How state marijuana legalization became a boon for corruption

[JacksinPA]

How state marijuana legalization became a boon for corruption

By making local officials the gatekeepers for million-dollar businesses, states created a breeding ground for bribery and favoritism.

www.politico.com

By making local officials the gatekeepers for million-dollar businesses, states created a breeding ground for bribery and favoritism.

Jasiel Correia’s star was rising.

The son of Cape Verdean immigrants in the working-class Massachusetts port city of Fall River – famed as the home of Lizzie Borden -- Correia was a home-grown prodigy. At 23, he was elected mayor, fielding congratulatory calls from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Joe Kennedy.

That was in 2015. Four years later, just a week before his re-election race, federal agents ignominiously led him away from his home in handcuffs and charged him with attempting to extort cannabis companies of $600,000 in exchange for granting them lucrative licenses to sell weed in his impoverished city.
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Money is the lubricant that makes this kind of transition to corruption both easy & tempting.

 

[Demon]

These states that are new to legalization really need to study CO and probably WA & OR. I'm not saying corruption doesn't exist in these states, but I certainly haven't heard of any big problems.

 

[grip]

Legalizing cannabis isn't the problem here. The way the gov licenses and regulates it is.
Corrupt gov officials are bought off in Congress all the time with lobbying, super PACs, campaign donations, special interests, and pork-barrel spending.