Damn. Because California has been rug pulled. The underground weed economy was responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in black market revenue. That money's now gone to Oklahoma because the legal cannabis laws are more favorable there, leaving a absolutely gaping hole in California's economy that can't be replaced by growing alternative crops like saffron, or, in keeping with the illegal theme, poppies/heroin or coca/cocaine. Because it was illegal before legalization, there are scant few stats on just how large it was, but where'd growers used to get $4,000/lb, they're now getting $400/lb. (I have this conspiracy theory level theory, in that San Francisco used to be home to illegal grow ops which forced pg&e to upgrade transformers and substations to support pre-led grow lights, which were massively power hungry. since that power is now no longer needed because those grow ops are no longer viable thanks to legalization, but the upgraded substations remain, the rise of electric cars isn't quite the emergency it should be.)
So much of the arts and Burning Man and entire communities in the Emerald Triangle were propped up by that money, and it's gone.
Time will tell how things go for California. I remain hopeful, but there's just no real data about the black market thanks to its very nature, so it's hard to know just how large that gaping hole is.
That’s fascinating. I always figured that real estate hyperinflation just drove all the arts and cool counterculture stuff away.
The upper Midwest had a lot of culture too. Disco (Chicago was a big place for that), Motown (named after Detroit), techno (also Detroit), industrial (Cleveland / Akron), and house music (Chicago and Detroit) all either came from or had large contributions from what is now called the rust belt.
That whole region used to be solidly Democratic. It drifted a bit R in the 90s and 2000s until Trump flipped it with one word: tariffs. Another quote I remember from a guy in Michigan in 2016: "when Trump started talking about trade... I'd die for this man. I don't care what else he does."
Different people have different reasons for supporting a politician, but for these people it's... I'm not even sure it's hope at this point. For some of them it's revenge. They feel lied to and betrayed.
I guess that's part pretty different from the old Cali weed industry. Nobody promised them anything. For these people the Democrats told them NAFTA would bring jobs.
So much of the arts and Burning Man and entire communities in the Emerald Triangle were propped up by that money, and it's gone.
Time will tell how things go for California. I remain hopeful, but there's just no real data about the black market thanks to its very nature, so it's hard to know just how large that gaping hole is.