Ten Reasons Why MMJ Is Cannabis Commerce’s Ball And Chain

Part 3: MMJ limits job incubation to a fraction of what it could be

The fashionable accessory cannaworkers wear in MMJ states.

During most of mankind’s 200,000-year existence on Planet Earth, only a handful of jobs were on offer. Hunter, gatherer, chief, child rearer, healer, and shaman were among the few available positions. Hunters served double duty as soldiers.

About 10,000 years ago, when agriculture as we know it became viable, farmer was added to the list. Additional jobs like butcher, baker, chef, leather fashioner, arrow maker, and blacksmith began appearing. Soldier separated from hunter. More and more jobs became identifiable over the coming millennia.

But it wasn’t until the 19^th century AD, when the Industrial Revolution kicked in, that the depth and breadth of jobs on offer really took off. In the 20^th century, aided by the census and computers, governments began compiling statistics for how many jobs were created and lost in, say, the entire United States, in any given time period.

If a lot of jobs were incubated, that was good for an unseen yet ever-present force known as “the economy.”

If numerous jobs were lost, while very few jobs were “won,” that was bad for the economy.

Want a white collar, managerial kinda cannajob? You don’t have a problem toting this around, do you?

Minor drawbacks like black lung disease aside, “blue collar” mining and manufacturing jobs were good. “White collar” jobs were even better. They raised everyone’s “standard of living” and provided “discretionary income” — money to spend on disposable goods no one really needed that “grew the economy.”

More recently, the information technology sector incubated hundreds of thousands of white-collar jobs in the 90’s. That was universally applauded as a really positive development. Alas, the IT bubble burst. Eventually, it was replaced by . . . nothing much.

By 2011, depending on where you happened to look, the now all-too-well tracked unemployment rate had either approached historic highs or shot right past them.

Coincidentally, in 2008, when the economy soured like an overturned milk tanker, MMJ retail began receiving quite a bit of publicity from every form of communication and media known to man. There seemed to be considerable demand for the product — a wacky weed, which was also a magical herb, that made people feel a lot better physically and mentally than they felt before they ingested it. Workers disgusted with their jobs, positions that were becoming increasingly expendable or interchangeable, yearned to break into cannabis commerce. It offered a fresh start in a field they loved.

But unusual forces were afoot. Large portions of the populace were not embracing this fabulous new source of jobs in a putrid economy. Curiously, the same citizens and their elected legislators who accepted the retail presence of alcohol, tobacco, and prescription drugs recoiled at the mention of free cannabis enterprise. The government gave no indication it wanted to help the nascent industry. Quite the opposite. It only rubber-stamped cannabis commerce shoehorned into a limited and ill-fitting role as medical marijuana provider for patients’ needs. That service had been historically handled perfectly well by pharmacies.

Recreational and industrial use were not even in the discussion.

In fact, so many people wanted to work in cannabis commerce, the Colorado Department of Revenue put a moratorium on opening any more dispensaries. Let’s review: the state desperately needed jobs, cannabis commerce provided them, then, instead of raising the drawbridge, the DOR poured hot boiling oil over the pilgrims who came to the gates of the city seeking gainful employment.

In addition to the industry-wide moratorium, an inventive series of restrictions, limitations, and regulations insured that job incubation for the MMJ industry, what there was of it, would be strapped with a burden no other industry in the history of mankind has ever had to bear.

Speaking of being strapped with a ball and chain, even the slave industry was part of the free enterprise system at one time. Why do I mention that? It means that cannabis commerce in 2011 doesn’t even rate the same respect the human bondage industry was accorded in 1860. That’s how low people seeking cannajobs are treated in MMJ states.

What? You don’t like towing around a bowling ball at work? Your work ethic isn’t strong enough. Malingerer!

Why have cannajobs been fitted for a ball and chain?

Your MMJ state voted for it.

