Then, to paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke, the first things to be bought and sold are regulators.
P.J. O'Rourke certainly knew what he was talking about:
The Detroit News: Businessman pleads guilty to bribing Michigan medical marijuana licensing board chairman
Oakland County businessman John Dawood Dalaly pleaded guilty Friday to providing bribes to Rick Johnson, the chairman of Michigan's medical marijuana licensing board, and told a federal judge he hired Johnson's wife as a consultant at a rate of $4,000 a month.
Dalaly now faces up to 10 years in federal prison and became the first person to plead guilty in court as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe, examining Michigan government's awarding of licenses to sell and grow medical marijuana.
Marijuana is an industry where right now the sellers can literally grow money like a weed, with weed. Currently it's a $2 billion dollar industry so a few hundred thousand in bribes and favors is relatively cheap, and, of course, sellers are going to influence or outright bribe regulators.
Next step after bribery, the more established marijuana businesses will get their people on the regulatory boards to regulate and shut out or at least increase the cost of entry for their competition -- all in the name of public safety.
3 comments:
No surprise. On either side... sigh
I wondered why Rick Johnson was not charged, so I looked it up. He is due to plead guilty on Tuesday, to charges that potentially could result in up to 10 years in prison and a 250,000 fine. No doubt he has a deal in place to get much less than that.
I am actually shocked that these relatively intelligent people will accept bribes, knowing that they likely will get caught, since most people in their position eventually do get caught. With a new industry starting up, they should know that there would be a ton of scrutiny on the whole thing and Johnson would be in the center of it all.
You can say for yourself if you like the idea of recreational marijuana or not, but while I against the government having a hand in any part of our lives, by regulating what any person does either to or with their body as long as it is not harming anyone else, we all know that they are going to attempt to make money off of pot, by taxing it.
I remember reading in school that if everyone suddenly stopped smoking, the government would face bankruptcy, due to people living longer and the burden on the health care system due to having to take care of those same people also developing cancer or other lung diseases from the smoking they did. The thing is, we have known for ages that smoking is not good for you, it is not like it is a surprise if a heavy smoker develops lung problems.
If I had control of the nation, I would do away with the government laws regulating personal behavior so long as the person doesn't harm others. Things like seat belts, if you don't wear them, your insurance has the right to limit your coverage in an accident. The wars that some presidents have declared against certain things instead of other nations. Wars on poverty, war on drugs, war on terrorism, well we see just how well the war on poverty has done, the war on drugs, well that hasn't worked so far, and the war on terrorism has resulted in a huge number of deaths for us and for other nations, the abandonment of our military equipment that is expensive and top notch technology that now sits in the hands of both China and the Russian Federation, giving them some of our most advanced technology.
So perhaps our government should just stop trying to regulate morals and do only what they are allowed to do via the Constitution. It would certainly make things better.
Old NFO: Sadly not unexpected, but impressive that he was bribed for so cheap.
pigpen51: It seems the politicos feel too important to ever be caught and they feel the payoff is their due, which it is certainly not.
I'm not a fan of marijuana myself - never tried the stuff, can't stand the smell at all and the damn smell is everywhere now. I'd agree we need less regulation, not to mention less laws but if we're going to have such we need more effort at stopping corruption, which I suspect this is sadly but a minor example.
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