Law enforcement officials in New York City are poised to stop arresting low-level marijuana offenders and replace such punishment with a written ticket and court summons. This policy change is an effort to reduce the annual arresting of thousands of New Yorkers each year for marijuana violations, which affect minority groups at a grossly disproportionate rate.
“We don’t want to saddle someone who made one small mistake with something that will follow them all their lives,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, who believes the change will reduce the likelihood of an arrest or misdemeanor marijuana offense following an individual through life and hindering daily processes such as applying for housing or a job. “A summons will not affect their future,” he said. “An arrest could.”
According to the New York Times, the change goes into effect November 19 and will only apply to cases involving 25 grams or less of cannabis.
The exact details of the policy change are yet unclear, but what is known is that it will come down to the involved officer’s judgment whether to ticket or arrest an individual for marijuana possession. Additionally, someone caught in the act of smoking marijuana is still subject to arrest, and will be handcuffed and brought to the station house for fingerprinting and a mugshot. Some specifics of the law are still to be discussed in City Hall, such as whether or not a criminal record could result from receiving a court summons for marijuana.
Earlier this year, the new Brooklyn district attorney, Kenneth P. Thompson, said he would stop prosecuting individuals caught up in the justice system because of low-level marijuana possession. Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, however, initially disagreed with Thompson’s move, and vowed to continue making such arrests.
The upcoming policy changes indicate a possible change of heart, but Mr. Thompson is worried the new policy could potentially harm the very people it’s meant to protect, because a court summons doesn’t currently warrant the involvement of a prosecutor.
“In order to give the public confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system, these cases should be subject to prosecutorial review,” Thompson said. “By allowing these cases to avoid early review, by issuing a summons, there is a serious concern that many summonses will be issued without the safeguards currently in place. These cases will move forward even when due process violations might have occurred.”
A new candidate has emerged to replace Eric Holder as the U.S. Attorney General, media outlets report. Her name is Loretta Lynch, and she is currently a U.S. Attorney based out of Brooklyn.
News reports have pinned the likely nomination on her, though White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Friday morning that, “The president has not made a decision… we’re not going to have any personnel announcements.” Either way, President Obama is expected to make an official announcement when he returns from Asia, where he is traveling this week.
Ms. Lynch, 55, is a Harvard graduate and has served as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York since she was appointed there by Obama in 2010. She served in this same position under the Clinton administration from 1999 to 2001. If nominated, Lynch would become the first African American woman to hold the Attorney General title.
“She has everything that we would want in an attorney general,” said Brooklyn D.A. Kenneth Thompson. “She has intelligence, dignity, and the ability to be fair, but also tough.”
In regards to marijuana law reform, Lynch has never voiced a real opinion one way or the other. She has, however, expressed progressive ideals in regards to the War on Drugs and the modern failings of our judicial system overall. In 2001, she said on the PBS News Hour, “I do think that there were a lot of issues that went on with the war on drugs — its inception and the way it was carried out.” And more recently, at a 2013 event at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, she claimed, “Arresting more people or building more jails is not the ultimate solution to crime in our society. If there’s one thing we’ve learned it is that there is no one solution.”
Savvy observers have noted that President Obama is faced with a growing urgency to nominate Holder’s replacement because the Senate will soon be controlled by Republicans, and finding a candidate agreeable to both the president and a GOP majority Congress could be extraordinarily difficult.
One of Ms. Lynch’s most prominent cases of her career was a 1997 case against several New York City police officers who beat and sexually abused Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, in which Lynch secured hefty prison sentences — some as long as 30 years — for those involved in the attack. More recently, Lynch indicted Republican Representative Michael Grimm on charges of tax fraud, a case which could result in some touchy political navigation if the GOP makes moves to stop Lynch’s nomination.
There are now four states in the USA that have voted to legalize cannabis for recreational use. But how do the finer points of legalization get defined (from a legal perspective) once the voters pass a bill?
In the third segment of our interview with Matt Brown from My 420 Tours, Matt discusses what it was like being intrinsically involved in the process of determining the legal structure that Colorado constructed during its bid for legalization. He also goes into detail about how in some cases, successful negotiations with nervous lawmakers depended largely upon the rhetoric that was used.
Listen to the audio or read the transcript below.
Matt Brown Interview, Part 3:
First time here? Go back to Part 1. Part 4 of the Matt Brown interview is coming soon!
Transcript:
Matt Brown: So that started as dispensaries have to grow their own, and to a legislature that doesn’t know any better and doesn’t really give a shit about pot, that sounds very rational-
Ganjapreneur: -sensible.
Matt Brown: Right, sensible. And Chris Romer’s an economist. He studied economics at Stanford, he considers himself an economist.
Ganjapreneur: That’s how he- yeah. He doesn’t bill himself as a politician.
Matt Brown: He fancies himself as an economist, and so for him, very early on in the process- and this was clearly a sticking point, I started using the term, “vertical integration” and he’ll defend his economic sensibilities. You cannot find an example of mandatory vertical integrations in the United States. It is, from freshman year economics onward, an option of a company in a normal market that should have the option to vertically integrate or horizontally integrate or however they went, but you would never force it. And he got that, and by calling it vertical integration it changed the argument that then-
Ganjapreneur: So in a sense, you put it in a more familiar context? That he could kind of see it as- Yeah. Not so much as a sensible policy but as an economic tenant he didn’t want to violate.
Matt Brown: Drilling for oil versus energy exploration. Yes, exactly.
Ganjapreneur: And so your intent there was to sort of color-
Matt Brown: To get it to go away entirely.
Ganjapreneur: To color it to the point where it’s just distasteful?
Matt Brown: Right. When it became clear that some form of what we would call vertical integration was going to be required, then that was the ace up my sleeve that I used and abused for the entire rest of the process. Any time they would start to vote something too stupid, I would be able to come back and say, “Listen, the vertical integration thing that you’re forcing is the absolute toughest thing for me to sell because it doesn’t make any sense to anybody. There’s no support for it.” Like, “I can keep fighting the fight for you, Chris, but this is a big deal.” And so we got all sorts of other incremental horse-trading maneuvers because they’d said so early on in the process that they were not willing to go past 70 percent of the vertical integration.
