Dan and I just
returned from our trip to California. I had some frequent flyer miles to use or
lose, and Dan had never been south of San Francisco, so I decided to use some
miles to revisit some of my old haunts.
We started in San
Jose, where I lived for ten years, and ended in Los Angeles, where I lived for
two years.
The part of our
trip that people seem most interested in is our visit to a pot dispensary, so
that’s the part of the trip I’ll write about first. I’m going to be honest here
and admit I’m no expert on pot. I tried it once in 1976, and I felt… nothing.
And yes, I inhaled.
I knew Dan wanted
to visit a dispensary, but I didn’t know it was such a priority. He wound up
convincing our host, the widow of the man who wound up with my job after I left
it, to take him to a dispensary the first day we were in San Jose. We wound up
at Airfield Supply, which is right by the San Jose airport.
We had to show our
ID to get in the store. Once in the store, we had to sign a disclosure form
releasing Airfield Supply from liability for anything we might say, do, or
stand by as a result of any purchase we might make. Only after that were we
allowed into the part of the store with the products.
I was around in the
1960s, and this store is not what I was expecting, which was a bunch of stoned
long-haired hippie types saying “Dude,” “Cool,” etc. The staff could have been
mistaken for the younger folks I worked with at Company L (the Los Angeles Times ran an article in its
July 15 Business section titled “From Tech to Toke” on how tech workers are
migrating to jobs in the “cannabis sector.”) The folks at Airfield Supply were
highly professional and seemed to know their stuff, which makes sense. This is,
after all, a business, and the goal is to make a profit. Airfield Supply takes
credit cards, which surprised me, but, again, their goal is to make a profit,
and credit cards make for larger purchases.
Dan bought oils to
vape. One was “Afghan Elite” another was “Gorilla Glue.” His total before tax
cost was $100.10. Taxes added $28.49 to the purchase, so various state
government agencies collected 28% on Dan’s legal pot purchase.
He also bought a
package of ten small cookies “for me” (I have a well-known weakness for
cookies). The cookies, “Big Pete’s Cannabis-Infused Chocolate Chip Mini
Cookies,” are professionally packaged and even have a bar code—81156020633—if
you saw them on a grocery store shelf, they’d look right at home. These cost
$19, and the tax on that purchase, $6.32, was 33%. (Full disclosure, I ate 3½
cookies and not all at once; I think they did relax me, but that could well be
psychosomatic.)
California is
making 28% to 33% on all pot purchases.
If you consider the
money California was spending on pot prohibition before pot was legalized,
California is making a lot more than 28% to 33% on the deal.
Airfield Supply is just one dispensary.
Dispensaries are just about everywhere (although some upscale and upscale
wannabe neighborhoods prohibit them), and they advertise not only in the local Pitch-like papers, but also in the Los Angeles Daily News. (Newspapers have
to take revenue where they can get it these days--while we were in California, the Daily News announced it would lay off half its staff.) Interestingly, medical
marijuana dispensaries are urging their customers not to give up their cards,
since a person who has a medical card can buy pot at age 18; recreational
stores can only sell to those 21 and older.
It’s a new world
out there, and California has changed that new world from a liability into an
asset.
Perhaps the rest of
the country should do the same.
© 2018 Larry Roth
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