Proving that state governments are even more efficient than our federal rulers

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Milton Friedman once said that if you put the federal government in charge of the Sarah Desert there’d be a shortage of sand in five years. In Illinois, they’ve run out of pot just five days after legalizing it.

It seems that while the stores that sell the weed are privately owned, the state was slow in approving cultivation centers to grow it. And after just five days, legal pot dispensaries were running out of product because the cultivation centers didn't have enough to send.

The state’s 21 cultivation centers simply don’t have enough product to supply the few dozen dispensaries, many of which have been forced to set buying limits and even shut down sales to recreational customers in the wake of legalization.

Could it be that the problem with finding cultivation centers is that the state is looking for "social equity applicants"?

Other applicants will have an opportunity to apply for licenses in an upcoming phase of the implementation process, with priority going to “social equity applicants” – generally, applicants from communities “disproportionately impacted” by the war on drugs, or individuals with previous arrests or convictions for minor marijuana violations.

There are no large-scale marijuana cultivation centers in the state because they haven't got around to licensing any yet. And then, there are those pesky "social equity" rules that take precedence.

A spokesman for the Illinois Department of Agriculture, the agency that oversees the state’s grow facilities, said Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration is “taking a deliberative and incremental approach to cannabis legalization” in order to stage a successful rollout and make way for social equity applicants who have pot-related records or live in areas that have borne the brunt of drug war-era enforcement policies.

Those individuals are getting a leg up in the process of awarding craft grow permits, as well as for permits for new dispensaries and other pot-related businesses.

Why not just set racial quotas rather than going through this farce of finding stoners willing to get up off their couches, turn off their TVs, and start a business?

What they're hoping is that some of the gang-bangers and criminals who sold pot on the street will clean up their act and pay the state for the privilege of going straight. If that sounds sort of crazy, it is.