Ganjapreneur: Right.
Matt Brown: Some form of like a, “In case shit happens, you can wholesale,” but they were very much opposed. So the MMIP [medical marijuana infused product] license was my work, because no one had ever done marijuana-infused food like this before.
Ganjapreneur: So what were they considering for food? How did hash get mixed into that? I think that’s a really interesting side.
Matt Brown: What happened was, again, I did tours. I took ?[Rep. Tom] Massey tours, I took Charlie Brown on tours, and I think what happened was-
Ganjapreneur: Now how did you arrange these? Were these just dispensaries that you has business relationships with and you were like, “Hey, I know you’re a good spot, can I bring some people through to show them something exemplary?”
Matt Brown: Exactly. Friends and clients. I went and sat in on a couple of the work group sessions for City Hall, and the important part here is the State of Colorado’s legislature only meets from the third week in January to the third week in May, second week in May, something like that. And this all came to a head starting July 20th. By the fall we had hundreds and hundreds of these statewide. The number was something like 700 by the end of the year.
Ganjapreneur: 700?
Matt Brown: Dispensaries statewide.
Ganjapreneur: And in a period where the legislation the couldn’t make rules.
Matt Brown: Exactly, they were not in session.
Ganjapreneur: That’s why that happened. I did not know why that happened.
Matt Brown: Mm-hmm!
Ganjapreneur: How much of this was pure luck, how much of this was the connections–the unique connections that you had, and how much of this was just being that guy who showed up and had something smart to say?
Matt Brown: Equal parts one and three, a little bit of two, and I’ve spent years off and on trying to deconstruct how much of that it is and I don’t know, so the way I see it was I was in the right place at the right time.
Ganjapreneur: For sure-
Matt Brown: I was here in Colorado, I was the only business consultant who put business out there. You have Warren [Edson] tell it… Ryan Vincent really loves telling this story: I put up four Craigslist ads in a month and a half and I was banking, like ten grand a week, twenty grand a week on just incorporation. It was copy and paste, find and replace in Word, and then have the same talk for hours on end with people over and over, teaching them. Here’s how you co-opt any other rule that exists for any other industry that looks like ours. So if you’re selling edible products, why don’t you go ahead and get ahead of the curve and follow the food handling rules that you would if you were selling cookies at 7-Eleven. I found there was some selection bias in the people who chose to pay me, so it was the right place and the right time. I also give at least equal credit to myself for recognizing I had a very unique voice and approach and angle. There was this metaphorical rope ladder hanging right there just out of my reach. If I jumped a little bit I knew I could not only get it, but I could climb up to the top bigger and better than anybody had done before. And… I was a national champion debater. Two time nationals in high school. I was ranked fifth in the nation.
Ganjapreneur: That’s why you said before you were a debater–you weren’t scared to go- okay.
Matt Brown: Yeah. I was raised from- I actually, in middle school, my gifted teacher, because I was in the gifted class-
Ganjapreneur: So you’re from Massachusetts? You went to school-
Matt Brown: Missouri.
Ganjapreneur: Missouri, okay. Missouri public schools produced this?
Matt Brown: Yes.
Ganjapreneur: Way to go, Missouri.
Matt Brown: Kansas City, Missouri has four of the top ten most competitive high school debate districts in the country. It is an incredibly intense Midwestern debate legacy that goes on.
Ganjapreneur: Interesting.
Matt Brown: Churned out a lot of politicians, a lot of lawyers, a lot of business people, because, if nothing else, you spend your high school learning how to build and deconstruct arguments on the fly and more importantly, you learn how to tailor your message to your audience.
Ganjapreneur: Yeah.
Matt Brown: From freshman year on I spent literally, it was the longest athletic, because it was considered an athletic- it was from the first week in October through the end of April, I had tournaments every single week except for two weeks off over Christmas, and from freshman year on, you had to look a stranger in the face and start to make assumptions and just read their body language and their everything to see, okay, is this a college kid who’s probably a former high school debater? Then I can speed and spread, talk fast, hit them on technicalities, do this, or is this somebody like my mom and I need to slow down, be more emphatic with my voice, drive home points that make sense?
Ganjapreneur: So now the question is this: when you’re debating someone in that context, right, is that like a boxing match where you’re trying to beat that person, or you’re trying to win over judges? Well, I guess it helps- it’s like a boxing match. You’re doing both.
Matt Brown: When you have a reputation… So, my event- so I did cross-X debate, standard high school debate, which was two people, you and your debate partner against two other high school kids on the same topic all year long, and you get cases of evidence where you have to cut cards, and so I had to learn how to synthesize an entire article into one or two of those quotes you’d cut out that fit an argument, so that when somebody would talk about Tesla coils vis-a-vis renewable energy, I could open up a box and have ready to go evidence where I’m quoting citations and sources.
Ganjapreneur: And that certainly helps when appealing to authority.
Matt Brown: Certainly, because you learn how to build an argument which is not the same as being a scientist who is proving fact.
Ganjapreneur: No.
Matt Brown: It is rhetoric. And you can abuse rhetoric, or you can use rhetoric for incredible amounts of power.
Ganjapreneur: And at the same time what I found among many people speaking at hearings before me in tie-dye t-shirts with pot leaves is there is no sensitivity to audience, number one, and number two, there’s no sense of building a rational argument. And when it comes across-
Matt Brown: It’s burying the facts, with frustration because we know these facts are fucking true!
Ganjapreneur: And regardless of that, that’s not an effective way to commit- and then there’s also the vinegar-honey argument, like, calling someone a fucking asshole fascist is really not going to convince them to see your way…
Matt Brown: …however having someone who otherwise should be on your team screaming through the windows with a bullhorn saying that everything that’s going on is fucking fascist certainly helps me look far more moderate.
