By Aldo Gamboa
Washington (AFP)
In a country known for its drug war and where Bill Clinton once caught hell for admitting to smoking pot, new ground is being broken: legal marijuana markets in two states.
The pioneers of this sea change are out west, in Colorado and Washington, and grassroots support for their experiment is strong.
Marijuana consumption is legal and regulated for medical purposes in 19 US states, in some cases for the past 20 years. And in most of them, private consumption of pot is not classified as a crime.
But Colorado and Washington are taking a big jump forward. They are creating a pot market in which local authorities will oversee growing, distribution and marketing — all of it legal — for people to get high just for the fun of it.
In Colorado, famous for its Rocky Mountain ski resorts, at least 130 licenses have been issued for small shops which, starting January 1, will be able to sell up to 28 grams of marijuana to people aged 21 or older. Another 300 applications for licenses are pending. The pot sold in shops will come from private, licensed growers.
By DAVID DOWNS
At East Bay Express
Activists are worried about a new California Appellate Court ruling over the Thanksgiving break that appears to give cities and counties the okay to ban all medical marijuana cultivation – even a single plant, in a closet, for personal, medical use.
The case revolves around the City of Live Oak, which passed an ordinance in 2011 banning medical marijuana cultivation. Patients there sued and a local judge sided with the city. Patients then appealed and the 3rd District Court of Appeals in Sacramento upheld the ban last week, according to reports, and said state law and previous court decisions “do not pre-empt a city’s police power to prohibit the cultivation of all marijuana within that city.”
There is no “unfettered right to cultivate marijuana for medical purposes,” the appeals court said.
By Carr Smith
At The Associated Press
With the death of Cleveland billionaire and philanthropist Peter B. Lewis, the push for relaxed U.S. marijuana laws lost its most generous supporter. That’s left supporters wondering what comes next.
Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance, died Saturday at age 80. Since the 1980s, he had donated an estimated $40 million to $60 million to marijuana law reform — including underwriting ballot campaigns, research, political polling and legal defense efforts.
Largely through Lewis’ efforts, and those of several other billionaires, 20 states since 1996 have passed medical marijuana laws, 17 have decriminalized the drug and two have passed legalization language.
When starting a medical marijuana dispensary the bylaws must be properly written reflecting the current laws of the state and a core team must be gathered. Management, employees and collective members must follow the bylaws – just having the proper documentation is only one piece of the puzzle. It is very important that the right people are hired to manage and work in the medical marijuana collective in order for it to thrive.
When the concept to start a marijuana dispensary (or delivery) is conceived documentation and formalities must be completed which will set the tone and foundation for the organization. it is very important that the right kind of people are hired as part of the medical marijuana collective team to abide by the grey California marijuana laws. The two most important qualities of the collective staff are honesty and reliability. Since the collective deals with a lot of cash and controlled valuable medicine the employees need to be trust worthy. The medical marijuana collective should still have safeguards in place and double checks to ensure the money and medicine are maintained at proper levels. This will not only help defer any fraudulent activities but will also help with human accounting errors.
By Linda Williams
At The Willits News
A California Appeals Court ruled Oct. 16 neither the Compassionate Use Act nor the Medical Marijuana Program Act allows retail sale of marijuana to consumers. The judges overruled a San Luis Obispo judge’s pretrial finding which included the premise that “Providing money in exchange for harvested marijuana may, in itself, constitute ‘associating for the purpose of collectively cultivating marijuana.'”
The panel of three judges also stated, “The Legislature did not intend such immunity [under the Compassionate Use Act] to apply where the purchaser simply signs a paper stating she is a member of the seller’s collective or naming the seller as her caregiver.”
The appeals court ruling paves the way for the San Luis Obispo district attorney to again pursue charges against the six defendants in a pot sales case that began in 2010. (more…)
By Solvej Schou
At Takepart.com
The legal marijuana economy isn’t a pipe dream. It’s reality.
More than $1.43 billion worth of legal pot will be sold in 2013, and is estimated to increase by 64 percent next year to a mammoth $2.34 billion, according to new research looking at the ever-expanding legal U.S. cannabis market, including analysis of hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries nationwide.
That gigantic estimated increase in 2014 is, of course, due in part to Colorado and Washington’s legalization of marijuana sales for adult recreational use. Colorado has also developed packaged marijuana and marijuana products to sell in select stores this January, driving industrialization int he according to ArcView Market Research’s report “The State of Legal Marijuana Markets 2nd Edition.”
“The impact of this is huge,” the report’s editor, Steve Berg, tells TakePart.com. “Plus, the latest Gallup poll shows 58 percent of Americans as supportive of full legalization of marijuana, a 10 point increase from a year ago.”
Due to constraints of the various cities, some medical marijuana patients don’t have access to storefronts but must rely solely only delivery of medicine through a marijuana delivery service. In California these are typically created through a (not-for-profit) Collective entity or the less structured Unincorporated Association. Regardless of how the medical marijuana delivery is formal organized, it still needs to follow the same California Medical marijuana guidelines (similar to storefronts) – this would include a formal membership agreement, verifying patient’s doctor’s recommendations, keeping detailed business expense records, etc.
Depending on the location and the local laws that apply, due to city bans and moratoriums, a medical marijuana delivery service might be the only way to operate. The laws on delivery-style collectives are less defined than those for traditional storefronts; in fact, more and more delivery services are popping up as more cities are banning medical marijuana storefronts. Below is a list of pros and cons of a delivery-style collective compared to a traditional storefront model.
Pros of a Medical Marijuana Delivery Service:
– Low start-up fees
– Lower overhead
– Fewer regulations, less bureaucracy
– Less attention from law enforcement
– Flexible schedule
– More nimble operations
– Can be discreet
– Some patients are immobile (don’t have or can’t operate vehicles)
By CBCnews.ca
CANADA
A range of spinoff companies, many of them located in the United States, are angling to cash in on the Canadian medical marijuana market as the federal government brings in new rules for the industry.
Producers of homegrown marijuana will be abolished under the new system and replaced with industrial facilities overseen by the RCMP and federal health inspectors.
Health Canada has said there’s no limit on the number of producers that will be certified under the new regime, and that the price of the drug will be determined by the market.
So far the department has received more than 180 applications from individuals or companies seeking to become certified producers. But Don Schultz, who runs a medical marijuana education firm called Greenline Academy, estimates the market could eventually sustain 1,000 “cultivators” from coast to coast.
Canadian pot growers eyeing medical marijuana free market
Medicinal pot ‘free market’ may force some users underground
SAN FRANCISCO – For the first time, over half of Californians are expressing support for the legalization of non-medical marijuana, according to new statewide survey results. With support having possibly reached a tipping point and efforts to produce a 2014 ballot initiative already underway, what might legalization look like in California?
The survey, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) with funding from the James Irvine Foundation, shows that 52 percent of Californians, as well as 60 percent of likely voters, support legalization. As recently as March of last year, PPIC found that support was at 45 percent.
“Our state has for many years lived with medical marijuana – not to say it isn’t controversial in locations, but it’s generally accepted,” PPIC president Mark Baldassare told The Sacramento Bee. “It’s really now a different political context for having discussions about where does California go with legalization.”
Over 60 percent of both non-Hispanic whites and African Americans are supportive, as opposed to 36 percent of Latinos. Some 48 percent of Asian Americans express support. Across all age groups from 18 to over 55, support stands at about 50 percent.