Bear with me, dear reader, for today I write to you about actual snowflakes; we’ll save the cocaine conversation for another day. Currently the sale of legal marijuana is America’s 6th largest cash crop industry in the United States. According to the Leafly Cannabis Harvest Report there were 15 states producing approximately 2,834 metric tons worth $5 billion that year. With the number of states now up to 22 plus two territories and D.C. with legalized recreational use, another 15 have legalized medical use. So the numbers from 2022, naturally, are skewed in that domestic production has only grown since then. I only mention a 2022 report to illustrate the seriousness of the billion dollar pivot into a legal market in less than a decade.
To put the volume (~3,000 metric tons) into perspective: Mexico produced 15,800 metric tons in 2007 (before any recreational legalization in the United States, other than California’s medical passage in 1996) and there’s no indication that number has dropped for any reason. If anything, a legal market in the United States may increase demand. Virtually all Mexican harvests will make their way to American markets. The US Government estimates that only 100-500 metric tons is consumed in Mexico each year. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police estimate our neighbors to the north produce approximately 1,399 to 3,498 metric tons per year, most of which enters the US as well. So as a baseline, let’s say the US market consumes anywhere from approximately 17,000 to 19,000 metric tons of product. So to say there’s room for the legal market to expand would be an immense understatement. And to place the power of that market squarely outside the purview of corporations – organizations that will inevitably gate-keep entry into the market for small farmers and businesses – will be the impending fight after legalization.
The 37 states with some form of legalization on the books, even if each state produced significant harvests, still doesn’t even come close to the amount of foreign weed in the US. Which is why the Emerald Triangle struggles to transition, and recently endured a mass murder believed to be tied to the marijuana trade. As it stands now, the industry faces threats from both ends of the trajectory of the industry. Small farmers and distributors still fight amongst themselves while corporate interests continue to accumulate the means of cannabis production.
For some more perspective, allegedly the 6th largest cash crop producing $5 billion on the books and who knows how much on the black market; compared to other agricultural markets like soy or corn that produce between $50 and $90 billion annually. Over time, the number of farms for these markets has decreased, while the number of acreage has increased. Cue Grapes of Wrath reference – again. A perfect example of this would be the handful of companies that have driven over 200 seed commodity companies out of business and centralized 60% of the market. It’s an oligopoly that doesn’t just control the rights to seed varieties, but viciously sues farmers who try to save seeds. Not to mention the fact that these same companies are responsible for a majority of pesticide use, like some negative feedback loop of shareholder profit and unhelpfulness for actual farmers. Not that you need another example, dear reader, but the same theme rears its ugly head in another tentacle of the agriculture industry concerning right to repair and equipment/machinery. Both land and profit, like almost every industry in the US, are falling into fewer hands (an increasing number by foreign investors) and owned by even less.
That said, the political climate in the US essentially consists of fascists parading around calling anyone who objects “snowflakes,” a real case of I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I? The remnants of yesteryear’s generational lack of accountability evolved into an especially dumb brand of bootlicking, it’s powerful in all the wrong ways. So logical regulation in any industry seems unlikely when one party is throwing feces at the wall and the other refuses to admit there’s a problem.
The burgeoning legal cannabis industry lies at a powerful crossroads where – should state and national government regulate it properly – it could bring economic opportunity to regular people and small businesses or it can be used to further bludgeon an already strained relationship between Americans and our economic dichotomy between wealth and poverty. Think of it like this, we can establish a robust and sustainable new industry or we can go the way of the seed industry, banking sector, or housing market. We can bring wealth to individual people and small businesses or we can continue the trend of wealth and power accumulation until there is nothing left but Do-Nothings and Demagogues.
Meanwhile, states like Nebraska or Texas are taking multiple attempts to establish a legal market at all, recreational or medical. Texas, specifically, is embroiled constantly in controversy surrounding the topic. Advocates will say it’s only a matter of time. But passing time alone will not create a sustainable industry, legalization is only the first step; and frankly, if the history of other agricultural industries are any indication, it might actually be the easiest.
It doesn’t much matter what they’re called, a cartel operates like a corporation and vis versa. And while I promised the cocaine conversation was for another day, I’ll just say here that it – at its core – is an agricultural industry as well. Every Matron of the Black Market takes the turn towards the Grapes of Wrath sometime, it’s a capitalistic measure of success. It’s what Iceberg Slim, El Mayo, and Jeffery Bezos all have in common. While business barons and bosses have been the norm in the majority of industries in the US and beyond, historically, it doesn’t seem to be a blueprint that will endure in the face of any lasting peace. Several union pushes and strikes throughout a variety of industries have taken shape in the US. Like all ebbs and flows of history, there comes a breaking point, when a government for and by the people is forced to do their job. Is that point now? Who knows. But it’s worth the wordage to at least identify the players.
So how does the pot industry become a people’s business? Well, in a nut, there has to be accessible paths into the industry for small-time farmers and family businesses. This has to happen alongside policy to repair the damage as well – i.e. pardoning nonviolent drug offenses – it might help with the incarceration problem. Everyday Americans don’t have the means to tiptoe around the litigious and bureaucratic red tape of corporate interests. Like the path to legalization, there are some prerequisites and important regulatory milestones that must be reached and then protected.
Some may say such “liberal” ideas are out of reach or simply the winter dreams of “Snowflakes.” I write to you today, dear reader, in protest of such a label. It is not liberal, or sensitive, or a handout to suggest the snowflakes falling on the side of the mountain, and the water through the rivers derived from it, should flow through the delta as clean and natural as it was falling from the clouds. In fact, like many in journalism have suggested, the fragility of a snowflake is more accurately embodied by one who becomes offended at the suggestion of a clean ecosystem and an open, egalitarian economy.
