19 Oct 2013

State Pot Officials Can Exhale

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With little fanfare in a drab conference room, the state Liquor Control Board adopted rules for a legal marijuana system after 10 months of research, revisions, wrangling with the federal government and wrestling with who-would’ve-imagined questions.

In a unanimous vote Wednesday, state officials charted the course for an experiment that seeks to undercut illegal dealers and launched the next leg of the journey: licensing a recreational-pot industry serving customers with 334 retail stores.

Adults will be able to walk into stores between 8 a.m. and midnight beginning next year to buy small amounts of marijuana products, including buds and brownies produced with state-certified safe levels of pesticides and other chemicals.

“The Washington state Liquor Control Board just built the template for responsible legalization of marijuana,” said Alison Holcomb, chief author of the legal-pot law. Holcomb is traveling to England, Poland and the Netherlands in coming weeks to discuss Washington’s law and rules, and is part of a new panel studying the idea in California.

Liquor-board members predicted a bumpy ride for the next year or so, with further tweaking of the rules likely.

“We might not have it exactly right today,” said board member Chris Marr of the 43 pages of rules. “But we’re in an excellent position to open stores in the middle of next year.”

State officials expect stores to open as early as May. Farms would start growing several months earlier.

In those stores, marked by a single sign that can’t be much bigger than 3 feet by 3 feet under the rules, consumers won’t be able to sample products. They will be able, however, to smell samples through screened containers that do not allow them to touch pot.

Childproof packaging will be required for edible products. All packages will contain warning labels saying marijuana has intoxicating effects and may be habit-forming. Labels will warn consumers of health risks, particularly the risks for pregnant women.

They also will show potency, as measured in percentage of THC, the key psychoactive chemical in pot.

In what state officials hope will be a competitive edge for the recreational system, retail stores will stock only products determined to have safe levels of pesticides, bacteria, moisture and metals.

Randy Simmons, the state marijuana project director, said he’s heard of growers who have added sand to pot to give it additional weight, who have painted pot to make it more desirably purple, and who have spiked buds with hash oil to make them more potent.

Labels will disclose all pesticides used in the growing of the product. Consumers can ask retailers for full test results of chemicals and foreign matter found in products.

State-regulated pot can’t be labeled organic, Simmons said, because the federal government bestows that standard and it still considers marijuana a dangerous drug. But the state is using federal standards for organic products as a model for its rules, he said.

Prices in stores will be determined by the market, not state officials. But state consultants have written about scenarios in which prices could range between $6 and $17 per gram depending on wholesale farm prices and markups.

Consumers will be able to buy pot grown under the sun in outdoor farms, as well as weed grown indoors, which uses more electricity and has a larger carbon footprint.

The rules give an advantage to indoor growers, Simmons acknowledged. That’s because rules limit all farms to a maximum of 30,000 square feet and indoor farms can produce four harvests a year compared with two for outdoor growers in Washington state.

Jeremy Moberg, an Okanogan County activist, and Holcomb, criminal-justice director for the ACLU of Washington, both argued for a more equitable system. They proposed limiting indoor farms to half the size of outdoor farms as one way to level the playing field.

But Simmons said the state wants to make sure it meets the estimated demand for 80 metric tons of pot next year. It might not if it cut the size of indoor farms, he said, and if it doubled the size of outdoor farms it might antagonize federal watchdogs.

Simmons believes demand will increase in time, and when the state expands its supply that will provide an opportunity for outdoor growers to make up ground.

State officials believe the 334 pot stores, which are allocated similarly to the state’s defunct liquor stores, will be enough. But Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes has asked the state to consider allocating more stores to the city than the 21 it has planned.

If there are more qualified applicants in a city than stores allotted, the state will use a lottery system to pick winners, literally by drawing names, Simmons said.

The state can’t use a merit system to award licenses, Simmons said. Unlike contracts, which can rely on merit, state licenses are threshold-based, he said; if applicants meet the standards they qualify for licenses.

There appear to be more than enough entrepreneurs eager to meet the state’s requirements for growers, processors and retailers.

The Liquor Control Board is holding licensing seminars in seven cities this month to inform and advise entrepreneurs about the rules and application process.

