Editor’s Note: The Koala Editor has $50 riding on weed not getting legalized. However, this has absolutely no effect on the viewpoint of the Koala or the stone cold truth laid out in this neutral, fact-driven, pulitzer worthy article.
Prop 64 seems like a smoker’s dream; you can just walk into a store without a med card and buy weed while your abusive dad buys liquor. Oh, and supporters of Prop 64 claim it will expand the industry, bring money to education, and make a large black market go away, how fantastic! The reality of the situation is that the people who wrote prop 64 banked on the fact that all the college students voting yes would be too high to read the damn proposition, so I’m gonna lay this shit out for all you stoners in an essay format your seventh grade english teacher would be proud of.
Marijuana killed my dog and daughter. Now I live in box behind The Che Cafe.
First, prop 64 is going to burn up all the small businesses that grow the fucking weed. Regulations can cost farms one hundred thousand dollars a damn year. This isn’t even including the extra tax on every ounce grown. So the costs and regulations of owning a weed farm are going to get higher than you if you smoke ALL THEIR DAMN WEED.
Next, prop 64 will not bring money to education. I figure some of yall are saying, “I’m fine with spending more money on my sweet OG kush if it helps the state out a lot.”
Maybe that’s true. Maybe I would even be down to drop an extra twenty bucks on an ounce of some green crack if it helps little Johnny and Susie learn long division in second grade instead of third grade. But the reality of the situation is that it won’t. The money is going to help little Johnny and Susie learn that smoking weed is bad in the most ironic law of the century, and the rest of the tax revenues are going to go make sure that police get extra funding – despite the fact that they are decreasing the amount of illegal activity.
Finally, everyone is saying the black market of weed is going to go away. But here is the thing; if you are taxing and regulating the fuck out of the weed market, growers aren’t going to bend over and take that fucking. Despite probably being some of the laziest people in California, people who smoke weed tend to do really creative shit to smoke for cheap, and it isn’t going to be any different once weed is legalized. Why else would only 31% of current weed growers support prop 64?
In conclusion…To finish off this (hopefully, but probably not) magnificent seventh grade style article, let’s recite our three main points: weed businesses and growers will get fucked, the money in profits won’t go to anywhere you probably want them to, and the weed black market will continue to live.