Ganjapreneur: Right!
Matt Brown: Which is what we had with Robert Chase, literally screaming through the windows on the big hearing at 4/20.
One of the casualties of the “War on Weed” has been science. With less than half of the states in the US having some form of legal marijuana, and with marijuana’s status as a Schedule 1 Narcotic, the lab space available to study marijuana’s genetics and chemistry has been extremely limited. The majority of the research has been done in Dutch labs. In recent years, however, loosening marijuana laws have opened the doors for independent scientists who want to understand the plant better in the United States. Their research is revealing the origins of Cannabis, confirming some things we already knew, and changing the way medical marijuana can be used to treat patients.
The oldest marijuana bust was in the tomb of an ancient shaman in central China. The 789-gram stash was found at the head of a skeleton in a tomb 2700 years old. An article in the Journal of Experimental Biology entitled “Phytochemical and Genetic Analysis of Ancient Cannabis from Central Asia” shows the sample contained high concentrations of the psychoactive chemicals associated with modern strains of marijuana. The researchers in the paper reported they had sequenced the DNA of ancient cannabis.
This DNA is the basis of a study undertaken by a Portland-based firm, Phylo’s Bioscience.
The Cannabis Evolutionary Project (CEP) is mapping the family tree of marijuana. Mowgli Holmes, the lead scientist on the project, started the project when he came to the West Coast and saw what was going on with strain development. He says, “It was only a step from seeing what was going on with strain development to realizing that without an evolutionary map, and genetic strain-certification, no one would ever really know what they were getting. Strain names now have only a very slight correlation with reality.”
“It makes for a medical marketplace where no one ever really knows what they’re putting in their bodies,” Holmes continues. “Once we have the map in place, we can certify the identity of strains, and patients will be able to have faith that they’re getting the same thing every time. Phylo’s will create an interactive tree that will allow users to trace their strain of marijuana from the 2,700-year-old sample until today.”
The Workshop in Los Angeles, CA seeks to understand the chemistry of the marijuana plant in a way that can benefit patients by providing standardization to the buyer beware market place that currently exists in California. Jeff Raber, the founder of The Workshop, has tested thousands of samples in California over a four year period.
“We really should base our classification of Medical Marijuana on its chemical profile, rather than its appearance, Sativa and Indica,” Dr. Raber asserts. “There are no relationships between strain names, or their classification of Sativa and Indica, and the effects of the plant in the California marketplace. “
According to Dr. Raber, the strain names are more marketing tools than any kind of medical description. ”When it comes to how a particular batch of marijuana will affect a patient, growers and dispensaries often focus on the one molecule everyone knows about THC.”
Instead, he (and others before him) assert, “a better indicator of effects are the terpenes. We already know a strong-smelling marijuana flower usually produces stronger effects.” Terpenes are the chemicals that give marijuana, and other plants, their smell. In marijuana, these terpenes react with the various cannabinoids. This interaction, known as the entourage effect, contributes to the various effects of marijuana, not just the THC. Dr. Raber says there are only a few dispensaries in California using terpenes on their labels. He says patients have been receptive to the new approach because they now can find the chemical combo that works best for them.
One dispensary using Dr. Raber’s labeling method is Papa Ganja in Orange County, CA. Papa Ganja was started to be a more “medically minded” dispensary. Sunday Smith, Operations Manager at Papa Ganja’s says, “We still use strain names, but the market is slowly catching up with the science. Some patients know what strains help them, so we stick with the names for now, but on Papa Ganja’s menu the smell profile is listed directly under the strain name.” Sunday goes on to say, “When we use terpene profiles we can tell patients with nausea to use a strain with a citrus smell, Limonene, rather than a piney smelling strain, Pinene. Now, we can really pinpoint our treatments, which is much better for the patients.”
By better understanding the genetic origins and chemical makeup of the marijuana plant, scientists can begin to prescribe “Best Practices” in the field of medical marijuana. Making medical marijuana a science-based discipline will differentiate it from recreational marijuana. It is essential the differences between recreational and medical marijuana are understood by the public and government in order to keep medical marijuana patient-based.
According to this year’s Public Policy Questions in Massachusetts, voters in that state are ready to approve the legalization of recreational marijuana. The non-binding inquiries were featured on this year’s midterm ballots, and an overwhelming majority of votes were cast in support of marijuana reform.
Two different questions were posed by two different organizations, the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts and Bay State Repeal.
Presented in eight different counties, the DPFMA question — “Shall the State Representative from this district be instructed to vote in favor of legislation that would allow the state to regulate and tax marijuana in the same manner as alcohol?” — received between 69 and 74 percent approval.
Meanwhile, the Bay State Repeal questions detailed a potential regulatory system — similar to business regulations in the agricultural industry — for growing, selling, and possessing legalized cannabis. Three variations of the concept were posed to voters across six different counties, and approval rates ranged from 54 to 64 percent.
“PPQs are an excellent measure of voter sentiment,” said DPFMA Director John Leonard. “They represent actual votes by actual voters, not some pollster’s ideas of how citizens are likely to vote.”
In Massachusetts, the PPQ has served marijuana activists particularly well: voters signaled strong support for marijuana decriminalization in 2008 and medical marijuana in 2012, and the state has since implemented legislation to approve both drug policy reforms.
Republican Congressman Andy Harris, a U.S. House Representative from Maryland, has vowed once more to stop a voter-approved attempt to reform marijuana laws in the nation’s capital.
After D.C. voters passed Initiative 71 to legalize recreational marijuana, Harris told the Washington Post that he would “consider using all resources available to a member of Congress to stop this action.” Nevermind that Initiative 71 passed with an overwhelming 2:1 majority for marijuana legalization (only 30% of voters actually opposed the measure). Harris argues that “actions by those in D.C. will result in higher drug use among teens.”