Everyone who voted for MMJ instead of repealing prohibition probably didn’t realize they gave tacit approval to limiting, constricting, and fettering cannajobs — at a time jobs are needed desperately. But that’s essentially what’s transpired. There were no cautionary tales provided for the voting public like this one. No one knew what they were inviting into their lives.

Here’s the gist of it, condensed into a sentence:

MMJ = endless legislative wheel spinning in a nanny state restricting growth; MJ = free enterprise as the founding hemp farmer fathers intended.

When free enterprise flows, conditions become ripe for job incubation. When the spigot is turned off, hypocrisy reigns.

The following is not what the founding hemp fathers intended:

• You open a shoe store . . . but you can only sell shoes to customers with plantar fascitis. You wouldn’t have to hire an additional salesperson or three, would you?
• You open a liquor store . . . but you can only sell liquor to people with prescriptions for exotic spirits like Grand Mariner. You wouldn’t have to staff a superstore, would you?
• You open a gas station. But you can only sell gas to owners of foreign imports manufactured before 1995. You wouldn’t need two cashiers to process the credit card transactions, would you?

All those examples are bastardizations of the free enterprise system. Yet for retail MMJ, it’s par for the course:

• You open an MMC. But you can only sell to a minute fraction of all the people who want to buy.

So, my fellow Americans [and curious internationals], and specifically my fellow Americans in the 16 MMJ states [as of June, 2011], here’s that refrain, sprayed in skywriting, one more time:

The government didn’t do this to you without your permission, you gave it permission to limit cannajobs to a fraction of what they could be when you voted to become MMJ states instead of repealing prohibition.

That’s what is.

Let’s take a closer look at how MMJ restricts cannajobs:

• 34 states have no MMJ at all. So there’s no need for cannajobs. In two-thirds of the country, you can’t even earn an hourly wage trimming buds.
• Each city and county in MMJ states can choose to allow or not allow MMCs [medical marijuana centers including dispensaries, clubs, co-ops, and collectives]. Many of them pass. That eliminates fifty percent or more of the potential cannajobs within a given state.
• Each city and county in MMJ states can choose to limit the amount of MMCs operating. Plenty of them do exactly that. That reduces the amount of cannajobs once again.
• Not everyone feels like fabricating an illness in order to obtain a state “red card” [license to purchase MMJ]. That means less cannaworkers are needed to serve the needs of people hesistant to tell a recommending physician, “I have a fragile ego which could decompensate from the stress of having poison ivy on prom night, 1992.”
• Many people with “legitimate” maladies are reluctant to apply for red cards. It’s a real fear that they will encounter professional and personal repercussions if their “terrible secret” is outed. That makes even less “patients” for cannaworkers to serve who would happily transact if MMJ wasn’t a model of hypocricy.
• Bizarre, ever-changing regulations discourage growers, thinning their ranks.

Any way you guesstimate it — there are no hard statistics available for who’s not working in the MJ industry — it would appear that maybe one out of thirty people who want to work in cannabis commerce can.

“Sitting down by my window, Whoa, whoa, looking at the rain. Whoa, down by my window, baby, And all around me, I said suddenly I felt the rain. Somethin’ grabbed a hold of me, darling, Honey, it felt to me, honey like, yeah, a ball and chain.”

Space and time prohibits more precise predictions for the number of cannaworkers and cannamanagers there would be in a fully legal, regulated landscape — though this has the makings of a juicy Cannabis Commerce report for another day. It goes without saying that the cannajobs incubated would provide quite a boost for our moribund economy.

One area where cannajobs have flourished is in the burgeoning field of cultivation supplies which includes nutrients, lights, temperature and humidity control devices, and indoor grow enclosures. These can be sold across state lines. They are not subject to the vagaries of MMJ law, as they can be used to grow tomatoes or any other plant.

So, wither cannabis commerce? Will it become the next big industry — or remain a cottage industry like needlepoint supplies or lawn bowling equpiment?

Find out next, as we explore cannabis’ contribution to Gross National Product, as it desparately attempts to wriggle out from under MMJ’s thumb.