California’s new legal system seems to be working, though it’s impossibly early to tell for sure. I’ll be talking about that more, but there is one place where it didn’t work.
Calaveras County is in the Sierras, and was once a logging place until the mill shut down. The county went ahead and authorized many cannabis farmers in 2016. Once they had their permits they could build out, grow a crop, and pay the taxes. In January 2018, the county changed it’s mind and banned all the growers they had permitted. After collecting about $10 million in fees and taxes.
Now they have nothing except a ton of lawsuits. And the big question of which businesses are they going to attract to the county now?
So far, that’s a worst-case situation.