Seminars in five cities already are fully booked. In all, of the 2,440 seats available at all seven seminars, 1,991 were taken by Wednesday.

The state on Nov. 18 will open a 30-day window for accepting applications for growing, processing and retail licenses, and expects to start issuing them, after background checks, in December at the earliest.

Some cities remain resistant to pot commerce and have adopted moratoriums and other restrictions that would effectively keep pot merchants away.

But others such as Seattle, Bainbridge Island and Bellevue are moving ahead with zoning and other regulations for permitting pot commerce.

Several lawyers who advise pot entrepreneurs said cities seem to be warming to pot commerce now that the state has adopted rules and the federal Department of Justice has said it won’t try to stop Washington’s legal system — approved by voters last November — provided it is tightly regulated.

“It’s not happening quickly, but I do have a sense there’s been a bit of a shift,” said Candice Bock of the Association of Washington Cities.

Officials in some of the reluctant cities have said they’re worried about the impact of legal pot commerce on community character. But the Liquor Control Board’s Marr said that excluding legitimate pot businesses only promotes the illicit pot market that already exists within those communities.

To keep store ownership from concentrating in the hands of a few, the rules do not allow a person or company to own more than three retail stores in the state.

Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Author: Bob Young, Seattle Times Staff Reporter
Published: October 16, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/

19 Oct 2013

Panel OKs Rules for Wash. State’s MJ Industry

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Washington became the second U.S. state to adopt rules for the recreational sale of marijuana Wednesday, setting what advocates expect to become a template for the legalization of the drug around the world.

“We feel very proud of what we’re doing,” said Sharon Foster, chairwoman of the Washington Liquor Control Board, as she and her two colleagues approved the rules. “We are making history.”

Washington and Colorado last year legalized the possession of up to an ounce of pot by adults over 21, with voters deciding to set up systems of state-licensed growers, processors and sellers. The measures put state officials in the difficult position of crafting rules for a fledgling industry barred by federal law for more than seven decades.

The liquor board devised the rules after nearly a year of research, debate and planning, including public hearings that drew hundreds of people around the state. The rules cover everything from the security at and size of licensed marijuana gardens, to how many pot stores can open in cities across the state.

Sales are expected to begin by the middle of next year, with supporters in Washington hoping taxed pot might bring the state tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, with much of the revenue directed to public health and drug-abuse prevention.

“What the Liquor Control Board has done is build a template for the responsible regulation of marijuana,” said Alison Holcomb, the Seattle lawyer who drafted Washington’s marijuana initiative. “This is a template that is going to be reviewed by other states, and already is being reviewed by other countries,” including Mexico, Uruguay and Poland.

The board’s members said they had tried to strike a balance between making marijuana accessible enough that legal pot would undermine the black market, but not so accessible that it would threaten public health or safety. The board hopes the sale of legal pot will capture about one-quarter of the total pot market in the state, for starters.

Under the rules, the board will issue licenses for up to 334 marijuana stores across the state, with 21 of them in Seattle – a figure some have questioned as too low, considering the city estimates about 200 medical marijuana dispensaries are operating there. The City Council has passed zoning regulations for pot businesses that would require medical marijuana dispensaries to obtain a state license or stop doing business by 2015.

The rules limit the number of licenses that anyone can hold to three – an attempt by the board to stamp out any dreams of marijuana monopolies before they start. They also prohibit out-of-state investment in pot businesses and require quality-control testing of marijuana by third-party labs. Marijuana must be tracked from seed to sale, and packages must carry warnings about the potential dangers of pot use.

Hilary Bricken, a Seattle lawyer who is advising businesses that hope to obtain marijuana licenses, said her clients largely are content with the regulations, though some are disappointed by the three-license max and the ban on out-of-state money.

“It’s a huge undertaking, and the board has been extremely fair,” she said.

Washington’s rules take effect in one month, and the state plans to begin accepting license applications Nov. 18.

Colorado approved its marijuana industry rules last month. They require businesses to use a state-run online inventory tracking program to document the plant’s journey from seed to sale. Marijuana also must be placed in opaque, child-resistant containers before being taken out of a store, and recreational pot stores won’t be allowed to advertise to people under 21.

