Oregon has a cannabis problem. How big of a problem it is depends on whom you ask, but the gist is that people in the state are growing way too much cannabis. In fact, you may have heard: As of January, there was officially enough pot in the state to last for six and a half years.
Part of the story of this abundance has to do with simple geography: Southern Oregon, like Northern California and its famed Humboldt County, features near-ideal outdoor growing conditions for cannabis. But after legalizing weed in 2014, Oregon also featured among the lowest barriers to entry of any legal weed state. The situation has led to what State Senator Floyd Prozanski described in an interview as "so much capital flooding in, and overproduction." While Prozanski supports the state's emerging cannabis industry and thinks Oregon "can and should be an export state," he said he was deeply worried all that oversupply was going into the illicit market.
He's not alone. Politicians were so concerned Oregon was too good at growing cannabis that they were able to get two laws regarding weed supply signed into law earlier this summer. But with an apparently massive oversupply, what happens to all that weed when there's no one to sell it to?
Conversations with a bevy of industry players and local officials painted a picture less of black market infiltration and more of hundreds of pounds of weed rotting in trash bags, while processors who make dabs and other extracts rapidly ramp up their production. Yet even as the state's oversupply became an ingrained fact of life, spirits remained, well, high. In other words, people are still willing to believe it's just a matter of time before Oregon takes over the American weed industry.
And if a bunch of weed rots in the meantime, so be it.
Read more at vice.com