Reason has a pointed headline about our wonderful friendly neighborhood People’s Socialist Democratic Woke “Republic” of California.

(Ain’t a “republic,” folks. Seriously!)

CalDrug’s illustrious defenders of public morals, pure bodies, and tax revenues have so far this year seized 1.2 MILLION pot plants, and thousands of pounds of “processed marijuana.” This stalwart action has protected Californians and California government from all the horrors of the rampant, unregulated, untaxed, free market in cannabis and cannabis products. Just as California has been protected for decades from unregulated use of water, use of air, use of land, use of vehicles and equipment, and so many more hazards of modern life (perhaps in California you can’t call it “living” – just “existing?).

Without such drastic and effective actions like this, imagine what California would be like today?

• Constantly burning forests and scrublands!
• Air pollution so thick you can cut it!
• A constant shortage of water for farming, drinking, and washing!
• Roaming gangs of thugs stealing from people and stores time and time again!
• Food and fuel too expensive for most of society to afford!
• More roaming gangs of drug addicts grooving and cooking up their delights anywhere and everywhere!
• Sidewalks literally covered with filth: human poop and more!
• More roaming gangs of homeless, mentally-ill people with no place they want to go!
• Massive corporations seeking more and more ways to dominate the world economy!
• Perverts teaching their perversity in the public schools!
• More roaming gangs gunning people down in the streets – and movie locations!
• People fleeing the Golden State for places where they have a bit more liberty and prosperity!

Oh, wait, I made a mistake: that is my list of what California in the 2020s IS – not what it could have been if they’d just launched a real, effective war on drugs and liberty and prosperity.

Because even their largely-failed war on some drugs and their more and more successful but still not victorious wars on liberty and prosperity has given California the mess it is in today.

Despite the efforts of literally millions of Californians to fight back against the woke “progressive” and “liberal” enemies of liberty that dominate their land. And (sadly) the millions of OTHER Californians who:

• THINK they want tyranny and oppression because they believe in the promises that the politicians hold up to get them to agree.
• Or are too wiped out (for whatever reasons) to care about it – apathy has no sting!
• Or DO really want tyranny and oppression because THEY personally will benefit from being part of the elite or the key supporters of the elite – in charge and having fun doing their own oppressing
• Or want all this garbage because they are raking in the bucks from supporting it, planning it, carrying it out, and selling the stuff that makes existence a bit more tolerable for millions.

Like the FIRST war on some drugs (Prohibition) – which the governments and the do-gooders (prohibitionists and their ilk) lost with all hands! Or the SECOND war on some drugs (especially the evil Weed!) which those same people again lost with all hands! This revival of action (yes, even military action) against the scofflaws is already being LOST. As Reason points out, if it were even somewhat successful, the quantity of stolen pot and pot products would be shrinking. Instead, it is a booming market based just on what people are stealing from them!

(And actually, what the “drug task forces” and all the state, federal, and local cops (notice they don’t mention tribal cops or the UN, eh?) are doing is the same thing the flash gangs and “petty” thieves down on Lombard and Geary and Market Streets in San Francisco are doing. They are STEALING.)

The article can quote government on how MUCH they have stolen in plants and products. What I’d like to know is how much those goons are NOT stealing. How much “unregulated, untaxed” marijuana is getting bought by people in those same cities in the Bay Area and LA Basin and more? I really wonder if this “black-and-green” market is actually BIGGER than California’s “legitimate” cannabis economy.

(Based on the fact that California, like Colorado, is contemplating subsidizing their retail pot industry, I do indeed wonder if the scale has already tipped against government efforts.)

This reminds me of several eras and events in history: the wars between the revenooers and the moonshiners from about 1797 to 1919 or so, the renewed revenoor-moonshiners after Prohibition was ended, and the modern gambling industry. Gambling was “immoral and illegal” for decades – even centuries – until the tax-and-spend gang realized they were missing out on a BIG revenue source. And now, according to them, “immoral and illegal” gambling is STILL being fought. ‘Cause government ain’t getting its cut. Gangsters are gangsters, eh?

(Actually, I’m being mean and disrespectful to private, organized crime. I understand that the numbers racket STILL pays back more of its revenue to the winners than government-run lotto and such do. In other words, the “criminals” steal LESS than the government does.)

California is indeed spending millions waging a stupid war from greed with the excuse of protecting the people and the environment. And more states are following their act.