The federal government announced earlier this year that it would not sue Washington, Colorado or other states over plans to tax and regulate marijuana sales for adults over 21, provided they address eight federal law enforcement priorities, including keeping marijuana off the black market and keeping it away from kids

Washington’s legal marijuana law includes zoning requirements keeping the businesses away from schools, parks and playgrounds.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Gene Johnson, Associated Press
Published: October 16, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

1 Sep 2013

Obama Administration Won’t Fight State MJ Laws

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In a historic pivot in the War on Drugs, the Obama Justice Department announced this week that the federal government will allow Washington and Colorado to implement their state laws for the taxation and regulation of legal marijuana.

The carefully worded Justice Department memo does nothing to alter federal law. Instead, it makes explicit the federal objectives of continued enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act preventing activities including the distribution of marijuana to minors, the diversion of marijuana profits to criminals and cartels, the growing of pot on federal land and the export of marijuana from states where it is legal to states that uphold prohibition.

To the extent that states themselves support those federal priorities by implementing “strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems to control the cultivation, distribution, sale, and possession of marijuana,” the memo suggests, they should be left alone for now. In a radical twist, the memo even suggests that “robust” state regulation of legal pot “may affirmatively address [federal] priorities by . . . replacing an illicit marketplace that funds criminal enterprises with a tightly regulated market in which revenues are tracked and accounted for.”

The administration’s move exceeded even the rosiest expectations of drug reform advocates. “Today’s announcement demonstrates the sort of political vision and foresight from the White House we’ve been seeking for a long time,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, in a statement. “I must admit, I was expecting a yellow light from the White House. But this light looks a lot more green-ish than I had hoped. The White House is basically saying to Washington and Colorado: Proceed with caution.”

In fact, the memo applies not only to states that have legalized recreational pot (or will), but gives new certainty to the nearly 20 states that have legalized medical marijuana. Most striking, the memo reverses the big-is-bad and profit-is-evil principles that have driven the recent crackdown on medical marijuana operations in California and beyond. “In exercising prosecutorial discretion,” the memo says, “prosecutors should not consider the size or commercial nature of a marijuana operation alone as a proxy for assessing whether marijuana trafficking implicates the Department’s enforcement priorities.”

“This is the most heartening news to come out of Washington in a long, long time,” said Neill Franklin, the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “The federal government is not simply standing aside and allowing the will of the people to prevail in these two states. The attorney general and the Obama administration are exhibiting inspired leadership. The message to the people of the other 48 states, to all who value personal freedom and responsible regulation is clear: seize the day.”

Source: Rolling Stone (US)
Author: Tim Dickinson
Published: August 30, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Straight Arrow Publishers Company, L.P.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.rollingstone.com/

31 Jul 2013

D.C. Records its First Legal Pot Deal in 75 Years

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The 15-year struggle to legalize medical marijuana in the District ended like this: A 51-year-old Northwest resident entered a North Capitol Street rowhouse Monday evening and emerged 90 minutes later with slightly less than a half-ounce of street-legal, high-grade, D.C.-grown cannabis.

Shortly before 6 p.m., Alonzo walked into the high-security sales room of the Capital City Care dispensary with two store employees to consummate the city’s first legal marijuana deal in at least 75 years. He purchased about $250 worth of three strains of cannabis.

“It’s a beautiful natural product that is from rain, sun and soil,” Alonzo said, wearing a dark T-shirt with a green logo of a cannabis leaf over a medical cross. “Mother Nature doesn’t make mistakes.”

Alonzo agreed to share his experiences navigating the District’s medical marijuana system on the condition that he be identified only by his middle name, concerned that public knowledge of his medical marijuana use could prove sensitive at work.

Capital City Care’s sales Monday to two patients represent the culmination of a fight that dates to the mid-1990s, when HIV/AIDS activists first fought to put medical marijuana on the citywide ballot. Nearly 70 percent of voters approved a 1998 legalization initiative, but Congress intervened for more than a decade, preventing the implementation of a medical marijuana program.

