W<\/span>hen California voted to legalize cannabis in 2016, advocates promised that the new regulations would capture illicit cannabis production and turn it into a regulated market, creating new taxes that would provide benefits for everyone.<\/p>\n Even cash-strapped rural areas without an economic engine would have money for schools and roads<\/a> \u2014 hence the proliferation of \u2265desert communities in Southern California banking on<\/a> massive, million-square-foot cultivation complexes.<\/p>\n What legalization did not promise \u2014 not in the campaign materials for Prop. 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, approved by 57 percent of voters on Election Night 2016, nor in the regulatory debates afterwards \u2014 was an economic crisis for marijuana farmers. But, just shy of two months into California\u2019s commercial cannabis era, that\u2019s what\u2019s unfolding in the state\u2019s rural marijuana-producing regions.<\/p>\n There are tens of thousands of cannabis farms in California, maybe as many as 80,000, according to a state estimate in 2016<\/a>. And as of Feb. 18, fewer than 1,500 \u2014 or one percent \u2014 had secured cultivation licenses from the state, according to a review <\/a>conducted by the California Growers Association, the main lobby for California cannabis growers in the state capitol.<\/p>\n That\u2019s far fewer than the 20 percent or so that some guessed at<\/a>, and far too few to justify the argument that these growers are merely operating out of a \u201cdesire to stay illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s accepted that California\u2019s oversupply of cannabis is driven by demand from out-of-state markets in prohibition states.<\/p>\n But producers who used to supply the state\u2019s domestic market are also finding it difficult to become permitted, according to CalGrowers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Of the marijuana growers who supplied medical-marijuana dispensaries before Jan. 1, the first day of recreational retail sales and the first day that all marijuana businesses needed a state license, between \u201c80 to 90 percent\u201d can\u2019t get permitted, according to the report.<\/p>\n The reasons why are a predictable shopping list. Many of the state\u2019s 58 counties have elected to either ban commercial marijuana production or regulate it so strictly \u2014 declaring certain areas off-limits to cannabis, or raising the price of a permit fee so high \u2014 that California cannabis growers either can\u2019t afford a license or can\u2019t comply with requirements.<\/p>\n In a twist, such barriers for entry only contribute to the black-market and the \u201cdiversion\u201d problem. Shut off from regulated stores, \u201cso much high-quality produce is now flooding into the black market,\u201d one unnamed Sonoma County-based cultivator told CalGrowers. With that increase in illicit supply has come an increase in crime.<\/p>\n \u201cThese people who built the industry are not allowed to participate,\u201d the grower said. \u201cI hope we can course-correct this year.\u201d<\/p>\n According to CalGrowers, the hordes of California cannabis growers who now cannot legally sell their wares is an economic crisis in the making. \u201cWe estimate that these farms employ 3.6 people on average, for a whopping 258,000 jobs. Thousands of people, and dozens of communities around the state that have been able to sustain themselves\u2026 are being destablized.\u201d<\/p>\n Unless this state of affairs is addressed, \u201ceconomic depression is the best case outcome,\u201d as per the report. \u201cEconomic collapse is the worst case.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Today, Feb. 23, is the last day that state lawmakers can introduce bills in the current legislative session. Several lawmakers have already voiced concern over a trend towards consolidation of marijuana production, identifying a loophole in state law<\/a>\u00a0that allows for marijuana farms of nearly unlimited size as in need of correction.<\/p>\n But the revelations from CalGrowers also demonstrate that the discrepancy between licensed and unlicensed growers is about more than people who\u2019d prefer to stay illegal rather than comply with regulations. Those regulations, in some cases, are simply too onerous to comply with \u2014 and the result can already be seen in places like Monterey County<\/a>, where production is shifting from independent growers in the hills to massive factory-like operations in the flatlands.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> what do you think is going to happen to cannabis farmers in California?<\/p>\n The post Report: Laws Are Pushing CA Pot Farmers to Black Market, Not Oversupply<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Ninety-nine percent of California cannabis growers are not licensed, according to a new report, but this isn\u2019t because the state has an oversupply of legal cannabis. Countywide bans, strict regulations and expensive permit fees are keeping California cannabis providers \u2014 those who want to go legal and who used toContinue 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":[148,1972,50,80,901,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23962"}],"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=23962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23963,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23962\/revisions\/23963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Report: Laws Are Pushing CA Pot Farmers to Black Market, Not Oversupply<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"