California Cannabis Industry to be Investigated by Sacramento
According to news sources, California lawmakers are calling for a sweeping investigation into corruption in the state’s cannabis industry, legislative hearings on the exploitation of farmworkers and new laws to thwart labor trafficking in response to revelations of rampant abuses and worker deaths in a multibillion-dollar market that has become increasingly unmanageable.
The proposals follow a series of (LA) Times investigations last year showing that California’s 2016 legalization of recreational cannabis spurred political corruption, explosive growth in illegal cultivation and widespread exploitation of workers. The Times found that wage theft was rampant and that many workers were subjected to squalid, sometimes lethal conditions.
A spokesperson for the state’s Department of Industrial Relations told The Times last week that the agency is examining the deaths of 32 cannabis farmworkers — never reported to work safety regulators — uncovered by the newspaper.
“We should be a little bit ashamed that we’ve allowed this helter-skelter approach to commercializing and legalizing the cannabis industry,” said Sen. Dave Cortese, a San Jose Democrat who leads the Senate Labor Committee. Cortese called California’s cannabis market the “Wild, Wild West.”
The newspaper found that California’s dual state and local cannabis licensing system created fertile ground for corruption by giving thousands of often part-time, low-paid municipal officials the power to choose winners and losers in the multimillion-dollar deals.
According to the LA Times reports, workers told reporters of bosses who threatened them with guns or physical violence, of living on remote work sites without housing or sanitary facilities or access to food, and of fraudulent promises of pay. In some cases, they said, bosses threatened to report them to immigration authorities or withhold their wages if they tried to leave.
Fraud and coercion are elements of labor trafficking, a felony offense in California. A series of 2020 reports by California’s independent government watch group, the Little Hoover Commission, faulted the state for failing to have clear labor trafficking laws and for lacking a single agency responsible for prosecution.
So the LA Times investigates and that work brings about another more in-depth investigation. Sounds like there’s a lot to sort out there. But as we’ve seen so many times, success or failure in the courtroom or during the settlement process depends on having the very best, most detailed information about a case. That’s why great attorneys and law firms across the country work with the worldwide team of Santoni Investigations who will ensure you know everything to make the right decisions and maximize the settlement process or win your case in court!