheers!
