WW has spoken with owners or employees of 22 Portland-area dispensaries, each of which confirmed break-ins since late May. Many of the stores were hit multiple times. WW tallied 47 break-ins. That's a rate of one break-in every other night.
Three stores, according to owners, fell prey to armed robberies, including one in which employees were zip-tied and held at gunpoint.
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-Don in Oregon
*****
And before anybody gets all huffy abut my caption like last time I used it, I'm in full support of complete legalization (not regulation) of marijuana.
Buuuuut..... when the push was on for legalizing weed in California a few years ago, the big argument was that if it was legalized, pot crimes would go down because 'anybody could grow their own, so there's no need to steal it'. The dumb fucks don't realize that there's always somebody that's willing to let others do the work for them before swooping in for a rip-off.
As always with leftists human nature never enters into their equations well that and possible u intended consequences.
ReplyDeleteFor the rank and file, maybe. The leadership knows that their "solutions" will necessarily create more problems that will require further "solutions," thereby expanding their power and reach.
DeleteCan't blame the perps. It has been made clear in Portland that crime no longer exists because it is ignored. So go ahead, take whatever you can take.
ReplyDeleteYou can blame the perps. Looting is always wrong.
DeleteIt's just that in this case, you can lay an additional load of blame at the feet of the DA and the politicians who allow this raving lunacy to continue.
Plus, illegal weed doesn’t pay taxes, so will always be cheaper than legal. You only need look at White Lightning sales to prove that.
ReplyDeleteBingo! Great analogy.
DeleteIt's not called dope for nothing.
ReplyDeleteHeltau
Read Jack Herrers The Emperor wears no clothes. Cannabis is not illegal. It is controlled. Why because DuPont invented artifical fibers which cut their business. who you gonna believe Me or your lyin eyes Smoke em if you gotta em.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading that, except it was E. I. DuPont's new process for making paper from wood fibre. Cost wise, Hemp (NOT MJ) competed successfully with the new process, and was easily grown almost anywhere (think marginal land) as a cash crop. Something had to be done. MaryJane was in the patent medicine category at the time. A schedule whatever reclassification fixed it right up, making America safe for (big) business. Everyone else just fell into line.
DeleteOr so the story went...
/DW
I haven't researched how it is in California, but they legalized medical marijuana by constitutional amendment here in FL, which means that citizens raised enough votes to get it on the ballot and passed it. Naturally, the legislature here found ways to make it as difficult as possible to get, and restricted who could sell to just a handful of well-connected players. I don't think that's the way the people meant for it to go when they voted to allow it. Just amazes me that the government has laws against a plant that can grow wild in a lot of places.
ReplyDelete"Just amazes me that the government has laws against a plant that can grow wild in a lot of places."
DeleteDo what now?
- Opium Poppy
Coca plant
Tobacco
The Left's concept of legal marijuana is to create scenario where they can tax it.
ReplyDeleteTruly legal marijuana means it's outside government control.
The latter is not what anyone has gotten.
It is NOT easy to grow either. That "it's a weed" thing is a myth. It's not easy and it's a high maintenance plant to care for.
ReplyDeleteI wanted it to be decriminalized. Not legalized in the way it has been here in Canada because of concern that the state would start actively looking after their own interest in it. I grow it and have been for years now. I don't make any money off it but god help me if I ever did.
ReplyDeleteLegal now here in Michigan. Just last week one was broken into I believe in Lake City? Here in Traverse City there are already 10 or more weed stores open for business. One area on Front St has most of them within less that a mile. I don't smoke it anymore but I never thought in my lifetime it would be legal.
ReplyDeletejoe
Due to fed.gov fuckwittery, they are shut out of the banking system so it is a cash business. Pile of cash and piles of weed will always attract scumbags willing to use force to steal it.
ReplyDeleteExactly, government asshattery makes the cannabis industry cash and crypto only, but the federal goon squad STILL expects its taxes.
DeleteThis is also Portland, there is no such thing as crime there anymore since enforcement has gone to zero. ^_^
-arc
What we have now is half-assed legalization. The Feds need to take it completely off the schedule; it doesn't belong in the same class as Heroin. Cannabis is actually a wonder plant and we haven't scratched the surface on legit uses for all the Cannaboids.
DeleteAnd a cash-based industry always attracts people with other unexplained cash....
DeleteThe problem with so called "legalization" scheme's, in any of the states that have done so, is politicians saw this as a double edged cash cow. First, the "licensing" requirements for growers and dispensaries, including the "fees" paid to local and state politicians for approval of the licenses (read bribes there). Second, the sales taxes applied to the retail sale of weed as a budget addition to provide revenue to the state for more social programs. All of that priced "legal" weed way higher than illegal versions, ensuring that people would continue to purchase weed the way that they always had.
ReplyDeleteNemo
They made it so expensive to grow legally in California that people are resorting to the illegal stuff anyway.
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to grow outside.