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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
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COMMENTARY: Passive City Drives Cannabis to Black Market

Manny Biezunski

It’s been over four years since San Diego lawmakers approved an ordinance that would regulate and license the city’s first legal cannabis dispensaries. Since then, only 14 outlets have been allowed to open and operate within a city that boasts an estimated population of 1.4 million. This translates to about one legal cannabis dispensary per 100,000 residents; a statistic that is simply unacceptable.

To further put that data into context, the city of San Diego is allowed to grant one new off-sale liquor license for every 2,500 people. Why is cannabis, a non-lethal plant with medicinal value, being regulated more harshly than an intoxicant, like alcohol, that can be lethal and malignant in high doses? This seems completely backward to me.

No matter what city official you speak with in San Diego, they all agree with the notion that “we must move slowly” when it comes to regulating medical and adult-use cannabis retail. I think this sheepish approach of regulatory half measures enacted by local officials is yielding less than half results.

Pushed to Underground Market

Furthermore, I daresay the City Council, of which four seats are up for election this year, are directly responsible for pushing legitimate medical cannabis patients back into a thriving underground market.

Chris Cate, City Council member for District 6, has been quick to deflect blame and instead has targeted cannabis websites as the main cause for black market growth in San Diego. Weedmaps and other apps allow for unlicensed outlets to pay for advertising on their digital platforms, and thus have gained the reputation of “black market boogeyman” amongst recent licensees and state regulators alike. I disagree.

These apps are simply revealing to San Diego, and all of California, the immense cannabis market that exists, and has always existed, in this state. It is a market that will not go away if these websites cease to operate.

Regulatory Power

Local officials, under Prop 64, hold a staggering amount of power and control over the regulatory process. It is their duty to be sincere about the actual size and scope of the cannabis retail market in San Diego and govern accordingly.

Additionally, it is in the best interest of newly licensed cannabis manufacturers, distributors and cultivators in San Diego to join in the fight for expanded access. I empathize with the frustration these license holders have toward unlicensed companies that continue to operate in the shadows with little to no regulatory oversight. I cannot, however, sympathize with their strategy of calling for criminal enforcement and fear inducing raids.

Drug War Tactics

Engaging in drug war tactics and attempting to police a market out of existence is literally the antithesis of why California voters legalized the cannabis plant in the first place.

Instead of screaming for search warrants, arrests and essentially eating our own, this industry should be engaging with council on a daily basis and urging them to amend their current cannabis ordinance to allow for a much greater number of both storefront and non-storefront retail licenses within the city. In Nevada, lawmakers decided that a county with a population of 700,000 or more should have at least 80 retails locations to adequately serve its population. As stated above, the population of San Diego city is nearly double that amount, and we only have 14 licensed retail locations currently in operation. This, my friends, is the real reason the black market is booming in San Diego.

In conclusion, our local officials must strive to do a better job at sufficiently licensing the seed-to-sale supply chain for the newly legal cannabis market. America’s Finest City was the first in the state to comprehensively regulate recreational cannabis production and sales; but the sad reality is that we did not go nearly far enough to adequately serve both the local and tourist population that consistently consumes cannabis on a daily basis.

Since the passage and enactment of these citywide regulations, the black market has expanded and legitimate patients have been left behind and forced underground. As San Diegans, we can no longer afford to “move slowly.” We must act now.

Manny Biezunski is co-founder of Coast Drive Management and board secretary for the San Diego Cannabis Delivery Alliance.

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