California town looking to cash in on growth in legal marijuana

Global Business

California town looking to cash in on growth in legal marijuana

A small California town is hoping to cash in on the recently-passed initiative to legalize marijuana.

CCTV America’s Phil Lavelle reports from Adelanto, California.

Not much happens in Adelanto. But that’s about to change.

The town located in the Mojave desert, has big plans to make itself the cannabis capital of California, and it’s got everything in place, ready to go.

The town has huge swathes of land for building on and a lot of empty industrial buildings. Basically, cannabis factories in waiting.

Now that recreational marijuana use is legal, the city council’s is pushing to promote the town as a pot mecca.

“Every day I wake up and pinch myself as though I’m in a daydream. But it’s real life.. it’s really happening,” said John Woodward, an Adelanto City Council member.

“Commercially we have the infrastructure, the electric supply, the council on board.”

Woodward said people have been coming to the town from around the country and even from China and Spain looking to invest.

“They’re coming here because it’s legal and they can actually invest their money here and not get raided by the federal government,” Woodward said.

They’ve been growing medical marijuana here for years, small-scale.

“Hopefully the demand will increase, profits will increase and so forth..”, said marijuana grower Adam Abdulla. “States like Colorado have done it – that is thriving. If we can match what they’re doing, California will do awesome.”

Abdulla is outfitting an entire warehouse right now to be a pot factory.

The state is also going to cash in, because California is the world’s sixth biggest economy — only the United States as a whole, China, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom are bigger.

California’s economy was worth more that $2.45 trillion last year. That means the marijuana industry could generate up to $1 billion in taxes each year.

“We have people coming down every week trying to get a permit to grow. Trying to buy up the real estate here,” Woodward said.

What’s grown here in Adelanto, could soon end up all over Southern California.


Author Kevin Sabet on the growing marijuana industry

CCTV America’s Rachelle Akuffo interviewed Kevin Sabet, author of “Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths About Marijuana” and director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida about the growth in marijuana.

Sabet is also the president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana. Follow him on Twitter at: @KevinSabet