The once fruit city, and now poverty-stricken prison city of Adelanto, California likes to use the moniker, “The city with unlimited possibilities.” With new industrial marijuana cultivation regulations, they’re likely heading in the right direction.
At the moment, the Southern California cannabis industry has few places as competitive Adelanto. The city named after the Spanish word for progress is only the second in the region to develop commercial regulations for large scale cannabis cultivation. This has led to quite the real estate boom.
Chong, Snoop, Marley, and a whose-who of THC hitters in So Cal are lining up to get the mix in one of the few cities south of the bay looking to put cannabis revenue in the coffers. According to the OC Register, the city could have the potential to produce up to 300,000 pounds of cannabis per year. With a quarter billion dollar industry possible, there is a real possibility of supporting the community in a new manner other than the prison racket.
With almost one in three residents below the poverty line, the business of mass incarceration has had mixed effects on the community for 25 years. With the promise of good jobs, four prisons opened. Today the city collects $160,000 a year for the inmates housed at these facilities. With a 10% tax on potential cultivation revenue, Adelanto has the chance to make more money in a year than they would off the prison industry in two centuries at the current rate.