After Congress lifted its restrictions in 2009, the District government started a slow process to set up a strict regulatory and licensing regime limited to city residents with specific chronic illnesses, with lawmakers and city officials saying they were moving deliberately to reduce the risk of future federal intervention.

Initial hopes that cannabis could be made available to patients in late 2010 gave way to early 2011 and then mid-2012 as the city moved through the painstaking and politically sensitive process of licensing marijuana growers and retailers, as well as certifying the doctors who would recommend the medicine and patients who would consume it.

Alonzo, who is HIV-positive, said he had been following the rollout of the medical marijuana program since the beginning of the year. The combination of antiviral drugs he takes to manage his infection, Alonzo said, causes him frequent insomnia and occasional difficulty in swallowing and digesting.

Marijuana, he said, was not initially his preferred therapy. “Like many people, I certainly had my fair share in college, but then I really left it alone for a long time,” he said. A mid-1990s trip to Amsterdam with his former partner, who had a more advanced HIV infection, demonstrated how cannabis could help address the virus’s symptoms and the side effects of the drugs used to treat them.

In March, Alonzo approached his doctor about seeking a marijuana recommendation.

“He asked why, and I outlined my challenges,” he said. “I really don’t want to have a prescription drug dependency, and they weren’t working for the insomnia. He was agreeable to it. And then the long wait.”

To secure his first dose, Alonzo had to visit his doctor, who had to request recommendation forms from the health department, which then processed the forms and issued him a patient card.

Although the city’s medical marijuana program has started, it remains a slow start.

D.C. Health Department spokeswoman Najma Roberts said that as of Monday, only nine patients have obtained a city-issued medical marijuana card. About 20 doctors, she said, have requested forms from the city allowing them to recommend cannabis to their patients.

Capital City Care, the first of three planned District dispensaries to secure an operating license, offers four strains of medical cannabis, priced from $380 to $440 an ounce, grown by Northeast-based Holistic Remedies. More varieties will be offered once two other cultivation centers — including Capital City Care’s own — produce their first salable harvest, said Scott Morgan, a spokesman for Capital City Care.

Morgan said he was not aware of any health insurers willing to cover medical marijuana purchases. The prices, he said, reflect the highly regulated nature of the District’s system and the firm’s investment in its dispensary and growing operations.

Senior citizens, veterans and low-income patients are eligible for discounts of 10 to 15 percent, he said.

“After a couple of years of hard work, it’s exciting to open our doors and serve the patients our facility is really for,” Morgan said. “This is a moment we’ve all been looking forward to for a long time.”

Alonzo opted for the Blue Dream, Jack Herer and Master Kush strains and, to consume it, a $120 Magic Flight vaporizer.

The StickyGuide, a Web site reviewing medical marijuana strains and dispensaries, said Blue Dream “is helpful for reducing pain and stress while maintaining energy levels” and offers a flavor “reminiscent of hash with a subtle hint of blueberry underneath.” Master Kush, the site says, is a “classic indica-dominant strain” whose characteristics include “helping [to] promote relaxation and assisting with sleep.”

Wayne Turner, one of the leaders of the 1998 initiative effort, called Monday’s sales “the end of the beginning.”

“It’s taken us 15 years to get to this point,” he said, adding that the program had much left to prove. “We can do this. We can do this right. The world isn’t going to come to an end. People are going to have access to something that really is going to help them, really help them ease their suffering.”

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Mike DeBonis
Published: July 29, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Washington Post Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

17 Jul 2013

MJ Legalization Considered in Maine, DC, Calif.

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Advocates of marijuana legalization have seen an acceleration of their cause in recent years, particularly after residents of Washington state and Colorado voted to legalize recreational cannabis in November’s elections. Now, more jurisdictions are taking up, or at least considering taking up the issue.

In Maine Monday, Portland City Council planned a public hearing to discuss a citizen-proposed measure legalizing possession of up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana for those 21 and older. After the meeting, the city council will decide whether to adopt the measure, send a referendum to voters or write an alternative proposal alongside the citizen measure.

Proponents gathered more than twice the 1,500 signatures required to get the proposal, which would prohibit smoking pot in public spaces such as schools or public parks, and allow landlords to prohibit it in their apartments, on this year’s ballot.

