Feds vs Oakland on Pot Farms, Round 2

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In the most strongly worded warning to date, a federal attorney has threatened to crack down on industrial-scale pot farms should Oakland move ahead with a plan to permit and tax them.

The Justice Department “is carefully considering civil and criminal legal remedies regarding those who seek to set up industrial marijuana growing warehouses in Oakland pursuant to licenses issued by the city,” US Attorney Melinda Haag of the Northern District of California warned in a letter sent to Oakland’s city attorney on Tuesday. 

Since last year, when Oakland garnered national attention for its scheme to become the first city in the country to tax and regulate medical marijuana growers, it has repeatedly delayed the proposed law over legal concerns.

It’s still too early to say that the pot farm plan has completely gone to pot. Oakland City Council Member Desley Brooks, who makes a cameo in my recent feature on “hempreneurs,” has written a new draft of the Oakland ordinance that she thinks will pass muster. From today’s Oakland Tribune

The new draft has specific language establishing a “closed-loop” relationship between cultivators and distributors—which would keep the marijuana only in the hands of patients—as well as making the patient relationships more explicit, which Brooks said address some concerns under state law.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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