Our Story and Some Accumulated Facts
If
you've lived here in Oklahoma for any length of time, you know that
this state and Tulsa; particularly, is a lot different than most
places in this country. It is a national test market for one thing.
You get to see all kinds of business ideas. I like that.
I
guess my point, though, is you can actually get to know people here
and trust them and have them trust you back.
That's
rare in this world.
Our
family has been here commercially for many years in one form of
business or another. We've lived through the drastic swings of
Oklahoma economics with the booms and the busts. You have to grow
together here.
We
like that.
Everybody
knows family isn't easy though. It is something you have to work. Our
family has seen some things; like most families do.
It
is a difficult thing, though, to see someone in your own family
suffering simply because of too much incorrect thinking and too much
incorrect information and the accumulated bias that such things
produce.
When
you see them suffering because of all these opioids that big pharma
is guiding everyone in medical establishments and the legislators to
prescribe for our families and neighbors and you see what happens to
them; what really happens. Well; you know at that point what you have
to do.
You
have to ask yourself this.
Why
we are allowing these restrictive status quos to continue. We are the
ones now. Maybe the only ones. Working together, we have to make it
right again.
I
think all of you suspect how much power there is in a shared belief.
How truly transcendent and astounding and magnificent a thing it is
to see people from all works of life to share an idea about something
and make it so; to change things for the better.
You
know I truly believe cannabis is a gift to this world. Thinking and
fair-minded people know we can use it for something good, something
better for all of us.
It
isn't complicated.
Here
are some facts that were published by Business Insider online.
Recreational
legalization doesn't seem to make kids more likely to use cannabis.
(Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment/ 2015
Healthy Kids Colorado Survey)
Medical
cannabis legislation also doesn't seem to increase youth cannabis
usage. (New England Journal of Medicine 2015)
Traffic
fatalities have not increased in states that have legalized
recreational cannabis and remain lower than the national average.
(National Highway Transportation Safety Administration – date of
declaration not available in this article)
States
that allow medical marijuana reduce opioid painkiller overdose deaths
and addiction problems. (StatNews)
Emergency
room visits have
increased but have only gone from 1.2 per 100,000 population to 2.3
per 100,000 population. Many people simply aren't aware yet how
potent cannabis edibles can be when they consume them. (Colorado
Department of Public Health and the Environment/ 2015 Healthy Kids
Colorado Survey)
Tax
revenues go up and arrest rates go down. This is a win-win for
strapped state budgets.
Here
are several links of government and non-government websites:
Medical
and Legal (recreational) cannabis sales in the United States were
over $5 billion dollars in 2015 and will be slightly lower if
projections hold for 2016. The vast majority of those sales were for
personal consumption by smoking, vaping or edibles.
Manufacturing
jobs, upstream and downstream, are being created by all this
commerce. These are real jobs that create real products and generate
real wealth and serve the economy. When you consider the total
economic activity that results by unleashing the potential usefulness
of cannabis the numbers are much bigger than $5 billion. Much bigger.
Consumable
cannabis products promote individual choice and affordability for
medical patients. They also provide a dizzying variety of options for
a healthy person's recreational use.
Consumable
cannabis though is literally just the visible tip of the still mostly
invisible cannabis iceberg. Hemp; which is an industrial use type of
cannabis, is so extraordinarily useful and versatile that the market
possibilities for it are practically unlimited.
Here
are some links referencing statistics from recent economic activity
and tax revenue estimates in states with fully legal (recreational)
or medical cannabis:
Thanks
for reading. Be well.
Comments
Post a Comment