Unfortunately for D.C., political initiatives in the capital city are subject to Congressional review before they can become law. And while Congress has openly nullified a law only one time in 40 years, it did manage to delay the implementation of the District’s medical marijuana program by nearly 15 years with relentless provisions to federal spending bills.
Rep. Harris also attempted action against the District’s decriminalization of marijuana earlier this year, at one point pushing a Republican-supported provision to stop the bill. This effort died in negotiations with Senate Democrats, however, when President Obama threatened to veto the provision outright.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has proposed a $26.8 billion budget for the state’s next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
“Colorado’s economic activity continues to outperform the national expansion,” Hickenlooper said during his presentation to the Joint Budget Committee. “Total employment and personal income have steadily increased for several years running. The state’s unemployment rate stands at 4.7 percent, the lowest since 2008. Looking ahead, the most likely scenario is for the momentum to continue at a steady pace.”
The budget includes several rebates adding up to $167.2 million, but somewhere in that total is $30.5 million from the state’s legal marijuana industry. Marijuana businesses generated more revenue than was expected by the 2013 ballot measure Proposition AA — which was ratified to deal with such funds — and taxpayers could very well see some of that money returned.
The budget also calls for $33.6 million from the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund for the “enforcement and oversight of Colorado’s new marijuana industry,” and for the “continuation of several initiatives that promote public health and public safety, robust regulatory oversight, law enforcement and the prevention and deterrence of youth marijuana use.”
On the heels of an election which decided marijuana policy in several states, Ganjapreneur, a website dedicated to the legal cannabis industry, has announced a business-focused directory to help aspiring cannabis entrepreneurs and companies connect with business service providers. Ganjapreneur’s new directory includes archives of lawyers, accountants, web development agencies, security firms, and general business consultants who specialize in serving marijuana businesses.
The business directory currently has twelve categories, although a representative from the website said the scope of the project is growing. “Right now we’re focusing on B2B services,” they added, “so our directory is geared toward companies who provide a business service such as marketing or accounting.”
Ganjapreneur recently announced that they are preparing to launch a “Freelancer’s Network” for creative professionals who want to take on marijuana-related projects. The network currently has a landing page explaining the concept, and an email sign-up form to receive a notification when the network is officially launched.
The website launched over the summer, and has rapidly published a large volume of unique content including news coverage, business editorials, interviews with cannabis industry entrepreneurs, an industry job feed which aggregates classified ads from around the web, and even a dictionary of slang vocabulary terms related to marijuana. The site has also launched an app on the Google Play marketplace, and has announced that it will be available in the Apple App Store in the near future.
Two more states, accompanied by our nation’s capitol, have legalized marijuana for recreational use.
While Florida’s bid for medical marijuana didn’t get enough votes to pass, the passage of recreational laws in Oregon and Alaska has doubled the number of states that have decided to rethink federal cannabis prohibition. It is clear that the growing majority of voters who support legalization will be more difficult to ignore than ever before.
Here are the numbers: Oregon passed Measure 91 with 55% approval, while Alaska — a little too close for comfort — passed Ballot Measure 2 with just over 52% approval. Washington D.C.’s Initiative 71 was a shoe-in, with almost 65% support and less than 30% opposed.
Although the Washington D.C. measure could be challenged by the federal government, which is granted certain political powers over the district given its unique status, the capital city’s marijuana legislation may find an unexpected ally in U.S. Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky. Paul could soon be leading a subpanel with oversight of D.C. laws, and he’s expressed that he has no interest in interfering with the district’s Initiative 71, Roll Call reports. “I’m not for having the federal government get involved,” Paul said. “I really haven’t taken a stand on … the actual legalization. I haven’t really taken a stand on that, but I’m against the federal government telling them they can’t.”
Whether federal government officials attempt to interfere or not, the D.C. city council has already begun looking into a system for the regulated sales and distribution of legal marijuana.
In Oregon, the new law allows adults aged 21 and older to possess up to eight ounces of weed and cultivate up to four cannabis plants at home. A regulated system for the production, distribution, and sale of legal cannabis will be developed by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. This system, expected to draw inspiration from those already in place in Washington and Colorado, is to take effect by January 1, 2016.
The Alaskan law is similarly structured, but instead grants adults 21 and over the right to grow up to six cannabis plants in their home, but only carry up to one ounce on their person. The law comes into effect 90 days following the election’s certification, and then the state will have 18 months to implement a regulatory system. However, Alaska now faces a situation like the one Washington faced two years ago: without a regulated medical marijuana infrastructure, the great northern state will have to develop a system for retail marijuana sales from scratch.
The marijuana landscape can be synonymous with a free-spirited sense of fun, but when it comes to the legal world, marijuana is to be taken extremely seriously.
Peter Nemkov is a private practice attorney based in Denver with over 40 years of legal experience. He specializes in commercial transactions and has been working with ganjapreneurs since 2010.
Nemkov has seen several ganjapreneurs succeed in the industry, but he has also seen some nightmares unfold. Here are five legal tips for ganjapreneurs according to Nemkov:
1) Mind the terminology.
Slang and street names are no stranger to the world of marijuana. While saying “pot” and “bong” may pass at a party, using these terms in a legal setting will not suffice.
“This is a new market area and this is a new product, and they should treat it with respect. Using slang demeans the whole business,” Nemkov says.
Depending on the product, the plant itself should be referred to as “medical marijuana” or “recreational marijuana.” Smoking devices like a bong or pipe are all called “accessories.” A joint should be called a “marijuana cigarette” and dispensaries, “retail stores.”
Learning the correct terminology is a solid way for ganjapreneurs to demonstrate they take the product and the industry seriously.
2) Treat the marijuana industry like any other.
It may be a drug, but businesspeople should not treat marijuana differently than any other agricultural product. The industry is simply another facet of capitalism and should be taken very seriously.
“The organization and development of the marijuana industry is symbolic of entrepreneurial capital in the truest sense of the term,” Nemkov says.
