O<\/span>regon is no Colorado \u2014 not yet. And this is at the state\u2019s peril.<\/p>\n In 2016, the year recreational marijuana consumers bought up more than $1.3 billion worth of legal cannabis in the Rocky Mountain State, Oregon dispensaries recorded less than a quarter of that action, closer to $250 million (we say \u201ccloser,\u201d because that figure is based on $60 million worth of tax receipts, at nine months of 25 percent taxes and three months at slightly less<\/a>) worth of sales.<\/p>\n But still! That is good news. Those were banner figures, sales so strong they exceeded official expectations by more than sixfold<\/a>. And things continue to pick up. Now, economists believe sales will be closer to $280 million a year.<\/a> There\u2019s just one minor problem: It\u2019s not enough.<\/p>\n Oregon marijuana users are not buying anywhere close to all the pot that Oregon marijuana growers produce. And that delta may be enough for the Trump Administration to send in the feds.<\/p>\n We know how much marijuana is sold in Oregon, and we have an educated guess as to how much cannabis is grown there. And we know there\u2019s gap. A big one. Oregon\u2019s marijuana growers produce an excess <\/em>of between 132 tons and 900 tons, according to a law enforcement estimate. That excess weed isn\u2019t thrown away or fed to the dogs. Much of it \u2014 nobody knows how much \u2014 flows out of state. And this is a problem.<\/p>\n \u201cDiversion\u201d is the term used by policy wonks and law enforcement for cannabis grown under the auspices of legal recreational or medical marijuana programs that ends up somewhere else. Oregon-grown appearing in Detroit, or Humboldt County cannabis in Seattle. Diversion is the inevitable result of market forces where marijuana is prohibited. As long as legal marijuana is stupendously more valuable in an illegal market, diversion will happen. And, conveniently, diversion is a problem federal drug cops have identified as in need of fixing.<\/p>\n \u201cNone is supposed to leave, so it\u2019s an issue,\u201d said Chris Gibson, executive director of the\u00a0federal Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, in an interview with The Associated Press<\/a>. As the AP noted, federal and state police believe diversion \u201cshould be a primary concern to state leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n And it absolutely is. In July, Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent a letter to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, warning her that the diversion issue could violate the Cole Memo, the nonbinding, Obama-era policy that, thus far, has provided the legal cover for legal marijuana states to avoid prosecution from the feds. The letter echoed nearly identical warnings sent to the governors of Colorado, Washington and Alaska.<\/p>\n Quoting from the same report that guessed at Oregon\u2019s marijuana gap, Sessions told the governors that he\u2019s been following the obvious flow of weed out of state borders. Sessions wants to know that \u201call marijuana activity is compliant with state marijuana laws,\u201d and said the diversion flow raises \u201cserious questions about the efficacy of marijuana \u2018regulatory structures\u2019 in your state.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCongress has determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a crime,\u201d Sessions wrote, as the LA Times reported<\/a>. \u201cThe [Justice] Department remains committed to enforcing the Controlled Substances Act in a manner that efficiently applies our resources to address the most significant threats to public health and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n As the Huffington Post reported Tuesday, <\/a>Gov. Brown wrote back to Sessions, informing him that the state is tracking cannabis the best it can. The problem here is obvious. Marijuana is lucrative, so growers will grow more than the market will bear, since some will be of lesser quality. And some will be grown to fulfill another market \u2014 the illegal market in other states. As long as prohibition creates a great incentive for out-of-state sales, diversion will continue.<\/p>\n TELL US, <\/strong>are you concerned about recreational cannabis crossing over into non-legal states?<\/p>\n The post The Legal Cannabis Diversion Problem<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
How marijuana legalization\u2019s great success could give Jeff Sessions the excuse he needs to crack down. Oregon is no Colorado \u2014 not yet. And this is at the state\u2019s peril. In 2016, the year recreational marijuana consumers bought up more than $1.3 billion worth of legal cannabis in the RockyContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40,50,80,1097,90,185],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18821,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18820\/revisions\/18821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: The Legal Cannabis Diversion Problem<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"