The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA) might be on the ballot this November.
The California legalization initiative has the backing of Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Facebook president and Napster cofounder, Sean Parker.
But, like Canada’s legalization train-wreck as it pertains to BC Bud, the AUMA threatens the free-and-fair market of California’s farmers, dispensaries and value-added producers.
Similar to Vancouver’s 4/20 Farmer’s Market, California has the Emerald Cup where 55,000 cannabis entrepreneurs showcase their artisan flowers, shatter, edibles and other related projects.
Sean Parker did not show up at this past year’s Emerald Cup, possibly because his support for AUMA could make the event, and all small-time farmers, a thing of the past.
Like Justin Trudeau’s plan for Canadian cannabis, AUMA threatens to regulate the free market out of existence and replace it with a crony-capitalist model.
Like in Canada, and particularly in BC, the California cannabis community has existed under medical exemptions and grey legal areas.
This is what has made farmers and entrepreneurs successful — the ability to take risks and innovate, to expand on ideas without worrying about patent laws, and by providing consumers with quality goods and services without career bureaucrats intervening.
Ending prohibition does not require government permission. Seeking permission to ingest medicine, drugs, alcohol, and even food, is exactly the problem.
Free societies aren’t preemptively burdened with administrative rules and regulations. Laws are supposed to be procedural, only arising when needed, and with minimal infringement on civil and economic liberties.
The AUMA, like Canada’s legalization, would give police more powers to undermine the “black market” of peaceful farmers, dispensaries and value-added producers.
The word “legalization” has become an example of Orwellian newspeak, where the same name applies to two different concepts.
Identifying legalization with this corporate takeover means no one will seriously ask whether legalization results in the end of prohibition.
The AUMA leaves many existing cannabis laws on the books, carving out a few exemptions for the chosen few.
Instead of removing cannabis from the criminal code, and allowing our Western legal traditions to regulate the plant (through tort law, property law, contract law, commercial law, criminal law, etc.), the corporate-state apparatus is attempting to do what they do best: ram through endless paperwork, justifying larger bureaucracies, thereby effectively squeezing out the middle class and rewarding the rich and politically well-connected with state-protected benefits.
Like the BC Bud economy, vis-a-vis Justin’s appointment of Bill Blair, the AUMA could destroy California’s unique experiment with a free-and-fair cannabis market.