4 ms·

I don’t see any causal link here. This whole thing reads like lazy copaganda. Their premise is that large, well-funded violent criminal organizations had prev

I don’t see any causal link here. This whole thing reads like lazy copaganda. Their premise is that large, well-funded violent criminal organizations had previously stayed out of California because they were afraid of going to jail? I knew some people that dealt with the weed side of cartel grows in California going back to the sixties, and those guys never gave a shit about jail. If I had to guess, this has more to do with cartels employing fewer opium farmers since fentanyl supplanted a lot of the traditional heroin trade. The cartels don’t really let people retire, even farmers, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re just optimizing their workforce for maximum profit. But sure, LA Times, it’s because of legalization. It’s only a coincidence that by blaming legalization they’re tacitly implying that it should be repealed! The return to prohibition and a massive increase in police power is what we need by happenstance! There is no agenda here!

linksnapzz 4y ago
something must've driven the massive increase in grow activity up there. I'd think a massive expansion of the market due to legalizationis at least a plausible explanation. Even if the ultimate cause of the problem turns out not to be legalization, the illegal grows are still the proximate issue, and need to be addressed.
- braingenious 4y ago
  California has been home to massive illegal grows managed by enormous violent crime syndicates for over half a century. It has served the global cannabis market for just as long. I genuinely have my doubts that this narrative that some hippy liberals signed some bill to legalize weed and it directly led to an enormous increase in illegal activity is anything but synthetically derived from cherry picked data. I agree that these grow operations are bad. They’ve been bad since the days of the advent of the Swanson TV dinner and The Twist being a nationwide dance craze.

linksnapzz 4y ago

something must've driven the massive increase in grow activity up there. I'd think a massive expansion of the market due to legalizationis at least a plausible explanation. Even if the ultimate cause of the problem turns out not to be legalization, the illegal grows are still the proximate issue, and need to be addressed.

braingenious 4y ago
California has been home to massive illegal grows managed by enormous violent crime syndicates for over half a century. It has served the global cannabis market for just as long. I genuinely have my doubts that this narrative that some hippy liberals signed some bill to legalize weed and it directly led to an enormous increase in illegal activity is anything but synthetically derived from cherry picked data. I agree that these grow operations are bad. They’ve been bad since the days of the advent of the Swanson TV dinner and The Twist being a nationwide dance craze.