By Paige St. JohnStaff Writer WEAVERVILLE, Calif. — Workers including this man were recruited to a licensed cannabis farm in Trinity County and said they felt trapped on a freezing mountain, working behind locked gates without heat, water, shelter and, in the end, their pay. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Acknowledging growing…
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We’ve reported on how California’s illicit pot market has hurt the heavily taxed and regulated legal market. Expanding on that, agriculture reporter Kim Chipman this week follows up on her earlier reporting about water theft in California (see here) to look at how the industry is contributing to the state’s shortages. California’s stubbornly persistent illegal cannabis…
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How hordes of Hmong cartels invade and overpower small towns in remote counties, ie: Siskiyou. “If you see the pictures, if you see the video, it looks like a third world country. The crime is off the charts. We have people getting murdered at marijuana grows.” My guest today is Jeremiah LaRue, Sheriff of Siskiyou…
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By CALDER MCHUGH 03/08/2023 RIP ‘TOKELAHOMA’ — On Tuesday, Oklahoma slowed the roll of marijuana legalization across the country, voting down full legalization in a referendum by over 20 points. Since 2018, when voters backed medical marijuana legalization by double-digits, the state has earned the nickname “Tokelahoma,” with roughly 12,000 licensed marijuana businesses and nearly 400,000 patients (in a state with…
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The black market in pot proliferates despite legalization. By The Editorial BoardFeb. 7, 2023 Marijuana advocates us that legalizing the drug would curb the black market. We’re still waiting. The opposite has happened in California, where a glut of illegal weed is undercutting legal purveyors. Now progressives are proposing an interstate compact to export their pot and…
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Politico Now that a growing body of evidence says marijuana is bad for you, more regulation is in the offing. By BEN LEONARD02/06/2023 When Gallup asked about legalizing weed last year, two-thirds of Americans supported it — up from 12 percent when the pollster first asked in 1969. Recognition of marijuana’s medical benefits, the harms of punitive drug…
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BY PAIGE ST. JOHN, ADAM ELMAHREK JAN. 29, 2023 5 AM PT California lawmakers are calling for a sweeping investigation into corruption in the state’s cannabis industry, legislative hearings on the exploitation of farmworkers and new laws to thwart labor trafficking in response to revelations of rampant abuses and worker deaths in a multibillion-dollar market that has…
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December 18, 2022EDITORIAL California’s cannabis mess George Santayana wasn’t talking about California or marijuana when he said that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But his often-quoted observation certainly applies to the Golden State after Proposition 64. So, let’s start with a little history. In 1996, voters approved Proposition 215,…
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Who needs very expensive locally grown pot? EDITOR: After reading two in-depth articles concerning the plight of many “legal” pot growers, I have one comment: Their biggest worry should really be federal legalization. When that occurs and big corporations move in, who needs very expensive locally grown cannabis when a good high can be had…
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EDITOR: Marisa Endicott’s column on the bureaucratic process crippling Sonoma County’s cannabis industry is misleading (“County growers rack up fees, fines,” Nov. 20). First, growers under the Penalty Relief Program have been allowed to continue while their application is processed. The column points to the recent crop report showing cannabis revenue at $2.4 million an…
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