In the USA, industry and industrialism are a kind of religion. As a result, it can be very difficult for many Americans to understand the concept that not all growth is good.
Take industrial cannabis for example. While encouraging in terms of ending the costly and destructive drug war, people that support cannabis as opposed to the cannabis industry understand what comes with industrialization.
These are things like low-wages, cost-cutting measures that involve cheaper and more toxic materials and higher profits at any cost.
But there’s a much bigger danger than crappy, overpriced product from industrial cannabis factories owned by multinational corporations.
The USA used to be an industrial wonder but to understand what’s happening with industrial stuff now it’s more useful to look at China.
Chinese industrialists have managed to synthesize certain cannabinoids in the same way they were able to synthesize fentanyl. They spray the stuff on bud in super labs and ship it to Europe.
VICE recently spoke with a guy in Germany that was getting rich selling the contaminated product- but has decided to quit because he knows he’s actually selling additive drugs as opposed to cannabis.
Once you spray chemicals on cannabis, it’s no longer cannabis. It’s vegetable matter that has been coated with addictive and synthetic narcotics made out of god only knows what.
In other words- hard drugs. Not “Cannabis.”
The upside of industrial cannabis is that captains of the cannabis industry have lots of political power and they can get laws passed and policies changed if they outspend Big Pharma and the cop lobby.
The downside is cannabis as a commodity (as opposed to a plant) and the fact that the captains of industry will generally do whatever is necessary to get more rich- including turning a helpful plant into a harmful drug.