For decades, weed has been the excuse legislators, prison companies, and police departments have used to put non-violent citizens to work in prison labor camps. As the “weed will make you an ax murderer” propaganda fell out of fashion, savvy capitalists knew better than to say that we need to keep weed legal so that we have an easy excuse to funnel minorities into slavery and fund police budgets. Instead, they cited public safety and the catch-all threat of “preventing moral decay,” usually by framing weed as the “gateway drug” that stands between your innocent children and heroin. And even if the data suggests that the actual “gateway drug” is alcohol, laws still police the recreational use of the Devil’s Lettuce in the majority of states. California has taken a much more lax approach: you can smoke recreationally, but you can run into problems if you grow your own weed in bulk with intentions to sell. The Newsom administration is proud about seizing about 780,000 pounds of illegal weed over the last 10 years. For all their hard work, the underground weed market is still booming. Record Bee has coverage:
[E]ight times more marijuana is cultivated illegally than through approved channels. It’s a far cry from the vision of Prop. 64, the 2016 ballot initiative that promised to legitimize the lucrative cannabis industry and usher in the end of the War on Drugs. Now it is clear, much of that “didn’t happen,” said Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University professor of behavioral sciences who studies drug policy.“It was packaged as a free lunch,” he said. “There are no free lunches.”
That doesn’t mean the doomsday predictions of Prop. 64’s opponents materialized either. On the campaign trail, school board members and alarmed parents predicted marijuana would increasingly find its way into the hands of children and stoned drivers would cause more traffic collisions. State data shows neither happened.
There were other worries. People argued that increased access to weed would lead to a bump in violent crime; the data shows some correlation but there’s nothing strong enough to argue causation. Jeff Luse gives some in-depth breakdowns of the driving and smoking children boogeymen over at Reason.
There’s still a lot of money to be made in the legal weed market. Biglaw firms have stepped in to help clients navigate the state and federal limitations that come with being in the weed business. Over time, it is inevitable that more states will ease up on the use and selling of weed. That process might hasten if Joe Rogan or some other talking head whispers the right combination of words in Trump’s ear. The one without the bullet wound, hopefully.
Happy 4/20!
Prop. 64 at 10: Why the illicit cannabis market still dominates in California [Record Bee]
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn’t hurt either. You can reach him by email at christopherrashadwilliams@gmail.com and by Tweet/Bluesky at @WritesForRent.
The post What Happened After A Decade Of Legal Weed In California? appeared first on Above the Law.