R03 Citation Verification — Batch D (correction-round additions, items 11–14)
CCKE PROTOCOL v1.3 | Verifier: Claude (Fable 5) | Date: 2026-09-01 Method: Two-check format (identity check + claim-support check). Web search of justice.gov and secondary court reporting; ctx_fetch of trial coverage; PLOS ONE full text + Table 7 image read; CDFA/DCC fee schedule search; Cannabis Benchmarks public report summaries.
Summary table
| # | Item as given | Identity | Claim support | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | “US v. Weng et al., W.D. Okla. 2024” — interstate wholesale transactions negotiated $1,400–$1,800/lb | Case is REAL: Jeff Weng (46/47, China/Brooklyn NY) and Tong Lin convicted Jan 18, 2024 by a W.D. Okla. federal jury of drug conspiracy (>1,000 plants); Wetumka, OK OMMA-licensed grow, Dec 2022–May 2023; ~56,000 lb (28 tons) shipped to the East Coast; DOJ USAO-WDOK press releases confirm (justice.gov/usao-wdok). | NO on the price figure. Neither the DOJ releases (“Federal jury convicts Chinese nationals…”; “Investigation into Black-Market Marijuana Operation…”) nor detailed trial coverage (Southwest Ledger) documents wholesale prices of $1,400–$1,800/lb. Documented testimony: Ye (cooperating witness) was paid $15/lb as a transport fee; 150–200 lb pickups; 2,000+ lb semi-truck loads. Related reporting (KOSU/The Frontier, 2023) cites East Coast black-market prices “as much as $4,000/lb” — not $1,400–$1,800. justice.gov blocks automated full-text fetch, so a price buried in an untranscribed court record cannot be excluded, but it is not in the public releases or press coverage reviewed. | VERIFIED (case identity) / UNVERIFIABLE (the $1,400–1,800/lb figure — not found in any cited public record; needs a specific docket/transcript cite or withdrawal) |
| 12 | Cannabis Benchmarks US Wholesale Spot Index: Western outdoor spot $250–450/lb vs Eastern/non-legal averages $1,200–1,800/lb | Cannabis Benchmarks US Cannabis Spot Index is REAL and publishes weekly public report summaries (cannabisbenchmarks.com/reports); full historical state/grow-type datasets are subscription-gated — access limit noted. | PARTIAL–YES. Western outdoor: supported — CA outdoor flower widely reported ~$300/lb (all-time low Dec 2022, later ~32% recovery), consistent with $250–450/lb. Eastern: directionally supported but the stated band is conservative/imprecise — CB public summaries show Illinois–Michigan spot spread of ~$1,525 (Apr 2023, implying IL well above $1,500/lb) and New Jersey ~$2,298/lb (2024). Note: these are LEGAL limited-license Eastern state prices, not “non-legal state” prices; CB does not index illicit prohibition-state prices. $1,200–1,800 sits inside the plausible Eastern legal range but exceeds it for NJ. | PARTIAL (Western band YES; Eastern band directionally supported but source cannot speak to non-legal states; recommend citing specific CB weekly reports and rewording “non-legal” to “limited-license Eastern”) |
| 13 | CA state cultivation license fee tiers “$1,205–$77,905 annual” (CDFA CalCannabis / DCC); local CUPs $10,000–$30,000; CEQA reviews $15,000–$50,000+ | State fee range: VERIFIED against the official schedule — CDFA CalCannabis Cannabis Cultivation Fees (cdfa.ca.gov/calcannabis/documents/CannabisCultivationFees.pdf; carried forward under DCC): Specialty Cottage Outdoor annual license = $1,205 (low end); Medium Indoor annual license = $77,905 (high end). Exact endpoints match. | Local CUP/CEQA ranges: NO single citable source. These are practitioner estimates. Partial corroboration exists: one CA city’s cannabis CUP deposit = $20,000 (CUP) + $12,000 (DA) with CEQA review fee separate and variable (ND/MND/EIR determined per project); cannabis law-firm commentary (Rogoway, Figueroa) confirms CEQA costs are significant and project-dependent but publishes no standard range. County fee schedules vary widely. | VERIFIED (state tier range, official CDFA schedule) / PRACTITIONER ESTIMATE (local CUP $10–30K and CEQA $15–50K+ — plausible, partially corroborated by individual jurisdiction fee schedules, but no canonical citable range; label as practitioner-experience layer or cite specific county fee schedules) |
| 14 | Valdes-Donoso testing model reports ~$14–22/lb for 50-lb batches (industrial-scale end) | Paper is REAL: Valdes-Donoso, Sumner & Goldstein 2020, “Costs of cannabis testing compliance: Assessing mandatory testing in the California cannabis market,” PLOS ONE 15(4): e0232041 (companion to Cal Ag 10.3733/ca.2019a0014). | PARTIAL — figure does not appear as stated. The model’s maximum modeled batch is 48 lb (MAUCRSA caps flower batches at 50 lb). Table 7 (read directly): at 48-lb batches, laboratory cost alone = $18.03–$19.79/lb (0%–8% rejection) — inside the claimed $14–22 band. But the paper’s headline metric, per-pound cost of cannabis MARKETED (lab + lost inventory + remediation), at 48-lb batches is $23.98 (0%), $45.45 (2%), $67.59 (4%), $90.42 (6%), $113.98 (8%) — well above $14–22 at any realistic rejection rate. “$14–22/lb for 50-lb batches” matches only the lab-cost component, mislabels 48 as 50, and $14 appears nowhere. | PARTIAL (correct order of magnitude for the lab-cost-only component ($18–20/lb at 48-lb batches); wrong as a total-testing-cost claim — total is $24–$114/lb depending on rejection rate) |
Verdict counts (items 11–14)
- VERIFIED: 1 (item 13 state fee range; item 11 case identity also verified)
- PARTIAL: 2 (items 12, 14)
- UNVERIFIABLE / practitioner estimate: 2 (item 11 price figure; item 13 local CUP/CEQA ranges)
Notes
- Item 11: the $1,400–1,800/lb figure inherits the correction burden (PROTOCOL v1.3 req. 4) — it needs a docket-level citation (case number, transcript/exhibit) or should be withdrawn; the only per-pound figure in public trial coverage is Ye’s $15/lb transport fee.
- Item 12: Cannabis Benchmarks full historical datasets are paywalled; verification here rests on their free weekly report summaries and derived press reporting (MJBizDaily-class). Adequate for a directional citation, not for the exact $1,200–1,800 Eastern band.
- Item 14: Table 7 values transcribed from the published table image (doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232041.t007), local copy in session scratchpad (t007.png).
Sources: justice.gov USAO-WDOK press releases (federal-jury-convicts-chinese-nationals…; investigation-black-market-marijuana-operation…), Southwest Ledger trial coverage (southwestledger.news), KOSU/The Frontier (2023), cannabisbenchmarks.com weekly Spot Index reports (Apr 2023, 2024), cdfa.ca.gov/calcannabis CannabisCultivationFees.pdf, journals.plos.org 10.1371/journal.pone.0232041 (Table 7).