Maine law allows medical marijuana, and has already decriminalized its use, but possession of a small amount still carries a maximum fine of $600. A state-wide referendum on legalization is expected in 2014.

In the nation’s capital, a D.C. councilman introduced a bill Wednesday to decriminalize possession in the District.

Councilman Tommy Wells unveiled legislation to drop the penalty for carrying less than an ounce of marijuana to $100, down from $1,000 or a six-month prison stint.

Wells’s legislation also stipulates minors attend a drug awareness program and complete community service.

An American Civil Liberties Union report in June found the District bears the country’s highest arrest rate per capita in the country for marijuana possession-related arrests, at three times the national average. Those are three times more likely to involve an African American than a caucasian.

Moves toward decriminalization and legalization receive broad support in D.C., with 75 percent of residents saying they support decriminalization in small amounts and 63 percent say they’re in favor of legalization, according to an April PPP poll.

And in California, which rejected a 2010 measure for legalization, already has medical marijuana and decriminalization laws on the books.

But the legalization effort is likely to make another ballot appearance in 2016, with the backing of some of the state’s wealthiest citizens. Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs and the billionaires behind some of the world’s most successful tech companies are expected to back the effort.

Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform chairwoman Dale Sky Jones said 2010′s Proposition 19 failed largely because of fundraising shortfalls.

Liberal billionaire George Soros helped back that measure and Prop. 215, the successful 1996 medical marijuana bill, will probably help again, and Progressive insurance chief Peter Lewis are still “engaged” Jones said.

But it’s Silicon Valley that gives her the most optimism.

Bay-area entrepreneurs such as Facebook founders Sean Parker and Dustin Moskovitz, who both put substantial funds into the 2010 effort have “network of friends” to tap into, Jones said. “There’s money to burn in those industries.”

Source: United Press International (Wire)
Author: Gabrielle Levy, UPI.com
Published: July 15, 2013
Copyright 2013 United Press International
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.upi.com/

20 Jun 2013

Dream of ‘Cannabis Empire’ Raises Fears, Hackles

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For the activists who led the effort to legalize recreational marijuana in Washington state last fall, Jamen Shively was one of their biggest fears: an aspiring pot profiteer whose unabashed dreams of building a cannabis empire might attract unwanted attention from the federal government or a backlash that could slow the marijuana reform movement across the country.

With visionary zeal, the 45-year-old former Microsoft manager described his plans to a conference room packed with reporters and supporters last month, saying he was tired of waiting for a green light from the Obama administration, which still hasn’t said how it will respond to the legalization of recreational pot in Washington and Colorado. Shively vowed to quickly raise $10 million and eventually build his company, Diego Pellicer, into an international pot powerhouse.

Though he promised a “cautious and measured” expansion, Shively’s approach nevertheless contrasted with that of state regulators who want to avoid repeating the national experience with Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol, industries that profited wildly on addiction and abuse. Mark Kleiman, who heads the team hired to be Washington’s official marijuana consultant, responded on his blog: “It was inevitable that the legalization of cannabis would attract a certain number of insensate greedheads to the industry.”

Shively’s ambitions – “We are Big Marijuana,” he proclaimed – don’t merely raise questions about what marijuana legalization might look like in the long run and whether large corporations will come to dominate. He also risks getting himself indicted.

The Justice Department has said while it doesn’t intend to prosecute sick people for using marijuana, it will go after those who try to get rich from commercial sales. It hasn’t said yet whether it will sue to block Washington and Colorado from licensing pot growers, processors and stores.

The legalization votes in Washington and Colorado have created a fever for cannabis-related investing, to an extent. Conferences have focused on the parameters for legally investing in “ancillary businesses” – those that supply equipment needed by pot grows, for example – without financing the actual production or distribution of marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law.

Shively isn’t skirting the edges of the nascent industry, but diving right in, in a way that few other entrepreneurs are. Some companies that make high-end marijuana-infused products, such as Colorado-based Dixie Elixirs, are planning to make their brands available in other states, but it’s not clear anyone else is taking steps to create a pot empire.