He also stresses the importance of avoiding any kind of exposure to criminal elements like the drug cartels, illegal drug trafficking and money laundering. “Those elements are all illegal and they’re all very detrimental to the development of the marijuana industry,” he adds.
3) Know the federal legal requirements better than the alphabet.
The federal government is keeping a close watch on the marijuana industry, and the best defense against getting into trouble is a vast working knowledge of the law.
Ganjapreneurs “need to be very aware of all the legal requirements and have a strong compliance program, a lot more so than other industries,” Nemkov says. “There’s a lot more scrutiny and they should religiously follow the legal requirements.”
4) Keep finance a high priority.
When marijuana companies get in to trouble, it’s typically because they don’t account for or take their finances seriously enough. The marijuana industry is not something to haphazardly enter and treat casually.
“When they do that they’re doomed to failure and they need to view the marijuana industry like any other industry. They need to be very aware of basic business practices, especially the availability of capital and the need to manage and control their income and expenses,” Nemkov says.
Additionally, ganjapreneurs must be aware of not working with parties that have undisclosed financial interests. Nemkov has seen established businessmen face time in jail because they knowingly worked with the wrong people.
5) Be wary when choosing a lawyer.
Because the marijuana industry should be treated like any other, ganjapreneurs should find a lawyer the same way they would for any legal purposes. The most important considerations when choosing any lawyer are his or her experience, competency and reputation.
The marijuana industry is exploding and offers opportunities to many businesspeople. The most important things for ganjapreneurs to keep in mind are to treat it like any other professional industry and succinctly know the state and national laws.
In Coloradoʼs nail-biter of a gubernatorial race between incumbent John Hickenlooper and Republican Bob Beauprez, marijuana has played a surprisingly small role in the election — mostly because the two leading candidates have each been vocally opposed to legal cannabis.
“Both parties, left and right, are the same people,” says Glendale Mayor Mike Dunafon, who is running as an independent candidate for Colorado Governor. Dunafon believes that either Hickenlooper or Beauprez intend to “regulate [legalized] marijuana out of existence,” and has made this the flagship issue of his campaign. A former Denver Bronco, Beauprez first became a city council member, then the mayor, of the small enclave of Glendale (buried within the city and county of Denver) after helping fight regulations that threatened local strip club Shotgun Willies — the owner of which he would go on to marry. He distances himself from the libertarian movement, but maintains a pro-gun, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage stance, objecting to government imposition on personal freedoms.
His stance on marijuana has won him the favor of musician Wyclef Jean — who collaborated with Dunafon on a rapping campaign video — and most recently Snoop Dogg, who has endorsed the candidate and is helping to arrange a three day music and comedy festival over Halloween weekend in Glendale to help promote his candidacy. During a gubernatorial debate earlier this month, Governor Hickenlooper said Amendment 64ʼs legalization of cannabis was “reckless,” followed by Bob Beauprez saying he would like to see the amendment repealed. Though similar statements didnʼt stop many Colorado marijuana businesses from donating tens of thousands of dollars to Hickenlooperʼs campaign.
Dunafon is currently funding his campaign out of pocket, refusing to accept any corporate donations because “once that happens, you owe the man that gave you that money,” he says, adding that he believes the marijuana companies that donated to Hickenlooper are “cronies who want to solidify their gains and make sure that no one else gets in.”
More Coloradanʼs voted in favor of marijuana legalization in 2012 than did to elect Governor Hickenlooper by a margin of four points — the same number of digits heʼs currently trailing behind Beauprez according to a recent Quinnipiac poll. Dunnafonʼs chances of winning the election are not within the realm of possibility, though the small number of votes he could steal from either candidate could have a significant impact on a race analysts are calling “a tossup.”
The Washington State Liquor Control Board issued 67 penalties to recreational marijuana businesses from May to mid-October this year. Roughly 10 percent of all license holders were contacted — 52 incidents were verbal warnings, four penalties were actual fines, and there was one license suspension.
Failure to submit monthly taxes on time was the most common reason for an LCB-issued penalty during this time, while the second most common reason was insufficient security and surveillance systems.
“We have never done it before, so the way we think it should work doesn’t necessarily end up being the way it works,” explained Johanna Tuttle, co-owner of Yield Farms, a licensed marijuana production company in Spokane Valley. Yield Farms received a written warning in August for failing to submit taxes, but the issue was quickly and easily corrected. All-in-all, Tuttle said that the roll-out of I-502 has been “very reasonable.”
The harshest penalties were issued to Sea of Green Farms in Seattle, who faced a five day suspension for “growing in an unauthorized area,” and to Green Chiefs in Granite Falls, who faced a $5,000 dollar fine for a transportation violation.
Chile’s first crop of medical marijuana, a heavily-guarded and monitored 850-square-meter plot of land dedicated to growing medical-grade cannabis, has been planted.
“We’re living at a time, in Chile and the rest of the world, where it’s not reasonable to close yourself to new evidence. Marijuana can provide some dignity to those who suffer. It doesn’t cure cancer,” said La Florida district Mayor Rodolfo Carter, “but we can alleviate the pain.”
Medical marijuana was legalized in Chile in 2005, but only with certain approval from the country’s agricultural service. Before now, one previous effort had been approved in 2011, but even that brief allowance was soon backpedaled when faced with growing opposition from health authorities.
The latest crop is covered by a one year permit and has received support from the state. Additionally, a local university will be using the project for researching marijuana’s effectiveness at combating pain.
Some people undoubtedly expected that head shops, once the sole destination to buy water pipes and other drug paraphernalia, would see a decline in popularity with the introduction of marijuana retail stores, which usually offer the paraphernalia for cannabis consumption in addition to the cannabis itself. However, according to recent updates by Marijuana Business Daily, the opposite is taking place.
