corporate capture

  • us cannabis cultivation californiaWhen legalization proponents sold voters on Prop. 64 in 2016, one of their chief arguments in favor of the measure was that legal weed would yield a cash bonanza for state and local governments throughout California. And indeed, they seem to have been right. But now, many of those very same people argue that those taxes need to be reduced or eliminated altogether. And indeed, they seem to be right about that, too. Nobody could know precisely what would happen, though plenty of people were certain that they did know, or at least sounded like they did. Most people thought the legal market would overtake the illicit market. The market for illicit pot in California is still much larger than the legal market—approaching three times the size, by some estimates.

  • canada flag cannabisBack in 2018, during those months before Canada legalized recreational cannabis, things were good for the pot industry. Companies were being hyped as pioneers in “the green frontier” and “proof that money grows on trees.” Cannabis stocks were going ballistic, and three of the largest companies’ share values had each increased by more than 200 percent over the course of 2017—according to media outlet MJBizDaily, the Canadian Marijuana Index had risen by 117 percent in December of that year alone. Investors were not just making money, they were making money fast. Three years later, much of that hype has vanished, and now both industry and government are beginning thorough post-mortems of what is, and isn’t, working with pot legalization.

  • There are plenty of predictions about how cannabis farming is poised to go corporate, but Big Marijuana is not inevitable, says Ryan Stoa, a professor of law at Concordia University. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. But Stoa, the author of Craft Weed: Family Farming and the Future of the Marijuana Industry,argues that in a world where cannabis is legal, there is a route for cannabis agriculture to stay sustainable and local. The Verge spoke to Stoa about what’s fending off a corporate takeover, potential legal regulations that could help the industry remain small, and the environmental impact of farming. (See also: Can artisanal weed compete with ‘Big Marijuana’?)