“Developing a national brand in an industry in which it is illegal to move the core product across state lines presents some serious logistical challenges,” said Betty Aldworth, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

Diego Pellicer’s business plan estimates $120,000 of pure profit per month, per recreational pot store. Shively said he plans dozens of stores in Washington and Colorado.

At the May 30 news conference, Shively announced Diego’s first corporate deal – an arrangement with a Seattle medical marijuana company called the Northwest Patient Resource Center. He said Diego would be starting in the medical marijuana market in Washington and Colorado, and then transitioning some dispensaries to recreational pot stores once the states begin issuing licenses.

Shively said the arrangement was “not in violation of either federal or state law,” but it was troubling enough to one of the dispensary company owners that he’s walking away from the deal – and the company he helped found – because he fears it puts everyone involved at risk of federal prosecution.

“I’m not an activist. I’m just a businessman,” said the part-owner, Thomas Jun, a 42-year-old father of three. “I can’t afford to do any federal time.”

According to Shively, Diego Pellicer has acquired the option to buy Northwest Patient Resource Center, but does not actually own it. That’s what gives Diego Pellicer some protection and allows it to position itself for the time when more states legalize pot and Congress changes federal laws, he said. No marijuana will be moved interstate.

“We don’t touch cannabis. We don’t have ownership of cannabis,” he said. “It’s not a perfect insulation or buffer, but it’s the best possible mechanism that we can come up with.”

Through his lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, Jun provided the AP with internal company documents, including a draft of the $1.6 million agreement dated May 30. The deal directs monthly payments of up to $50,000 from Diego be used to “to further develop and enhance NWPRC’s customer locations and to otherwise grow its business as currently conducted.” Former federal prosecutors say that could be seen as a conspiracy to violate federal law.

“It certainly would make me nervous to be involved in anything like this,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School-Los Angeles and a former assistant U.S. attorney.

Shively called the draft provided to AP “an obsolete document,” but declined to provide further details. He also declined to discuss a $10,000 check he wrote to the dispensary company May 27.

The deal highlights the tension between the varying degrees of acceptance of marijuana by the states and the outright prohibition by the federal government, which makes banking and other business functions problematic. For example, beyond the growing and sale of marijuana constituting federal crimes, the movement of money related to marijuana sales likely constitutes money laundering.

Dixie Elixirs won’t be directly involved in the growing, processing or sale of pot in multiple states, said Tripp Keber, its managing director. Instead, it will license its technical know-how and recipes to people in Washington or elsewhere who want to produce products under the Dixie Elixirs brand – and try to avoid the attention of federal prosecutors by adhering to state laws.

“Big public federal indictments are going to do the industry a disservice,” Keber said.

If Shively’s model is endorsed by the regulators writing rules for Washington’s pot industry, “then we would be increasing the risk of intervention by the federal government,” said Alison Holcomb, the Seattle lawyer who drafted Washington’s law.

Shively said investors are advised that the company and those involved could face federal prosecution. A copy of Diego’s business plan includes 11 bullet points listing risks the company faces. None specifically suggests those involved could be prosecuted.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Gene Johnson, Associated Press
Published: June 17, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

1 Jun 2013

Former Microsoft Manager Has Big Ideas About Pot

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Former Microsoft manager Jamen Shively wants to create the first national brand of retail marijuana and to open pot trade with Mexico. Shively plans to announce that and more in a Thursday news conference he says will feature Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico. “Let’s go big or go home,” Shively said. “We’re going to mint more millionaires than Microsoft with this business.”

He’s acquiring medical-marijuana dispensaries in Washington and Colorado, he said, and plans to become the leader in both the medical and adult-recreational pot markets. He sees the marijuana market as the only one of its size in which there does not exist a single established brand.

He and Fox plan to announce a proposal for regulating the trade of marijuana between the two countries, he said.

Some details of the trade agreement remain to be worked out, such as how to get around international rules forbidding legal pot, Shively admitted.

“I don’t know how exactly that would be done, but I know it’s been done in other industries,” he said.

Alison Holcomb, primary author of the state’s legal-marijuana law, said Shively faces a huge obstacle in the federal government’s prohibition of marijuana.

“Having a national chain of marijuana-based companies is not only explicitly counter to the existing prohibition, but also counter to the government’s expressed concern about business growing too large,” said Holcomb, drug-policy director for the ACLU of Washington.

