{"id":3614,"date":"2020-12-28T16:55:28","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T16:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/?p=3614"},"modified":"2020-12-28T16:57:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T16:57:20","slug":"how-state-marijuana-legalization-became-a-boon-for-corruption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/how-state-marijuana-legalization-became-a-boon-for-corruption\/","title":{"rendered":"How state marijuana legalization became a boon for corruption"},"content":{"rendered":"

By making local officials the gatekeepers for million-dollar businesses, states created a breeding ground for bribery and favoritism.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Jasiel Correia\u2019s star was rising.<\/p>\n

The son of Cape Verdean immigrants in the working-class Massachusetts port city of Fall River \u2014 famed as the home of Lizzie Borden \u2014 Correia was a home-grown prodigy. At 23, he was elected mayor, fielding congratulatory calls from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Joe Kennedy.<\/p>\n

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That was in 2015. Four years later, just a week before his reelection race, federal agents ignominiously led him away from his home in handcuffs and charged him with attempting to extort cannabis companies of $600,000 in exchange for granting them lucrative licenses to sell weed in his impoverished city.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201cMayor Correia has engaged in an outrageous brazen campaign of corruption, which turned his job into a personal ATM,\u201d declared U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling during a press conference announcing the charges.<\/p>\n

The downfall of Fall River\u2019s young mayor wasn\u2019t just a tragedy for the thousands of people who invested their hopes in him: It was emblematic of a rash of cannabis-related corruption across the nation, from Massachusetts to California to Arkansas and beyond.<\/p>\n

In the past decade, 15 states have legalized a regulated marijuana market for adults over 21, and another 17 have legalized medical marijuana. \u00a0[Read More at Politico]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

The post How state marijuana legalization became a boon for corruption<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Business Executive – Cannabis and Marijuana industry news<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

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By making local officials the gatekeepers for million-dollar businesses, states created a breeding ground for bribery and favoritism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,51,54],"tags":[82],"class_list":["post-3614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cannabis-law","category-news","category-politics","tag-legislation","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3614"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3620,"href":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3614\/revisions\/3620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdeancarter.com\/SMK\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}