Mr Castle, you just made a huge argument in favor of taxation. I don't have any problems with being taxed, my issues come with how those funds are used and whether or not others get to enjoy the same taxes. But after living on this here little crappy private road for 10yrs and seeing how a 'free market' can work, I say no thanks. Taxes are not evil, if you think they are then you must stop using MediCal and MediCare benefits immediately.
I was having this debate with my partner. He said "we need guns so when 10 mexican mafia members come to rob us we can be ready" (I shit you not, his dumb-ass actually said this, lol). To which I replied "Any professional criminal will know that robbing a grow facility is absolutely pointless unless they are trying to steal a bunch of leaves, because most of the time, that's what it is, just leaves, it's not a dispensary."
I think the only people you need to worry about is local highschool kids trying to break-in and that's something you can handle yourself and don't need guns for.
The whole reason why my county enacted the urgency ban back in 2011 was that an old grower guy was murdered. He met his robbers with a shotgun, they had more bigger better guns and shot the shit out of him. Turned out they were Vietnamese gang members. He had almost 800 plants going at the time and some other amount already harvested. They were there for all of it.
I 100% agree with you, but I'm in SoCal. Shit's a little different here.
The city I'm in endorses marijuana and protects us (at 15% they better!) and the cops are on our side. I think the city wants marijuana to become one of their main industries and to revitilize their local economy.
You can't even find property at a reasonable price here, anymore. There are shell companies that were compliant prior to Jan. 1 that are selling for 5k-10k (meaning my 2 NPO's could potentially have a value of 20k, in name alone).
I know all the things I had to go thru to get compliant and I'm really surprised more people aren't focused on adapting and getting compliant as well.
I know if you have land, it's not so easy to just pick-up and move. My humble advice would be to get involved in city council (or whatever your local government calls themselves) or wait it out. We're in uncharted territory and everyone's feeling it out. I heard another city just overturned their ban, so it is already happening, be patient.
I'm telling you now, the vast majority of these bans will go uninforced or be overturned/ammended (IMO, take it or leave it, but I've been remarkably accurate at calling these things so far). If you've been doing your homework, you know it's more of a technicality due to the March 1st deadline.
We're very likely moving back to SoCal, not too terribly far from Desert Hot Springs/Joshua Tree area. You are speaking my mind, at many levels. We got personally involved in our current county, but the way things are shaking out no one gets a place at this table, so folks like you and the ones in DHS are going to be able to play. This whole MMRSA thing, while well intentioned, has screwed some of us very, very hard.
For example, Tuolomne Co is allowing personal cultivation up to 24plants, but that's personal. If you don't have a license to cultivate for commercial purposes (which is now disallowed IIRC) you will not be able to move your product except through the black market, no more grey market. Anyway, I'm rambling.
I`m not so much into a Black-market as a Free- market, one with little boundaries for he who is willing to work hard and be honest . I can`t see that with a tax, regulate and control environment. It`s set up to be limiting and to make money for those who do all the labor. I`m not a get rich kind of guy , but I also don`t want to spend my hard earned income on compliance and taxes just so someone else can make money off my work.
So a chimera of what we have now? Unregulated markets is how we got into our financial crisis as just one very powerful example. We
need regulation, entirely free markets don't work well for everyone, only for the rich and physically powerful.
And, the long and the short of it is this--you, I and every other consumer and grower has to live with the rest of the world. And many of them don't like what we're doing, they want to stop us entirely. The only middle point we're
ever going to see is one where there is some taxation and regulation. This plant is not tomatoes, it is not "just like" tomatoes, and it will never be as unregulated as tomatoes.
