Why do our leaders and our media watchdogs both
hate us so much?
A review of court and law enforcement records, along with interviews of industry insiders, police and federal agents, shows that many marijuana dispensaries have been making big money, sometimes extraordinary money, even as they claim to be nonprofit. The Times found a cash-infused retail world bearing little resemblance to the one pitched to voters before they passed the Compassionate Use Act for "seriously ill Californians" in 1996.
To be sure, the huge stashes of cash do not represent the entire industry.
But let's slime the whole industry, anyway. And how does the Times, or anyone else, know what voters were thinking when they voted to legalize medical weed? Speaking for myself, and I'll bet I'm not alone in this, I voted for it because I knew it was the only feasible way we could a legalization bill enacted that might survive a constitutional challenge. Also too, increasing the tax base.
I'm not sure what the Times finds so shocking about all of this: The fact the some of these dispensaries are successfully run businesses, or that they have a substantial customer base that's loyal to their brands:
Records from a Granada Hills dispensary showed sales revenue topping $10,000 on many days.
Spreadsheets from a Long Beach operation indicated the owners bought $247,040 worth of marijuana and sold it in the next five months for $776,589. A state board of equalization investigator testified that the pair sold a total of $1,672,206 that year and reported only $206,980 to the tax agency.
A Venice-area dispensary's bookkeeping revealed it did about $5.1 million in sales in just over a year. One month's total was $468,331---with $154,493 in "total profit." Another's was $116,625, after a $25,382 payment to the owner.
So fucking what? What, we only celebrate hard work and entrepreneurship when bankers are peddling toxic mortgages to poor people? Meanwhile:
The state Bureau of Equalization gives a very rough estimate
that it collects up to $105 million a year in sales tax from stores that are doing up to $1.3 billion a year in sales.
Now, why in the world would we want that money flowing to Sacramento, anyway? Besides that, I mean.
I've got a better idea. Let's shut down all these illicit pot shops, even though a majority of our citizens have said they want them, and force all the AIDS and cancer patients who patronize them to purchase their meds from these people instead. That will solve everything, now, won't it.
I mean, Jesus, it's easier to buy a fucking gun than it is to buy a stick of weed for pain relief in most places. And contrary to the tone of this article, there are plenty of people with legitimate medical reasons who patronize these pot shops. I know because I've met and talked with some of them, many of them are severely ill, and these community dispensaries are a tremendous convenience to them. So there are a few profiteers and shady dealers in the medical weed business. So what of it? There are bad actors in every industry, and I don't see our leaders or our media watchdogs running them down, day after day, in our daily news reports.
Put it another way: I'm all for government intervention to improve the lot of poor people, the elderly, the homeless, etc., but harassing otherwise law-abiding people for consuming a product you personally disapprove of while requiring people (ahem) to consume another product that
they personally detest . . . and you wonder why so many people no longer have any faith in their government to get shit right anymore. Sometimes I wonder myself, though I know the root of the problem doesn't lie with government but with the vindictive and shortsighted people who are running it.
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