Government jobs sprouting as legal pot looms in California

[Sunlei]

Source: AP

Recreational marijuana use becomes legal in California in 2018, and one of the things to blossom in the emerging industry isn't green and leafy - it's government jobs.

The state is on a hiring binge to fill what eventually will be hundreds of new government positions by 2019 intended to bring order to the legal pot economy, from keeping watch on what's seeping into streams near cannabis grows to running background checks on storefront sellers who want government licenses. Thousands of additional jobs are expected to be added by local governments.

The swiftly expanding bureaucracy represents just one aspect of the complex challenge faced by California: Come January, the state will unite its longstanding medical cannabis industry with the newly legalized recreational one, creating what will be the United States' largest legal pot economy.

There also will be scores of jobs added to issue licenses for sellers, growers, truck drivers, manufacturers and others working in the projected $7 billion industry. The state has taken to Facebook to lure applicants.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/government-jobs-sprouting-as-legal-pot-looms-in-california/2017/09/30/8be9bf08-a5ed-11e7-b573-8ec86cdfe1ed_story.html?utm_term=.562d3743ac09

[Stryst]

1. So jelly

I live in Florida, where the state legislature laughed and bragged about how they completely undermined the medical marijuana bill that over 70% of us voted for. But times, they are changing.

[IronLionZion]

2. So what? other states have jobs for illegal drug dealers and traffickers

so take that you socialists! Liberals are killing jobs in the for profit prison industry by legalizing naturally growing drugs that can not kill anyone through overdose!

[logosoco]

3. but...but...but...

regulations are job killers! The guy with the orange hair in the top spot said so!

[extvbroadcaster]

4. I wish it were legal in Illinois

I live in Illinois, and most everything is legal here. Gambling? check. 24 hr, 7 day booze? check. Strip clubs, booze and totally naked women? check. Dirty bookstores? check. Cigs, lottery tickets, check and check. But when it comes to weed, the medical marijuana here is very very hard to get. You just about have to be dead of cancer to get it, and even then it is hard. None of this getting a card for your knee hurting or anything. The state is beyond broke, so it is a mystery why they won't look at legal weed. And in WWII, they planted hemp all over and it still grows. You can drive down the road here and see huge patches of weed - hemp - and it just grows wild. I have friends in Colorado and California and they toke up while on Skype with me. All legal. Makes you wonder, how can you get thrown in jail here and it's legal there?