Oregon Can’t Tell If Fight Against Black Market Cannabis Works
Has the money spent put a dent in the black market? Officials can’t say.
The tales of illicit cannabis operations were coming from all corners of Oregon, and by 2018 — four years after the state voted to legalize recreational weed — lawmakers were feeling the pressure to act.
Workers on unlicensed grows just miles north of California were sleeping in shipping containers and being held on site by armed guards. In clandestine hash oil laboratories in Central Oregon and Portland, jerry-rigged electrical wiring and pressurized butane gas had sparked explosions, blasting buildings apart and sometimes scorching people to death. Along the coast, local sheriff’s deputies were intercepting hundreds of pounds of processed marijuana bound for Texas and Florida, bypassing state inspectors and tax collectors on the way out.
Legislators responded to the crescendo’ing concern by creating a new grant program seven years ago to support law enforcement efforts to bust these types of operations. The Illegal Marijuana Market Enforcement Grant was placed under management of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission with an initial $3 million in cannabis taxes funding it. Over time, that funding swelled, expanding to a growing group of counties and nonprofits.
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