Dear Editor,

Now that recreational alcohol is regulated by the same authority that controls recreational cannabis, Oroville would be a suitable location for a Liquor Control Board authorized retail outlet for State approved cannabis products. Such a commercial enterprise would generate 4 significant local and national benefits.

The first two benefits are local. 1) A new retail outlet produces new revenue streams for the city and all the local enterprises providing goods and services that every brick and mortar operation require. 2) A local retail outlet provides tourists with a convenience and opportunity to make sure they’ve got all of their vacation needs once they get to town.

The third benefit is to all law enforcement. The availability of a local, market driven retail outlet, reduces the probability that cannabis consumers will support or protect cocaine or heroin dealers who look to profit where legal commercial enterprises have yet to be established. There is little doubt that in the absence of taxed certified retail outlets, criminal elements, especially those with narcoterrorist ties, will attempt to thwart the Liquor Control Board and distribute un-inspected, un-sanctioned, and un-taxed product. Very much related to the third benefit is the fourth: Every Washington State commercial outlet contributes to the destruction of the power of narcoterrorists the Mexican Government doesn’t seem to be able to challenge.

An article about the first year of recreational cannabis sales reported that consumers spent 234 million dollars. If everything stays the same, if nothing at all changes; in four years Washington State consumers will have kept a billion dollars from getting into the hands of Mexican narcoterrorists or their cohorts in this country. If this scenario is repeated in Colorado, Oregon, Arizona, and everywhere else in the country, imagine the billions kept out of the hands of the evil-doers who would do us harm. God Bless America.

Richard Gideon

Oroville