I would like to reiterate that A LOT of the entrenched Cannabis industry assholes that run the business are pro-Trump. I'm talking well over a majority of the most psychotic Trump supporters I know are directly involved in the interstate Cannabis market. They are even more prone to conspiracy brainrot than the average Yall'Qaeda folks.
I'm sounding the alarm for the millionth time that the Cannabis industry attracts some of the most degenerate, unethical, fucked up people into positions of power. I've said this like 10 times on Lemmy at least, and I always get downvoted into oblivion even though I have more direct experience with the Cannabis industry than 99.9999% of people on earth.
Trust me when I say a lot of these people are fully fucked in the head, and giving them legitimacy is a problem. While I am still 100% pro-legalization, I am also aware of the dark side of that equation as well. There is a lot of exploitation and evil in the industry. It needs to be unionized, and there needs to be common sense regulation that is not captured by the corporations within the industry itself.
Source: Worked in the black, gray, and recreational Cannabis industry for 14 years. Have directly facilitated the sale of tens of millions of dollars worth of Cannabis. Worked with thousands of different people, and hundreds of different vendors over that time.
I'm sounding the alarm for the millionth time that the Cannabis industry attracts some of the most degenerate, unethical, fucked up people into positions of power
I worked at a delivery dispensary for like 2 months in 2021 or so:
our main product was one which the owner also owned, but only under the table through a kid of his, so we'd regularly get weird orders that didn't match what we were getting in product, and heavily push the garbage house brand for him. Pretty sure money laundering was happening
the safe was regularly left unlocked and open. The safe was in the cage (where the weed is) which was also unlocked and open. So was the back door ~10ft away from that, and the roll-up ~20ft from that. Any random homeless person could easily have sprinted in, yoinked money, weed, and bolted. Well, until:
right after I quit the guy who hired me (the "co owner") took 10k cash out of the safe AND the wife of the girl in accounting and dipped, idk if they ever found that guy actually
they absolutely were trafficking significant amounts of hard drugs as well