California growing eight times as much marijuana than actually consumed?

According to a recent revelation by the Los Angeles Times, the marijuana growers in California might be growing eight times more marijuana than people are (legally) consuming. In other words, according to estimations, California produces currently between 14 to 16 million tons of marijuana a year, but consumes only between 1.5 and 2 million tons. Obviously the 12-14 million tons that's not being used is actually going to other states, which is illegal.

Now there's talk that growers might be required to scale back their production, but the executive director of the California Growers Association, Hezekiah Allen, said that significant reduction in production could be painful for licensed growers. Especially as the unlicensed black market sellers would still likely export their product to other states.

But Allen also said that "In the future, every single license holder is going to need to know exactly where every gram of product is ending up and so conditions are going to change very quickly." He added that the extra amount of marijuana could theoretically also be turned into oil (around 75 pounds of cannabis can be turned into around 5 litres of oil).

New regulations will most likely take effect in the beginning of next year.