CA’s overregulated cannabis market encourages illegal distribution?

What’s the point of decriminalizing cannabis if it’s better financially for local growers and distributors to operate illegally? Laura Hauther of the California Globe examines the “huge barriers to entry” Californian legal cannabis cultivators face, while under-the-table operators only get pitiful slaps on the wrist. San Bernandino County’s sponsored AB 2728 would increase illegal operation fines. But why not reduce red tape for legitimate businessowners?

The state might be following in the footsteps of several California counties by instituting bigger fines and penalties to push out illegal cannabis cultivation. San Bernardino is sponsoring California Assemblyman Thurston Smith’s bill, hoping to get measures similar to the county ordinances the Board of Supervisors passed last December to apply statewide.

California has generally taken two approaches to tamping down the burgeoning illegal trade: increasing civil penalties for illegal cultivation or easing the path to the legal trade.

Lawmakers are finally facing the reality legal cultivators have been dealing with for years now; the costs and regulations on the legal product are so onerous there are huge barriers to entry, while penalties for illegal cultivation are light.

This article originally appeared in the California Globe. Read the whole thing here.

Follow Opportunity Now on Twitter @svopportunity

Image by Pix4free