Democratic Platform: Decriminalize Pot

Biden needs to do something to energize young people. Democrats take a half step:

De-criminalize marijuana, but don't exactly legalize it.

     “Democrats will decriminalize marijuana use and reschedule it through executive action on the federal level. We will support legalization of medical marijuana, and believe states should be able to make their own decisions about recreational use. The Justice Department should not launch federal prosecutions of conduct that is legal at the state level. All past criminal convictions for cannabis use should be automatically expunged.”

                Draft Democratic Platform

Opinions changed.

American opinion has changed on marijuana legalization. In 1969 only 12% of people told Pew Research that they favored marijuana legalization while 84% opposed it. Now 67% say they support legalization and only 32% oppose it.


The Democratic position--Biden's position--lags behind the public's, but it is a shift for him and it is a differentiator with the Trump-Justice Department-GOP position, which still criminalizes it, but ignores it in some states. The current legal environment is crazy.

 Right now people in Colorado and Oregon are proudly, openly, profitably making, processing, and selling products from the cannabis plant, the two primary ones being THC, an intoxicant, and CBD a non-intoxicating chemical that appears to have pain relieving properties. There are people serving long prison sentences in state and federal prisons right now for doing what people in my community are doing in open fields, with state regulators approving, monitoring, and taxing the product. The Democratic position will take the federal government out of cannabis prohibition, but it will leave subject to state laws, some of whom will criminalize it. With the federal government out, one of the significant obstacles to the industry will be removed. People in the industry could use banks. Vendors will be paid with checks, not stacks of $20 bills.

Biden's position on marijuana is typical Biden--a move "left" but a cautious one. States are left to be "laboratories of Democracy." On this issue, as on most issues, Biden represents the center of Democratic party thinking on issues, with all its ambiguities and compromises, not going far enough for some, going too far for others. Some Democrats oppose full legalization. The Democratic platform committee rejected full legalization by a 106 to 50 vote. Change is hard and slow.

Still, this would be something that people on the progressive left can point to: Biden would be change, decriminalization if not full legalization, better than Trump. Biden would stop prosecution and expunge records, and treat it like alcohol. Regulate it and tax it.  


Up Close Observations

The cannabis industry got normalized and respectable, at least in Oregon. The production of THC and CBD is done openly in fields, and it is by far the largest agricultural crop in my region, supporting thousands of jobs and hundreds of businesses. Beginning about six years ago some of my Financial Advisory clients began confiding in me they used cannabis in some form. My clients were mostly people in their 60's and 70's and 80's, prosperous business people and professionals. Taxpayers. People in authority, people treated with respect by people in authority. They told me they smoked or ate it or vaped it, treating it as an alternative to a glass of wine, a Tylenol for minor pain, or as a sleep aid. Six years ago there was a tiny bit of an avant grade risqué element but that has eliminated now. Cannabis is mainstream.

In Oregon, especially southern Oregon, it is a high margin, high value crop. Some cannabis plants were planted by seed or clones in greenhouses in the winter and were set out in May.   Those would be THC variety plants. Plants double in size about every week or ten days and are the size of washing machines now, and some are twice that big. Drivers see visible from roads hooped structures made from plastic pipes, outfitted with opaque tarps that are pulled over them in late afternoon to create artificial darkness of 12 hours per night, not the 9 hours we would normally get at this date and latitude. Those long artificial nights trick the plant into going into flower early. Plants given "light deprivation" treatment in mid June are almost ready to harvest now.  

Plants grown for THC are sharply limited either in number of plants or the size of land on which "recreational" cannabis can be grown. This creates scarcity. This crop is sold for the highest price when sold as trimmed buds, ideally large unbroken ones, giving "bag appeal," the cannabis version of "curb appeal." This crop sells for prices more or less than $1,000 per pound wholesale, fluctuating sharply depending on normal supply and demand factors. Product with broken buds, seeds, or other flaws sell to be made into extracts which then finds its way into edibles and concentrates. It sells for less.

Big plants harvested in the fall might have three to four pounds of dried buds.

There is a whole network of suppliers for this industry, including vendors for soil amendments (e.g. peat moss and coconut husks and pumice), fertilizers (e.g. bat guano, chicken and cow manure, blood and feather meal), irrigation equipment, fencing, security systems, pest control systems including live predator bugs like ladybugs and chemical sprays, and equipment dealers.

Below are photos of different crops in different stages of development. This is not a hobby business for stoned hippies. This is an industry.

Preparing to plant, late July. Hemp (i.e. CBD plants) transplants go into the ground in July and are harvested at the end of October. See hoop house in the back, with the white tarp over it. It is late afternoon, and the growers have started the artificial darkness.

Planting hemp last week. The three people place transplant into a slot, which drops them down where the planting machine tears a hole in the plastic, drops in the transplant and then, using the two black tires at the very back, tamp in the plant. A person in each row straightens and adjusts the transplant.

Some plants go in perfectly straight, but most need a bit of adjustment.  Under the strip of plastic are two  flat tubes for the drip irrigation. 

Planted last week. 2,000 plants per acre. 95% survival so far. Seeds cost a dollar per seed.

Foreground is a THC plant, planted as an 18 inch high transplant in mid May. Five feet high and five feet in diameter now. It is being grown for harvest in October. In the background is a hoop house for the early-crop, with the opaque cover removed for their 12 hours of daylight. They have been in flower for six weeks.

Flowers in the light deprivation hoop house. Buds are an inch and a half thick, and dense, the thickness of two fingers. The buds are very sticky with resin, which contains the THC, and can be harvested soon.