I had a lot I was prepared to say, but they were wrapping it up at 5pm after only 2 hours and there were two other people behind me waiting to speak, so I focused on a couple of things.

I said that there is a maxim that goes something like "the purpose of a rule is what it does." Not what its supporters say, what its intention is, what's written in it, but what it actually does. The DCC (and their predecessor agencies) have been at this for 10 years now and in that time small businesses have been crushed out of the market by the hundreds due to untenable regulatory burdens.

The purpose of a rule is what it does. And what their rules are doing is causing massively disproportionate burdens on small businesses while favoring financialized cannabis brands where the product is money and it is investors, not land that is farmed.

It's been 10 years, so they can't say they don't know or it was a short-term oopsie.

#CaliforniaCannabis

I brought the box up to the mic and told them I had a present for them. Actually, I said, this box of e-waste that I'm supposed to pay an employee to manually destroy one tag at a time is emblematic of the absurd regulatory theater we're subject to and the crushingly wasteful and burdensome compliance theater we're expected to perform.

Then I dropped the 10-lb box on the floor with a loud thud.

Ultimately, I did leave it there and they took it away with them.

#Cannabis #DCC #CaliforniaCannabis #Buraucracy