At the start of the summer season, I wrote a submit entitled “California Provides Up on the Unlawful Hashish Market” wherein I went into element concerning the state’s failure to meaningfully tackle the festering unlawful market. Extra just lately, I wrote about “One other California Hashish Enforcement Program That Gained’t Work.” Because the identify suggests, this submit was about one more performative effort by the state to create an enforcement program that gained’t be broadly used and gained’t work.
If you’re concerned with California’s large unlawful market and a few ideas I’ve on learn how to fight it, I recommend you learn these posts. I don’t intend to do a full-on deep dive into these points on this submit. As an alternative, I need to spotlight one more instance of how poorly the state is doing right here.
Yesterday, October 5, 2023, the California Division of Hashish Management (DCC) Up to date an announcement with the header: “Unified Hashish Enforcement Taskforce strategically disrupted unlawful market by seizing over $101M price of unlicensed hashish merchandise, seized 363% extra firearms in Q3 2023”. And the primary line of the announcement reads “Specializing in bigger targets, the taskforce achieved related outcomes from earlier quarter by means of serving 35 % fewer search warrants.” (Italics had been within the authentic, I added the daring.)
Wow, that sounds nice proper? Effectively, learn the tremendous print. Particularly this chart:
| UCETF Operations | Q3 2023 | Q2 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Search Warrants Served | 60 | 92 |
| Kilos of Hashish Seized | 61,415.75 | 66,315.01 |
| Retail Worth of Hashish Merchandise Seized | $101,349,657 | $109,277,688.94 |
| Hashish Crops Eradicated | 98,054 | 120,970 |
| Firearms Seized | 69 | 19 |
| Cash Seized | $0 | $223,809 |
Let’s break this down. The group of this chart (left to proper) virtually makes it appear to be the numbers went up. Nevertheless, Q3 comes earlier than Q2. I gained’t speculate as to why this was organized this manner, however on the finish of the day actually the entire numbers bought worse from Q2 to Q3 except firearms seized.
Particularly, Q3 of 2023 say a 1/3 discount within the quantity of search warrants served. Over a 90 day interval, 60 warrants had been served. That’s 20 per thirty days. For the entire state. Throughout that point, much less hashish was seized, and the retail worth went down accordingly. Fewer crops had been eradicated. And no cash (!) was seized in any respect.
The one metric that went up was the variety of unlawful firearms that had been seized. Don’t get me incorrect, getting unlawful weapons of out of the palms of alleged criminals is an effective factor. However to say that this can make a dent within the unlawful market and even that these efforts achieved “related outcomes” to final quarter is, to place it mildly, a joke.
This most up-to-date confirms what I’ve mentioned for a really very long time: the state doesn’t actually care concerning the unlawful market. I don’t consider that one of the simplest ways to finish the unlawful market is thru enforcement however by means of de-regulation and making it straightforward to take part legally. But when the state gained’t try this and gained’t do enforcement, is it any marvel why the unlawful market dominates?