High Cannabis Taxes

Forty years on, the Puritan/Big Pharma opposition to cannabis--symbolized by the DARE hysteria--continues to support organized crime. Prohibition in the form of local bans on cannabis stores, combined with over-taxation of legally produced cannabis and banking restrictions, has been a boon to the drug cartels now exploiting the problems caused by these extremely burdensome regulations on licensed retailers.

As a result, the black market in California is three times as large as the legal market, depriving the state of needed revenue and putting public health and safety at risk from contaminated cannabis grown with banned pesticides. Of note, Colorado has twice as many licensed retailers, with only 15% of California's population.

Unsupportive

After the bank bailouts precipitated the displacement of low-income tenants by venture capitalists, it's no mystery why there are homeless disabled people in the Bay Area. The bailouts by Bush and Obama deprived the U.S. Treasury of two trillion dollars that could have been used for public health, housing, and education. In the meantime, the meager efforts by the City of San Francisco to address the consequences of this malign neglect by the federal government since the Reagan administration have put the city at risk of being on the wrong side of an ADA class action suit by formerly homeless, now housed in death-trap 'supportive units' apartments South of Market.