What a legend
lol what a joke - bit of Hegelian dialectic for anybody paying attention - government creates the problem, then offers the soluton by skirting due process and setting precedent for more draconian behavior with rent-seeking movement behind the scenes
Some Wisconsinites choose to cross state lines and buy products they know they can trust in a neighboring state like Michigan or Illinois, where marijuana is legal and cannabis products are more heavily regulated.
āProducts they know they can trustā from the legal market, yep. 
Welp. As a member of gen z I can tell you that never quite went away. With the rapidly depleting mental health of my generation, self harm is pretty common in more fringe spaces.
Donāt kid yourself, cutting has been going on longer than Iāve been alive. When I was in high school, I knew a couple of kids who cut themselves, but more to the point were two of my older cousins. They were about 15 years older than me, and both of them cut their wrists multiple times.
Honestly, I donāt know if itās more common today (although I believe thatās likely), perhaps due to modeling behavior as expressed in media (social and other), or if there are actually more folks who exhibit this behavior than in the past.
Well that sucks. 
Chinese gangs are taking over the black market weed growing in California and Oklahoma. Looks like they donāt care how itās grown. And they donāt care if it kills their workers and customers. Welcome to the future of cannabis. Isnāt it great
California used the Chinese to mine gold here since the mid 1800s. Thereās many Chinese and Hmong families here and theyāve been in the canna industry since the boom in the 1980s.
But, since legalization and the new wave of prohibition, many Californians have ditched the black market here, leaving a void thatās been filled by the Chinese, Russian, and Mexican cartels, along with various foreign entities.
Iāve been on a few legal farms here that are under the umbrella of foreign entities and they all have a trailer somewhere off to the side with banned foreign pesticides.
The golden years were MMJ days. Thatās really what allowed the flourishing of biodynamic and permaculture methodologies to be tried and proven. Turkey bags of shake and smalls were usually free to anyone in need.
I miss those days. Itās near impossible to find clean weed in any of the states these days. Jadenectar just posted on IG a list of legal farms with recalls due to banned pesticides.
Definitely a good year for me to check out and take a year off at a retreat center
What makes you say theyāre taking over? Can you point to any evidence that suggests that they have overtaken the other traditional gangs that have operated in this space?
It seems that the MSOs and other traditional players have been using the Chinese triads/gangs as a means to push for greater regulation to increase the barriers to entry. In California, itās tough to imagine more red tape, in a place where craft farmers are not even allowed to sell direct to patients in the medical market.
I was watching a good documentary on the issue but I canāt find it right now. Iāve been researching this for a few years. Theyāre a big problem now.
I know in Oklahoma they are but I donāt know for sure if they are actually taking over California but itās definitely becoming a big problem there too
āI really think we need to nip the illicit market in the bud as fast as possible,ā Kennicott says.
He says legislators need to give the stateās Cannabis Control Division more authority to punish bad actors while balancing regulations with the needs of business owners.
Not that Iām against shutting down massive illegal grow ops that are spraying their buds with poison and exporting it across the nation, if thatās whatās under discussionā¦ but hopefully they donāt use this as an excuse to go after homegrowing. Would be nice to see politicians in some places, at least, continue to remain in favor of personal freedomsā¦ regardless of party, thatās always a problem for all of us when they decide to sacrifice our freedoms on our behalf for safety, much less profits.
Itās also possible that some of the problems in the other markets had to do with the way businesses responded to the windfall provided by COVID-19 lockdowns. In both Colorado and California (and most of the other legal states in the U.S.), cannabis dispensaries were deemed āessential businessesā and were allowed to stay open while many others were forced to close when states began shutting down in 2020.
While consumer spending in nearly every sector dropped during lockdowns, spending on cannabis went through the roof. This sudden money injection in the industry spurred an increase in business spending and hiring. It also increased the attention that weed companies were getting from private investors.
Pretty much this. Going after huge illegal grow ops is fine, but the weed business is losing money because weāre going from a period where people were having checks mailed to them for a year with nothing to do but drink, smoke weed and DIY home improvement, to one where the Fedās fighting inflation with restrictive fiscal policy and itās hitting everyone. Inflation is heading down, but if you actually dig into the numbers itās not down on food, housing, gas, auto insurance, or anything that most people would consider requirements for a normal life. Itās down on discretionary items - people have stopped buying things because theyāre going broke. Most casual smokers would probably consider weed a discretionary item rather than a requirement for a normal life, despite how we might think of it here. 
It was bound to happen now that we are nearly to half the states having legal recreational
The green wave is still slowly washing over some placesā¦.
