What little popularity San Francisco Mayor Ed is able to muster up these days may be contingent on pandering to the emerging local marijuana industry, but Lee might be screwing that one up too. While the mayor has tried to trim the local industry by proposing limits on industrial marijuana grow operations, his latest pot proposal would create a city department whose actual name would be the Office of Cannabis, according to the Examiner. The director of the office would be empowered to “issue, deny, condition, suspend, or revoke cannabis-related permits in accordance with applicable laws and regulations,” and the creation of this new department will be part of a larger, omnibus City Administrator budget review up for debate at Thursday’s Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee meeting.

Lee’s suggestion of a three-person department is a replacement plan for Sup. Jeff Sheehy’s recently proposed Department of Cannabis that would have included a larger committee. But considering that San Francisco already has a Cannabis State Legalization Task Force and a separate Medical Cannabis Task Force, these possibly redundant task forces strike the marijuana industry as too many cooks in the kush kitchen.

Green Cross dispensary founder Kevin Reed did not mince words at his dissatisfaction with the plan, citing concerns with “all the shady shit that’s going to go on behind the scenes.”

“Based upon my expertise, I believe the creation of such a department is unnecessary,” Reed said in an email to the Board of Supervisors obtained by the Examiner. “It increases costs to an already costly and bureaucratic permitting process, burdens the industry, in particular, small business owners, and is poor use of city resources and taxpayer funds.”

By contrast, local marijuana entrepreneur Erich Pearson, the founder of SPARC dispensary and a member of the SF Cannabis Legalization Task Force, issued a statement saying, "As an operator of an existing medical cannabis dispensary, I applaud the Mayor's actions in developing a new adult-use cannabis department. The creation of this department will address San Franciscans' overwhelming desire for legal cannabis distribution."

Issues surrounding legalization and taxation may serve to keep much of the sticky-icky cannabis market underground, and continuing to operate as a black market. A Tribune News Service report published this weekend estimated that “29 percent of all cannabis consumers may stay in the illegal market at first to avoid the cost of new regulations.” These figures come from a University of California Agricultural Issues Center study assessing the impact of the 15 percent excise tax set to go into effect on all marijuana products when adult recreational marijuana sales become legal.

“It’s going to take some time,” California’s Bureau of Marijuana Control director Lori Ajax told the Tribune News Service. “While it’s unlikely that everyone will come into the regulated market on Day 1, we plan to continue working with stakeholders as we move forward to increase participation over time.”

The California marijuana market, of course, is set to go Skywalker Diesel when marijuana sales to anyone 21 and older become legal on January 1, 2018.

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