In fact, with medical marijuana taking the country by storm (and recreational marijuana surely not far behind), the head shop industry has seen significant growth on a national scale. According to a 2013 estimation, head shops generate $10 billion annually in the U.S.
Mike Gonzales, sales coordinator for Headquest Magazine, has reported that head shop sales in Denver have spiked dramatically since legalization. “Now that [marijuana] is legalized, there’s a lot more new shops opening up, more wholesalers, a lot more new products out there,” he explains.
A report published in Headquest Magazine last year read, “The vast majority of smoke shops see increasing competition, increased opportunities, and increasing sales.” In other words, “The pie is getting bigger.”
One strategy adopted by head shops to stay relevant in cannabis culture is to target the connoisseur market with high-quality and high-value products. Chris Woods, founder of a chain of Colorado recreational pot shops, said, “The people that are buying paraphernalia at our store, it’s more of a functional purpose. It’s not like a head shop, where they might spend several hundred dollars. I don’t think we’re taking their business.” Additionally, dispensaries and retail stores often don’t carry much more than a very basic inventory of pipes, vaporizers, and rolling papers; a head shop, however, can dedicate an entire store to offering a wide variety of products.
Others cite cannabis’ growing presence in mainstream culture as another reason for head shops to see such growth, even in states where medical and recreational marijuana are still illegal. “It’s more acceptable to have glass,” explains Jake Wright, co-owner of Brothers with Glass, an online glass pipes retailer based in Portland, Oregon. “There’s a lot less chance… that it can get confiscated, so you can invest a little more money in a… water pipe.”
2014 is shaping up to be a banner year for marijuana reform, with Oregon, Alaska, Florida, California and Washington D.C. all voting on various initiatives to alter the way their states address the criminal status of cannabis.
While the passage of Alaskaʼs Ballot Measure 2 would make it the first red-state to go fully legal — significantly impacting other right-leaning districtʼs chances for similar measures — itʼs no stranger to legal weed. Along with Oregon, Alaska was one of the first stateʼs to legalize medical marijuana in 1998, and technically decriminalized the substance in 1975. “Law enforcement have been avoiding [possession] cases in Alaska because they have little chance of standing up in court, because of state constitutional protections,” says Taylor Bickford, a spokesperson for the Measure 2 campaign.
Though Bickford says the state has yet to set up a regulatory system for the sale of recreational or medical marijuana, something Measure 2 aims to change. Polls in Alaska are currently split, with statistics gathered by the opposition showing 53 percent planning to vote no and 43 percent yes. Though a survey paid for by the Campaign to Regulate Alcohol Like Marijuana show 57 percent in favor and 39 percent opposed. Oregonʼs Measure 91 — which would also make sale and possession of cannabis 100 percent legal — is in slightly better standing. “Our survey shows 70 percent of 18 to 34 year olds are planning to vote for it, and overall 52 percent are going toward yes,” says pollster John Horvick of DHM Research. “Though the turnout of 18 to 34 year olds and independents show up is going to be key,” both of whom, Horvick says, traditionally have a poor track record with making it out to the ballot boxes.
Things are looking considerably worse in Florida, where voters have the opportunity to make theirs the first southern state to legalize medical marijuana (the only MMJ initiative on the ballot this year). According to a Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/UF Bob Graham Center poll, only 48 percent of likely voters say they would vote in favor of Amendment 2. And unlike Alaska and Oregon, Florida requires at least 60 percent to vote yes for the initiative to pass. Much of this can be attributed to Sheldon Adelsonʼs massive campaign funding against the Amendment.
Californiaʼs Proposition 47 aims to reduce non-violent crimes like drug possession and petty theft from felonies to misdemeanors, devoting an estimated $1 billion a year to crime prevention. Similarly, Washington D.C. legislators decriminalized cannabis earlier this year, turning possession into a ticketable offense and a legal grey area. On November 4, voters will decide whether to remove all criminalization of marijuana for adults 21 and older. Though Initiative 71 does not address the cannabis sales, the D.C. Council is currently debating a bill that would implement a taxed and regulated marijuana market in the nationʼs capital.
Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, has announced that he will be voting “yes” on Oregon’s legalization initiative this November. According to his office, Merkley stopped short of fully endorsing Oregon’s legalization initiative, but his announcement makes him the first sitting U.S. Senator to publicly support the legalization and regulation of cannabis.
While Oregon is not the only region holding a major vote on marijuana policy this year, its marijuana election is unique because this is the state’s second attempt at legalization. In 2012 — when voters in Washington and Colorado successfully legalized pot in their own states — Oregon voters very nearly passed an initiative that many claimed was too expansive and lenient on the potential cannabis industry. This year’s initiative, Measure 91, comes with more practical restrictions and heavier regulations on recreational cannabis, and has proven to be more popular with the general public.
Beyond Senator Merkley, Measure 91 has seen support from a variety of different public figures: U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer has been a long-time supporter of marijuana and hemp legalization, while former Oregon Supreme Court Justice Bill Riggs officially endorsed the initiative earlier this year. Two major publications — The NY Times and Oregon’s own Oregonian — have also endorsed the state’s move to legalize.
The most recent poll indicates a voter majority of 52 percent in favor of Measure 91 and 41 percent opposed, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. The most important aspect of this year’s marijuana election in Oregon, pollster John Horvick reports, is expected to be voter turnout among young Oregonians. “So if the marijuana campaign is able to get those voters out, it looks like it could pass, it’ll be close, a squeaker.”
If passed, Measure 91 will legalize, regulate, and tax the sales of marijuana to adults aged 21 and older. Additionally, adults will be allowed to carry up to eight ounces of dried cannabis and will be allowed to cultivate up to four personal marijuana plants in the privacy of one’s own home. The initiative also includes a layout for an infrastructure of new cannabusinesses, and the new industry will have its regulations written by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.
