ReservoirDog
Well-Known Member
So, this is a bit synchronistic for me today because I've been reading the political and commercial tea leaves over the last 72hrs and your concerns are being referenced in multiple countries at different levels of gov't with some specificity. Off the top let me apologize for not having the referenced links and footnotes @ this second. I hate it when people say that but I don't want to forget. I'll revisit.
That's a lot of overlapping discussion internationally and it's not a conspiracy or altruist coordination. My guess is that on the left, all is as it ever has been, "Duuude, like, hemp will save the planet. Get on the bus, man... huh-huh, huh-huh". On the right is where there's been a development. The crushing economic realities of conservative dominant heartland America, rural Canada and Europe, mean that this is where production can be accomplished at the lowest cost. Meanwhile, the severe need to start producing something valuable again to reduce dependence on service-sector jobs with dim futures and awful pay has eroded "Just Say No" concerns over the feared reefer madness. Look, there are a lot of Republicans, conservative Canadians and Europeans growing weed. Stars have aligned and conservative politicians have figured out what we've been tryin' to tell 'em for decades: There's f%$#-all downside to growing weed and a s#$%!-ton of up.
- A new German govt has been prepping to take power post-electn. and they have a legalization-focused suite of bills which is great but more to the point they were keen to address, unprompted, concerns that micro-growers won't have a leg to stand on and two officials in this period have touched on it in prepared remarks.
- The US govt is likewise expressed specifics supportive of micros, which is urea in the wind. More to the point, red-state Republicans have been expressing support for micro grows and an effective 'farmer's market' this past week.
- Canadian federal officials prepared statement focused on their concern that people who 'fell behind' as a result of social and economic ostracisation as a by-product of charges during prohibition ought not to be kept from catching up as MJ sector participants, in particular as micro suppliers. More urea in the breeze I know, but the BC government then publicized the fact that they have been running a pilot program for cost-effective micro quality assurance, co-ops and micro grower direct 2 consumer marketplaces, among other initiatives, in the North Kootenay region. It is a program, only 12 months and really a study, that's made a lot of mistakes, but that's the idea. It's also had some great success and our complex world means you have to run experiments in controlled conditions, you can't model everything. I'm intimately aware of this region having owned property and had family there, dragged bat guano up mountains and waterworks to and from glaciers. It wasn't chosen for its beauty but, wow, there's an embarrassment of riches back that way.