Oakland just got a lot cooler...

The city council voted to allow large-scale marijuana farms inside the city limits. The proposal would require the companies running the farms to carry $3 million in insurance, hire security and pay a $211,000 permit fee (I assume that's an annual fee). Several companies already seem lined up and ready to go.
Amazingly, most of the opposition isn't from a "drugs are bad" standpoint. The guys who grow pot in their backyard are pissed because it'll take away from their business. Welcome to the wonderful world of capitalism, you smelly hippies.
Others are upset that these giant growhouses -- all of which will be indoors, inside warehouses -- will suck up electricity. And, as always, the comments on the story are hilarious.
Can't help but wonder what the feds will think of this, too. Not to drag a separate third rail topic into this, but this proposal and the Arizona immigration law are roughly similar in the sense of a city or state saying, "Fuck you, Washington, and fuck your federal laws. We'll do whatever the hell we want to."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/21/BAU81EH9D3.DTL

 

It's still illegal federally, so this really doesn't change anything. It's a futile gesture from the city council.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis_in_the_United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax,_Regulate,_and_Control_Cannabis_Act_%282010%29

 

I'd like to think Oakland will use the money to rehire the five percent of the police force they just let go, but I'm not that gullible.

 

Seems more like the feds have adopted a version of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on this. Keep it low-key, keep it to controlled "medicinal" distribution and use (which in practice is total crap) and we'll focus our energy elsewhere. It's not a desirable attitude, but considering the focus of federal anti-drug efforts needs to be on the Mexican border right now it's one I can understand.
This kind of flaunts that and is almost like asking the feds to stage a DEA convention in Oakland.

 

Something I'm curious about. If I go to California, smoke pot and then come home and fail a drug test, did I do anything wrong?

I'm glad California is doing this, but I wish Oakland wasn't the first to pass this. I'd feel a lot better if it was Grass Valley or Berkeley or San Jose rather than the murder capital of California.

That's just what this Bay Area native thinks...

 

I heard an interesting argument on the radio the other day. It said that pot is so easy and cheap to grow that legalizing it would simply cause the price to plummet to almost nothing.

 

How will the Oakland Raiders react to this?

 

I thought this thread was going to be about Al Davis selling the Raiders. ;D

 

I thought this thread was going to be about Al Davis dying.

 

The fact that it's illegal is the price support that allows the Mexican drug cartels to thrive.

Legalize it and the cartels collapse. You'd think we'd have learned from Prohibition.

 

I know a ton of people here in SoCal who smoke pot; I don't know of any of them who don't have the high-quality, "legal" medicinal kind. Not sure how Mexican drug cartels are getting any money from pot anymore.