KW: There is no such thing as ‘synthetic cannabis’ rather there is an abomination of chemicals and poisons packaged together and sold to unsuspecting kids to get a high simply becasue they can’t buy the real thing a natural herb that has been in use for centuries past but was outlawed in the early 1900’s as the liquor and drug manufacturing lobby took charge of legislators minds. Since then thousands have been criminalised for its mostly private use and no harm done to anyone. Foolishly the politicians refuse to recognise that they could solve the mind altering and death inflicting ‘synthetic cannabis’ problem, that is a crime that it even exists, by simply getting on and legalising the ‘weed’.

This week from Agora Financial’s newsletter: Nevada tax collectors are higher than the moon over the state’s marijuana tax revenues.

“The first full year of legal marijuana sales in Nevada exceeded expectations by 40%,” reports the Associated Press this week. Taxable cannabis sales totaled $530 million, translating to tax revenue of $70 million. Recreational marijuana became legal in the Silver State on July 1 of last year. As we documented at the time, the business got off to a tortoise-slow start because distributor licenses were handed out only to existing alcohol distributors. (Never underestimate the power of the booze lobby.) As a result, supply was so limited the governor issued a “statement of emergency” (seriously!), and the Nevada Tax Commission agreed to expand the universe of legal weed distributors.

A year later, the rest is history: “As we move into fiscal year 2019, we expect to see continued growth in the industry by way of additional businesses opening up, and we expect revenues to continue to be strong,” says Nevada Tax Director Bill Anderson. About 39% of that $70 million tax take goes to schools, the rest to the state’s rainy-day fund.

This of course ignores the absolute surge in the use of marijuana for medicinal use and cures and Canada has an exploding new industry as the whole country legalises pot.

Meanwhile here in Hawke’s Bay the sticky plaster approach continues to cost our kids their lives with an out of touch Police Minister searching for solutions that are at his hand if he engaged his brain that is befudled by the liquor and pharmacy industries protecting their patch

Multi-agency approach needed to stamp out synthetic drugs, Nash says.

Source: Stuart Nash: Let’s not underestimate the scale of this problem – NZ Herald