Reports have indicated that the state could make up to $40 million annually in taxes from a legal marijuana market. In a post-legalization Oregon, the breakdown of where marijuana tax revenue will go is as follows: 40% of revenue will go to public schools; 20% to programs involving mental health, alcoholism, and drug treatment; 15% to state police; 20% to local law enforcement agencies (distributed proportionately by population), and the final 5% will go to the Oregon Health Authority for alcohol and drug abuse treatment services.
Last December, Uruguay made headlines as the first country in the world to legalize cannabis. Left-wing President Jose Mujica began rolling out a system for the legal regulation and taxation of the drug. The program has seen delays, however, and with Mujica’s final term coming to an end soon, the program is now threatened by the prospect of an anti-legalization candidate taking the presidency.
Voters will begin voting on a new president October 26, and whomever is elected will be sworn into office come March.
Polls indicate that Uruguay’s presidential race is currently a close run between left-wing candidate Tabare Vazquez, who has indicated support for Mujica’s program, and National Party candidate Luis Lacalle Pou, who opposes the country’s marijuana legalization in its current form — Pou did endorse a bill in 2010 that would have allowed personal cultivation of cannabis, but has since described Mujica’s program as “inapplicable in reality.”
Uruguay’s legalization attempt has been an experimental battleground for marijuana advocacy in Latin America, a region often ravaged by violence stemming from the international War on Drugs.
On Wednesday, cashless ATM services were pulled from hundreds of legal marijuana dispensaries and retail marijuana shops. According to Marijuana Business Daily, at least 300 to 400 shops were affected by the sudden drop of services.
Cashless ATM services are especially useful to the cannabis industry because it allows patients and recreational consumers to use their debit or credit cards to pay for cannabis as if it were a cash withdrawal.
“We found out about this issue first-hand when ours went down this morning,” said Kayvan Khalatbari, co-founder of Denver Relief, on Wednesday. “We’ve had to move to all-cash today. It was pretty frustrating. We lost some business when that went down and customers didn’t have any cash on them.” Khalatbari said that Denver Relief experienced a 30% loss of sales, but that a new cashless ATM service would be installed by next week.
The majority of affected ATM machines are tied to MetaBank, a major player in the U.S. ATM industry. The Denver Post reported that the banking institution had warned the cannabis industry in January that machines located in marijuana businesses were in violation of federal banking rules. The system, however, had remained in place until this week — more than 10 months later, and only days after several Colorado bankers said they’ve received approval from regulators to continue serving the cannabis industry.
Ganjapreneur — an online business resource that launched over the summer — has announced the launch of a “Freelancer Network” on its website. An official launch date for the project has not been set, but Ganjapreneur has outlined several of the features.
This network will be made publicly available and will be free to use. Freelancers who join the network will be able to create a listing using their real name or a pseudonym, describe their specialty and location, upload a biography and/or personal statement, and provide a contact email address. The listings will be organized in a directory and categorized by service type. Businesses will then be able to use the directory when searching for freelancers for projects that require specific skill sets, and creative agencies who want to take on cannabis industry jobs will be able to recruit people who are interested in cannabis-related work.
The Ganjapreneur Freelancer Network will include categories such as web developers, graphic designers, copywriters, SEO experts, social media marketers, videographers, animators, and programmers. Unlike many other freelancer networks, Ganjapreneur will not take a percentage off the top of projects organized through its network, and it will not require freelancers to manage all communications with their clients through its website.
As such, the site will likely not provide the same mediation and escrow services that popular freelancing websites do, but a rep from the company thinks that these features may be precisely what is keeping the cannabis industry out of traditional platforms. “Freelancers may have day jobs at companies where the subject of cannabis is not acceptable, so they probably wouldn’t want their real name attached to anything that could show up in search engines, and cannabis businesses may not be allowed on public-facing websites where the platform holds funds in escrow. By removing ourselves from the equation except as the source to browse and contact freelancers, we give both sides a lot more privacy and flexibility, which is exactly what the industry needs.”
Thelanding page for the Freelancer Network currently has an email signup form to Ganjapreneur’s newsletter so interested parties may receive notifications when the project goes live. The announcement follows on the heels of several other recent announcements from Ganjapreneur, including an upgrade to their marijuana industry job feed, the launch of their app for Android devices, and an ongoing series of interviews with cannabis industry pioneers.
In an international transaction that can be described only as utterly weird and unprecedented, a Russian cannabis company has purchased Ebola.com for just over $200,000, reports Time Magazine. To make matters stranger, a significant portion of the funds came from stock in Cannabis Sativa, a different marijuana company based out of Nevada.
The Russian company, now going under the name Weed Growth Fund, was as recently as last month a company self-proclaimed to specialize in “stainless steel cookware products for retail and wholesale customers in North America,” called Ovation Research.
Weed Growth Fund paid $50,000 in cash and $164,000 worth in Cannabis Sativa stock to a disease-obsessed domain name vendor called Blue String Ventures.
Another interesting side note — which could partially explain Weed Growth Fund’s interest in Ebola.com — is that Gary Johnson, current CEO of Cannabis Sativa and former governor of New Mexico, has publicly suggested that medical marijuana could provide a possible treatment for Ebola. Whether Johnson’s position at the head of Cannabis Sativa had any influence in the transferring of that company’s stock for Ebola.com, however, is uncertain.
With the addition of their new “Post a Job” page, Ganjapreneur has entered the world of online job boards geared toward the marijuana industry. The website launched their marijuana industry job feed several weeks ago, which up until now has merely aggregated links to jobs had been posted around the web. With the new form, employers will be able to fill out their own job posting to be published on Ganjapreneur’s website and Android app.
“This is just one small feature of what we’re building out,” a Ganjapreneur spokesperson said. “Ultimately we’re going to be a lot more than a simple job board. We’re aiming to be a business hub for the industry as a whole, so naturally, helping people find careers related to cannabis and helping employers reach out to potential employees is going to be a big part of that. But we have many more features in the works that will be coming out soon.”