But Shively, 45, likened the federal prohibition to the Berlin Wall and said it’s crumbling, with fewer defenders every day.

He also said he’s created a way to shield investors from federal regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

And, he contends a venture this size is too big to operate recklessly and take risks — such as diverting legal pot to black markets — that the federal government is most concerned about.

“What we’re all about is making it extremely professional and having the highest quality and efficiencies,” he said.

What if the feds were to come after him?

Shively paraphrased Obi-Wan Kenobi. “He said ‘Darth, if you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.’”

If she were Shively’s attorney, Holcomb said, she’d advise him to read the so-called Cole memorandum from the U.S. Department of Justice. It “explicitly mentioned a concern with operations involving thousands of plants and millions of dollars” and is evidence of the federal concern with big pot businesses.

Shively, though, seems undeterred. He has become almost evangelical about pot and its benefits, particularly for medical patients, such as his father who has prostate cancer.

“I’ve just fallen in love with the plant,” he said. “Especially in the medical realm I’ve gone from entrepreneur to advocate to activist, seriously.”

Shively worked at Microsoft six years, he said, and had the title of corporate strategy manager. He said he’s been smoking pot for a year and a half.

Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Author: Bob Young, Seattle Times Staff Reporter
Published: May 29, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/

24 May 2013

The Cannabis Is Out Of The Bag

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This week, the Colorado General Assembly put the finishing touches on legislation aimed at taxing and regulating the commercial distribution of marijuana for recreational use.  The process has been haunted by the fear that the federal government will try to quash this momentous experiment in pharmacological tolerance — a fear magnified by the Obama administration’s continuing silence on the subject.

Six months after voters in Colorado and Washington made history by voting to legalize marijuana, Attorney General Eric Holder still has not said how the Justice Department plans to respond.  But if the feds are smart, they will not just refrain from interfering, they will work together with state officials to minimize smuggling of newly legal marijuana to jurisdictions that continue to treat it as contraband.  A federal crackdown can only make the situation worse — for prohibitionists as well as consumers.

Shutting down state-licensed pot stores probably would not be very hard.  A few well-placed letters threatening forfeiture and prosecution would do the trick for all but the bravest cannabis entrepreneurs.  But what then?

Under Amendment 64, the Colorado initiative, people 21 or older already are allowed to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, grow up to six plants for personal use and keep the produce of those plants ( potentially a lot more than an ounce ) on the premises where they are grown.  It is also legal to transfer up to an ounce “without remuneration” and to “assist” others in growing and consuming marijuana.

Put those provisions together, and you have permission for various cooperative arrangements that can serve as alternative sources of marijuana should the feds stop pot stores from operating.  The Denver Post reports that “an untold number” of cannabis collectives have formed in Colorado since Amendment 64 passed.

Washington’s initiative, I-502, does not allow home cultivation.  But UCLA drug policy expert Mark Kleiman, who is advising the Washington Liquor Control Board on how to regulate the cannabis industry, argues that collectives ostensibly organized to serve patients under that state’s medical marijuana law could fill the supply gap if pot stores never open.

It is also possible that Washington’s legislature would respond to federal meddling by letting people grow marijuana for personal use, because otherwise there would be no legal source.

With pot shops offering a decent selection at reasonable prices, these alternative suppliers will account for a tiny share of the marijuana market, just as home brewing accounts for a tiny share of the beer market.  But if federal drug warriors prevent those stores from operating, they will be confronted by myriad unregulated, small-scale growers, who will be a lot harder to identify, let alone control, than a few highly visible, state-licensed businesses.

The feds, who account for only 1 percent of marijuana arrests, simply do not have the manpower to go after all those growers.  Nor do they have the constitutional authority to demand assistance from state and local law enforcement agencies that no longer treat pot growing as a crime.

Given this reality, legal analyst Stuart Taylor argues in a recent Brookings Institution paper, the Obama administration and officials in Colorado and Washington should “hammer out clear, contractual cooperation agreements so that state-regulated marijuana businesses will know what they can and cannot safely do.” Such enforcement agreements, which are authorized by the Controlled Substances Act, would provide more security than a mere policy statement, although less than congressional legislation.

