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Industrial Marijuana Farming Approved In Oakland
Trintech writes "According to MSNBC: 'The city of Oakland, California on Tuesday legalized large-scale marijuana cultivation for medical use and will issue up to four permits for "industrial" cultivation starting next year.
The move by the San Francisco Bay Area city aims to bring medical marijuana cultivation into the open and allow the city to profit by taxing those who grow it.
The resolution passed the city council easily after a nearly four-hour debate that pitted small-scale "garden" growers against advocates of a bigger, industrial system that would become a "Silicon Valley" of pot.' Yes, you read that right. MSNBC just compared computer chip fabrication to pot cultivation."
As someone who grew up in Northern California proper (and now lives in Silicon Valley), I must protest. We already have our "Silicon Valley" of maryjane -- it's called the Emerald Triangle. Not to mention, my county has already decriminalized cultivation of the good herb (grep for "Measure G"), at least for personal use.
Although, it would be illegal to grow GMO weed there (search for "Measure H").
Don't move yet. The USA at the federal government level doesn't approve of this (though they are currently turning an INFORMAL blind eye to it), and may well jail anyone who actually tries to run an industrial scale marijuana farm.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
That doesn't matter according to the current interpretation of the interstate commerce clause.
The production and sale of pot in California affects the supply and demand within the state, and therefore affects the interstate illegal trade of pot.
It is the same reason that the interstate commerce clause can be used to jail you for building your own automatic weapon. Because by building it yourself, you didn't buy it from a hypothetical supplier that may have been in another state.
Insane? Absolutely. But that is how things work these days.
but interstate commerce is domain of the federal government. Pot growing and sale is interstate commerce even if it doesn't leave the state it was grown in. Gonzalez v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005). An enumerated right does not mean that what is being regulated is specifically stated in the Constitution. That is, you cannot say that the federal government cannot regulate drugs, because it does not specifically say they can regulate drugs in the Constitution.
All jokes aside, commercial hemp has more applications then just narcotics/psychoactive.
Fibres from the marijuana plant produce a material stronger then cotton at a much lower cost to produce (faster growth time, higher yield per plant, able to withstand harsher environmental conditions) thus you have to oft quoted stoner conspiracy that the anti-weed movement was sponsored by America's cotton growers.
Psychological and physiological health issues are shown to be less then that of legal Alcohol and Tobacco. With Marijuana smoke carrying considerably less carcinogens then tobacco smoke, although I'd definitely be behind a dont bong and drive campaign as reaction times are slowed down more then when using alcohol.
I'd also like the US to stop pushing drug laws on other nations. I'd like a "happy" pizza in Cambodia.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.