All jobs listed by Ganjapreneur are available both on their website and their recently-launched Android app. Ganjapreneur has announced that their app will also be available in the Apple App store in the near future. The website announced its official launch over the summer, and has since published a large number of news articles, business editorials, and interviews with cannabis industry pioneers.
Recently, Ganjapreneur published an audio interview with Colorado cannabis entrepreneur Matt Brown, who went into detail about how the industry took shape as an organized structure in the period of time leading up to the passage of Amendment 64 in 2012. Another interview with John Evich of Top Shelf Cannabis, the first retail store to serve Washington State’s recreational market, was published in video format and includes a shop tour and footage of the first edible products being sold in Washington.
Ganjapreneur also published an open source marijuana slang dictionary last month which has grown over time with user-submitted slang terms and example usages.
“We’re just getting started,” a rep from Ganjapreneur said. “The next few months are going to be very exciting as we begin to roll everything out.”
In 1970, members of Congress categorized cannabis as a Schedule 1 substance under the Controlled Substances Act, which is the most restrictive category, and legally equated the plant with significantly more dangerous substances such as heroin and crystal meth.
Forty-four years later, a team of experts — Dr. Carl Hart, Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia University in NYC; Dr. Greg Carter, Medical Director of St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute in Spokane, Washington; and retired physician Phillip Denny — will be presenting the case for rescheduling marijuana in California before a federal judge on Monday.
“[I]t is my considered opinion that including marijuana in Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act is counter to all the scientific evidence in a society that uses and values empirical evidence,” said Dr. Hart. “After two decades of intense scientific inquiry in this area, it has become apparent the current scheduling of cannabis has no footing in the realities of science and neurobiology.”
Paul Armentano of NORML writes that, “This is the first time in recent memory that a federal judge has granted an evidentiary hearing on a motion challenging the statute which classifies cannabis to be one of the most dangerous illicit substances in the nation.”
Evidence and testimonials from experts and concerned individuals will set out to demonstrate the absurdity of marijuana’s current scheduling. Witnesses will include Marine Sgt. Ryan Begin, a veteran of the Iraq War; Jennie Stolmens, the mother of a child suffering from a pediatric form of epilepsy that has been shown to respond positively to medical marijuana treatment; former crime analyst for the FBI and current Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, James Nolan, Ph.D.; and Christopher Conrad, popular cannabis cultivation expert and author.
Marijuana’s current scheduling, which legally defines it as having “a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” is perhaps the largest obstacle blocking research on medical marijuana.
Despite the drug’s federal scheduling, however, more than half of U.S. states have legalized the medicinal use of cannabis in some form or another. Two states — Colorado and Washington — have legalized and regulated the drug’s recreational use. Meanwhile, two other states (Oregon and Alaska), the District of Columbia, and several other major U.S. cities will see marijuana’s legalization on the ballot this November election season.
Medical Marijuana Inc. (OTC: MJNA) was the subject of a scathing business report published last week, and the company has in turn filed a massive $100 million lawsuit in California against several cannabis industry businesses involved in publishing the report.
The report — titled “Hemp Oil Hustlers: Project CBD Issues a Special Report on Medical Marijuana Inc., HempMeds, and KannaWay” — claims that lab results have indicated that MJNA’s hemp-based products contain “significant levels of toxic solvents,” and that many consumers of the company’s products have reported illness afterward. The report also includes accusations that the company in question has employed sketchy business practices that “may qualify it as a pyramid scheme.”
MJNA, a publicly-traded company, publicly denounced the report within days, claiming it “is based on false, inaccurate and misleading statements.” The company has also reported a coinciding plummet of its stock prices and claims that its reputation has been compromised.
Company spokesman Andrew Hard wrote, “We will seek full legal remedies and awards for the damages caused by the malicious and intentionally harmful article and actions by the enterprise made up of the publication’s author, the publicist, and the company, other parties and individuals.”
Marijuana Business Daily reports:
“The lawsuit names the Denver-based publicly traded testing company CannLabs and its founder Genifer Murray; the Colorado dispensary Rifle Mountain and its founder Jason Cranford, who formerly served on the board of a company affiliated with Medical Marijuana Inc.; and Stewart Environmental Consultants, a Colorado lab that conducted the tests but is not involved in the marijuana industry.”
MJNA is maintaining that the report is a clear demonstration of malicious conduct. One factor that reinforces MJNA’s claims is that the lab results released by Stewart Environmental were preliminary lab results. The testing lab has since admitted that it should not have released the preliminary results, and that the tests were in fact flawed because the products had passed through several hands before being tested.
Medical Marijuana Inc. is no stranger to legal battles: Tripp Keber — currently CEO of Dixie Elixirs, though he was once affiliated with MJNA before creating a subsidiary called Red Dice Holdings — filed a lawsuit against MJNA in November, 2013 because of a contract violation. Earlier in 2013, the company also came under fire in stock market blogs and internet forums for its financial accounting methods.
Ganjapreneur published the second installment of their interview with Matt Brown on October 19th. In the recording, Matt Brown and Ganjapreneur contributor Mitch Shenassa talk about the early stages of the organized cannabis industry, working with the Colorado Department of Health, and coordinating with other medical marijuana businesses and activists for the first time.
As a business consultant and friend of many key players in the push that ultimately led to the passage of Amendment 64, Brown relates the story from an insider’s perspective and the interview brings details to light that have never previously been reported in the mainstream media.
While describing what it was like to team up with lobbyists with CMMR (Coloradans for Medical Marijuana Regulation), Brown says, “This was the first time openly, publicly, we all used the term ‘the marijuana industry..’ And that was, I probably viewed myself as probably more like Frank Luntz than anything. That it was to set the language and the context that we were talking about.”
The full transcript and audio recording is available on Ganjapreneur’s website.
Ganjapreneur launched officially in July and has since published several interviews with prominent cannabis industry pioneers, in written, audio, and video format. They also recently launched an app on the Google Play marketplace and have announced that the app will be available via the Apple App Store in the near future.
