GROWTH INDUSTRY: OAKLAND, CALIF., ENVISION AN AGRIBUSINESS FIGHT OVER
POT.

The hard-luck city of Oakland, Calif., an aging port and factory town,
has decided to reinvent itself as an agricultural center.

The City Council voted 5-2 this week to license four large facilities
where marijuana could be grown and processed. The hope is that the
grass factories will create hundreds of jobs, pay millions of dollars
in taxes and give Oakland a jump on rival cities if Californians vote
this fall to legalize recreational marijuana.

The measure attracted heated opposition, but not from the people you
might think, those who believe that approval of the cultivation and
sale of marijuana would lead to rampant drug use.

No, the opposition was from small- and medium-size growers who
currently serve the medical-marijuana market and who fear they would
be forced out of business.

The four licenses to be approved are heavily weighted toward large
operations -- an annual permit of $211,000; an 8 percent tax on gross
sales and a requirement that the growers carry $2 million in liability
insurance. The Associated Press says one potential applicant plans a
facility that would produce 21,000 pounds of pot a year; another
aspirant envisions the "Silicon Valley of Cannabis."

It was ever thus in agriculture, as Oakland will find: Giant
agribusiness crushing the small family farm.