Cannabis crisis?
Cannabis crisis? What crisis? Holly Harris’s Feb. 27 letter to the editor misrepresents the successes and challenges of Lake County’s cannabis industry.
Ms. Harris states the cannabis “floodgates” opened in 2018, when permit approval has been more of a slow, steady drip. For fiscal year 2022-23, Lake County had only 38 annual state licenses, less than 1% of all licenses issued statewide. The 2023 Lake County crop report showed 219 total acres of state-licensed cannabis cultivation, but more than 10,000 acres of wine grapes. Who’s flooding whom?
Yes, cannabis prices are trending down as state licensing comes online, and it doesn’t help when illicit growers continue to engage in unfair competition. State and local taxes certainly present a challenge. However, federal tax policy is the larger concern because cannabis business owners can’t deduct most business expenses under Internal Revenue Code Sec. 280(e). Don’t hold your breath waiting for cannabis tax reform as the DOGE wrecking ball takes aim at the IRS and other federal agencies.
Ms. Harris suggests planning resources could be better used on other projects, but planners don’t get to pick and choose when and where projects are proposed. When an application is filed, they perform site-specific analysis and environmental review to ensure all state and local standards are met. The Lake County Planning Commission conducts public hearings, and its permit approvals can be appealed. Our robust cannabis ordinance protects public health and safety, not in theory but in daily practice.
Ms. Harris suggests processing new cannabis applications will “doom” small growers. Not so. As of today, there are nearly 150 licensed cannabis operations in Lake County, still less than 2% of licenses statewide. This slow but steady growth shows ingenuity and business savvy, not gloom and doom.
Throttling cannabis permit applications won’t protect small growers from competitors large and small, but it would damage Lake County’s newest agricultural sector – and the jobs and taxes it generates.
—Michael S. Green, Lakeport
Corrupt conservative cowards control the Congress
Those corrupt conservative cowards who currently control the U.S. Congress include some of the worst treasonous troglodytes in our history. The Republican Party has nothing to offer the American people but unparalleled fraud, waste, and abuse just to make themselves even richer.
Republican racists love Trump the traitor and his billionaire bosses Vladimir Putin and Elon Musk. The GOP can’t destroy America fast enough in their opinion which is usually based upon lies from the TV, from far-right fascist Fox “News” specifically (the fake news network that had to pay $787 million dollars for systematically lying about the 2020 election which Democrat Joe Biden won in a landslide).
Not only do Republicans almost always prevaricate instead of telling the truth, most conservatives are completely incapable of rational thought these days. They actually voted for Donald Trump. For those of you who aren’t knuckle-dragging Neanderthal nincompoops, just for one second think about how stupid and/or evil a person would have to be to willingly vote for Trump and his couch-humping sidekick J.D. Vance. Republicans are a bunch of morons, not to mention being plutocratic perverts.
They should be ashamed of themselves, but instead they’re shameless. Not even close to being real Christians, are they? After this latest right-wing Republican regime, in the 2026 midterm election America must rise up and put these Russia-loving GOP politicians right where they belong – out of office, out of business, and into the federal and/or state penitentiaries.
Demented 78-year-old convicted felon Donald Trump is a plump chump and Russian President Putin’s puppet, not to mention hypocritical Trump himself of course being bloated, fat, disgusting, and utterly incompetent. 25th Amendment time.
—Jacob Pickering, Arcata
