Columbian drug lords were known to keep lions, tigers, hippos and venomous snakes, but Canadian drug traffickers have different taste in exotic animals.
A recent police bust just north of Toronto recovered $150 million worth of illegally-grown marijuana, guns, crossbows and . . . THREE kangaroos and TWO zebras.
First the good news. The total number of people arrested in the U.S. for breaking cannabis laws declined for the first time in four years.
Now the really bad news. Arrests for marijuana violations outpaced arrests for ALL violent crimes put together, according to data from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI’s report showed police arrested 545,602 people for cannabis-related crimes in 2019, which is 9 percent higher than the 495,871 people arrested for violent crimes. And the charges? Well, 92 percent of the cannabis arrests were for simple possession.
A recent report from the ACLU found that black people were 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than white people. And in Montana, which is voting on legalization in less than two weeks, Black people were about 9.5 percent more likely to be arrested.
U.S. customs and border officers found almost 40 grams of cannabis hidden inside seashells shipped from Nigeria. Cannabis was put into plastic bags in the shell and taped closed.
Wouldn’t a package of sea shells raise questions to begin with?
Not exactly top-notch smugglers here.
From research advancements to increases in industry employment numbers to an infusion of millions of dollars of tax money to the State of Colorado, the cannabis industry has a lot to be proud of.
The cannabis industry’s
projected economic impact
by 2024.
Projections show cannabis employment growth could increase 50% in 2020. That would be more than the number of the nation’s computer programmers. Chart: US cannabis employment could climb nearly 50% in 2020, surpassing computer programmers
The year marijuana was hailed as a miraculous treatment for “general debility” and “nervous excitement.” Since then, there hasn’t been much scientific research on cannabis, but Colorado is one of the states trying to lead the way with controlled, peer-reviewed studies.
Put a $ in front of it and it’s $167 million. That’s the tax revenue generated by the Colorado cannabis industry from January through June of 2020. Since legalization, the state has received nearly $1.4 billion in cannabis taxes and fees.
Here’s how Denver spends it’s
tax revenue.
Here are the 35 most influential womenin cannabis, according to Green Entrepreneur. Notables include soccer star Megan Rapinoe, and in Colorado, CEO of Simply Pure Dispensary, Wanda James, Shannon Donnelly, CEO of Healthy Honeys, and Nancy Whiteman, CEO of Wana Brands.
That is how much of an increase in the rates of crime in states bordering Colorado and Washington, according to a study published in the Journal of Drug Issues. In fact, researchers found “a substantial reduction in certain types of crimes, such as property crime, larceny, and simple assault in border counties in the Colorado region.”
A new study finds that Colorado’s legal cannabis industry
has decreased crime in neighboring states.
“Border counties in the Colorado region saw substantial decreases in overall property crime rate and larceny rate relative to non-border counties following Colorado’s legalization,” according to the study. “This finding suggests that recreational marijuana legalization in a state (e.g., Colorado) may not bring about negative consequences on crime in neighboring states, which challenges the assertions made by public officials in these neighboring states arguing a crime-inducing effect of legalization.”
Read more here.
Expansion of legal cannabis markets in the U.S. has fundamentally disrupted demand for illegal cannabis imports. Overall, the amount of cannabis intercepted along all U.S. borders fell 89% from 2011 to 2019. Along the southwestern border, where 99% of all intercepted cannabis has been collected, those incidents have decreased by 90% since 2011 Why?
The DEA admits – buried within a 190-page submission to Congress – that state-level cannabis legalization reduces illegal market demand.
Why, yes. Republican state lawmakers, a former federal prosecutor, Koch Industries, NBA champion Kevin Garnett and criminal justice reform advocates delivered a letter to President Trump, imploring him to grant pardons or commutations to people serving time in federal prison for non-violent marijuana offenses.
Already in 2020, the cannabis industry has been the subject of several high-profile incidents:
Experts caution cannabis companies to shore up their security practices and for consumers to be mindful of opportunities that seem too good to be true.
The head of the labor union that represents U.S. Border Patrol agents has acknowledged (albeit inadvertently) that states that legalize marijuana are disrupting cartel activity. The National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd said that cartels are transitioning to other drugs in states where cannabis is legal. More »
In 2018, a report from the Cato Institute found that substantial declines (in the illicit market) are attributable to state-level cannabis reform efforts, which “has significantly undercut marijuana smuggling.”
CDC: Teen cannabis use dropped in Colorado and other states after legalization
Two possible reasons cited by the CDC for the decline or absence of youth marijuana use were that cannabis lost its novelty appeal and the reduction of the illegal market in states where cannabis is regulated.
Washington State University: Legal cannabis has not led to spikes in crime in WA and CO
Researchers found that legalizing marijuana had “no statistically significant long-term effects” on serious violent crime and property crime rates in either state.