City of Oakland Approves Cannabis Farming
The city of Oakland, California legalized large scale Cannabis cultivation for medical use and will issue up to four permits for industrial cultivation starting next year.
The move by the San Francisco Bay Area city aims to bring Medical Cannabis cultivation into the open and allow the city to profit by taxing those who grow it.
The resolution passed the city council easily after a nearly four-hour debate that pitted small-scale garden growers against advocates of a bigger, industrial system that would become a Silicon Valley of Cannabis.
This is going to grow as an industry. And someone is going to have a high-tech producer. .
Oakland already taxes sales of Medical Cannabis, but cultivation has existed in a legal gray area.
Council members plan later action to levy new taxes on growers.
The city’s decision is separate from a state-wide ballot initiative to legalize Cannabis for adult recreational use which Californians will vote on in November.
Polls put support for the November state legalization measure at about 50% of voters, and if it passed, the state would be the first to broadly legalize its use.
Many jurisdictions tolerate some personal use and small sales, but none allow major-scale growing, sales and recreational use.
US Federal law bans Cannabis use of any sort but law enforcement authorities have turned a virtual blind eye to Medical Cannabis.
Large-scale cultivation in California so far has been dominated by criminals who grow Cannabis in national forests or complexes of grow houses, law enforcement officers say.
The toughest opposition at the city council meeting in Oakland came from the small-scale Cannabis growers who feel they will be squeezed out of the market by the new agribusiness.
Given the opportunity to speak up outright opponents to Cannabis use remained silent.
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