In honor of my old pal Ryan Kiesel, who is being laid to rest today, I figured today’s post should cover the topic of marijuana—specifically, the Oklahoma criminal justice complex’s latest attempt to profit off of it.
Earlier this week, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics—a.k.a. the square pegs who never got party invites in high school—made sure to publicize some recent scores they made off Chinese black-market pot farms that dot the rural Oklahoma countryside.
You know, those villainous organized crime syndicates that have supposedly disrupted life for traditional Oklahomans—who’d much rather their drug-dealer neighbors be white, Trump-loving good ol’ boys.
For example, at a recent pot farm bust in Bristow, OBN agents seized nearly 250 pounds of marijuana, while a traffic stop in Choctaw netted another 135.
Cool stuff, huh?
I’m no expert on black-market wholesale marijuana prices, but at roughly $500 per pound, that’s about $200,000 worth of weed that could have been sold out of state for profit!
According to Propublica, Oklahoma grows and exports anywhere from $18 billion to $44 billion worth of black-market marijuana each year, so that obviously puts a major dent in the trade and is a fantastic use of law enforcement resources. Sure, even though this particular weed was destined for out-of-state sales—posing absolutely zero threat to anyone here—we can all sleep soundly knowing our streets are “safer.”
Or something like that.
To be clear, I'm not trying to defend the Chinese marijuana cartels that control and operate about 80% of Oklahoma’s illegal grows. Like any type of untaxed organized crime operation, they’re a real problem and need to be eradicated.
I’m just saying that instead of wasting money on commando raids that ignore the root cause of the issue, maybe our ruling class, lawmakers, and law enforcement complex should consider a different approach.
For example, instead of fighting an unwinnable war against illegal marijuana ops, what if we made all grows legal and actually stepped up regulation?
Seriously, instead of trying to keep a valuable export like marijuana from leaving the state, what if Oklahoma led the charge to legalize it at the federal level—opening the industry to banking and interstate commerce, and, over time, turning that $18–$44 billion worth of weed that's grown here into a legitimate, taxable, and regulated industry that benefits both the state and the economy?
Granted, there are downsides to this blue-dreamy, common-sense libertarian approach.
Not only does it make it harder for authoritarian anti-drug zealots to get an erection, but marijuana farms are resource-intensive operations—they require a lot of energy, produce a lot of waste, and can have environmental consequences. But hey, you could say the same thing about oil, and our state’s had no problem cashing in on that, right?
Seriously, what’s not to love about this more liberal-minded approach?
Sure, it’s not an authoritarian solution that justifies endless law enforcement funding, but it actually makes sense. It would even give the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics the chance to focus on what they’re actually supposed to regulate—narcotics.
Hell, while we’re at it, let’s legalize those too. If that happened, we wouldn’t even need an OBN. Think of the taxpayer dollars we’d save! Even the OBN agents would probably come out ahead—because let’s be honest, they could easily land jobs in Trump’s new FBI, where they’d have way more opportunities to shake people down for a living.
All that being said, I'm not going to get my hopes up.
The odds are more likely that OBN will rename its headquarters the Ryan Kiesel Center of Responsible Black Market Drug Enforcement than take any real-life solutions to black market drugs seriously.
Remember – Oklahoma conservatives and OBN don’t care about what’s best for the state. They care about what’s best for them—and by keeping marijuana illegal, they get exactly that. Fear-mongering wins votes, taxpayer money funds their empire, and we all get to pretend this war is winnable. Neat stuff.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