Taylor, who says he has no firm views on the merits of legalization, warns that “a federal crackdown would backfire by producing an atomized, anarchic, state-legalized but unregulated marijuana market that federal drug enforcers could neither contain nor force the states to contain.” Noting recent polls finding that 50 percent or more of Americans favor legalizing marijuana, he says the public debate over that issue would benefit from evidence generated by the experiments in Colorado and Washington.  That’s assuming the feds do not go on a senseless rampage through these laboratories of democracy.

Source: Odessa American (TX)
Copyright: 2013 Odessa American
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.oaoa.com/
Author: Jacob Sullum

13 Apr 2013

Bill Introduced in Congress Would Fix MMJ Conflict

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3666020972_4c820bb9c1 A bill introduced in Congress on Friday would fix the conflict between the federal government’s marijuana prohibition and state laws that allow medical or recreational use.

California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said his bill, which has three Republican and three Democratic sponsors, would assure that state laws on pot are respected by the feds.

The measure would amend the Controlled Substances Act to make clear that individuals and businesses, including marijuana dispensaries, who comply with state marijuana laws are immune from federal prosecution.

“This bipartisan bill represents a common-sense approach that establishes federal government respect for all states’ marijuana laws,” Rohrabacher said in a news release. “It does so by keeping the federal government out of the business of criminalizing marijuana activities in states that don’t want it to be criminal.”

Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have medical marijuana laws, and two states, Washington and Colorado, last fall became the first to pass laws legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana.

The U.S. Justice Department has not said how it intends to respond to the Washington and Colorado votes. It could sue to block legal pot sales from ever happening, on the grounds they conflict with federal law.

President Barack Obama has said going after marijuana users in states where it’s legal is not a priority. But the administration has raided some medical marijuana dispensaries it sees as little more than fronts for commercial marijuana sales.

Several other measures have also been introduced to change U.S. marijuana laws, including moves to legalize the industrial production of hemp and establish a hefty federal pot tax in states where it’s legal. Any changes this year are considered a longshot.

Republican Reps. Justin Amash of Michigan and Don Young of Alaska and Democratic Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Steve Cohen of Tennessee and Jared Polis of Colorado co-sponsored Rohrabacher’s bill.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Gene Johnson, The Associated Press
Published: April 12, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

30 Mar 2013

Marijuana Task Force Issues 58 Recommendations

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Colorado’s Marijuana Task Force issued its final recommendations for how the state ought to implement Amendment 64, though the actual regulations will be made by state lawmakers. The 165-page report released Wednesday included 58 recommendations to be reviewed by the governor and state legislators.

Task Force Co-Chair Jack Finlaw, the Governor’s Chief Legal Counsel, called the report “very comprehensive” and said that it laid the groundwork for regulation.

“The Task Force recommendations will now need to be perfected through the legislative process and rulemakings by various state agencies,” Finlaw said in a statement.

Click here to read the report in full: http://www.colorado.gov/cms/forms/dor-tax/A64TaskForceFinalReport.pdf

Task force leaders agreed that legislators will have to put a “Marijuana Products Sales Tax” initiative on the November ballot, but left the taxation rate to legislators.

According to a 7News report, some in the task force recommended a 25 percent sales tax, but others were concerned that it would continue to perpetuate the underground market for cheap pot.

The task force also recommended that during the first year of licensing “only entities with valid medical marijuana licenses should be able to obtain licenses to grow, process and sell adult-use cannabis.”

Smoking marijuana in bars should be banned in establishments covered by the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act as well as other places where tabacco smoke is tolerated, the report says.

Consistent with alcohol rules, the task force also recommends that the Legislature prohibit open packages of marijuana in vehicles.

“This was ground-breaking work and the Task Force process went very well,” task force co-chair Barbara Brohl said. “It was supported by many committed and astute individuals who took the Governor’s charge very seriously. Task force members represented differing viewpoints, they addressed all issues in a well-thought-out manner and worked hard to develop sound solutions. The Task Force did all the ‘heavy lifting,” but now a lot of follow up work has to be done in the coming months.”

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Published: March 13, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

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