Courtesy of The Joint Blog
A new study published in the journal Cell Immunology has
found that activation of the body’s cannabinoid receptors - something
done naturally by cannabis and cannabinoids – has neuroinflammatory
capabilities.
According to the study; “Here we showed that Gp1a, a
highly selective CB2 [cannabinoid receptor 2] agonist, with a four log
higher affinity for CB2 than CB1, reduced clinical scores and
facilitated recovery in EAE [experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, a
disease of the central nervous system] in conjunction with long term
reduction in demyelination and axonal loss.”
The study continues;
“This is the first report on the in vivo CB2-mediated Gp1a inhibition of
Th17/Th1 differentiation. We also confirmed the Gp1a-induced inhibition
of Th17/Th1 differentiation in vitro, both in non-polarizing and
polarizing conditions. The CB2-induced inhibition of Th17
differentiation is highly relevant in view of recent studies emphasizing
the importance of pathogenic self-reactive Th17 cells in EAE/MS.
Researchers
conclude that “the combined effect on Th17 differentiation and immune
cell accumulation into the CNS, emphasize the relevance of CB2 selective
ligands as potential therapeutic agents in neuroinflammation.”
The study was conducted by researchers at the Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia.
Source: TheJointBlog.Com
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Here's Where To Buy Legal Weed In Colorado Without A Green Card!!!!
- Open for business (recreational sales) on January 1st. Current menus reflect medicinal prices only.
- This is a historic and fluid situation in Colorado. We will update our list and our map before and after January 1st to reflect what other shops will be open for recreational sales.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Colorado's ski resorts and mountain towns are bracing for an influx of tourists seeking a now-legal Rocky Mountain high.Last year, the state legalized the possession and use of small amounts of recreational marijuana, and on Jan. 1 special stores will be allowed to sell pot to anyone 21 and over. Voters had previously approved a medical marijuana system, but last fall's vote threw the doors wide open by requiring state officials to regulate pot like alcohol.
With several companies offering marijuana tours — sightseeing tours of the state's high country, with marijuana supplied — police and ski area operators worry that tourists who don't understand the rules will be sparking up on the slopes.
"We're delving into truly uncharted territory here," said Summit County Sheriff John Minor, whose jurisdiction covers the Arapahoe Basin, Keystone and Breckenridge ski areas. "We do have this misperception in Summit County where people have smoked in public, been charged, and were under the perception that it's a free-for-all."
Under the law, marijuana may be smoked by adults but only in private. But exactly what "private" means is still the subject of debate. Minor says a private vehicle on a public road, for example, is considered "in public."
Marijuana tour operator Timothy Vee of Colorado High Life Tours says to get around those rules, his drivers sometimes pull into a parking lot, allowing tour guests to partake of the pot he offers. Under current law, it's legal to give another adult marijuana as long as there's no direct payment for it. Vee and other operators charge people to rent the limo and driver and say the pot, snacks and soda are free.
For $1,200 a day, tourists can rent a chauffeured minibus from Vee to pick them up at their hotel and drive them to the slopes while they use marijuana during the ride. Vee said concerns about impaired skiers and riders are overblown. After all, he says, every ski area has a bar at the bottom of the slope. And for decades, skiers and snowboarders in Colorado have been ducking into the trees for a mid-run toke. Many ski areas are home to illicitly built "smoke shacks" tucked between the slopes, and locals often refer to gondola ski lifts as "ganja-las."
"What I'm getting are a lot of old stoners, and a lot of wealthy people who want to come do it safely with a concierge," Vee said. "Now the kids are gone, they're 60 years old and they want to get high."
Colorado Issues First Licenses for MJ Businesses
Colorado on Monday became the first U.S. state to issue special licenses for recreational marijuana businesses.After weeks of scrutiny of applications, officials at the state's Marijuana Enforcement Division slipped 348 approved licenses into the mail and sent them out to hundreds of stores, products-makers and cultivation facilities. Those businesses could begin producing and selling marijuana to anyone over 21 on Jan. 1, assuming the businesses also have the approval of their local governments.
The number includes 136 marijuana shops, most of which are in Denver. But stores with approved state licenses also pop up in places from Telluride to Alma to Garden City.
Marijuana advocates hailed the finalized licenses as a watershed moment for Colorado's legalization of cannabis, which voters approved in November 2012.
"Colorado will be the first state to have a legal marijuana market for adults," said Mason Tvert, a Denver-based spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project and one of the leaders of Colorado's legalization push. "We expect it to set an example for other states."
Opponents of legalization, though, said the licenses are another step in what they fear is an increasingly disastrous pot policy.
"We're seeing ... a massive marijuana industry growing before our eyes," said Kevin Sabet, who is with a national anti-marijuana group called Project SAM. "I hope it's not going to be too late before we realize that the road we're on is going to produce a massive public health problem and public safety problem in Colorado."
State marijuana regulators have previously said they would make a decision on the hundreds of recreational cannabis business applications submitted in the month of October by the end of the year. And it appears they denied very few — if any — applications in doing so.
Washington D.C.'s Strict MMJ Law Keeps Demand Low
Washington, D.C. -- The tidy Takoma Wellness
Center, one of the first medical marijuana dispensaries to open in the
nation's capital, has a quaint reception area furnished with black
leather chairs, plants and artwork. On the front desk are a pile of
business cards and a sign-in sheet.
In the back, shelves are stocked with the latest marijuana accessories: pipes, cookbooks, even a machine that mixes the drug into butter or oil for cooking. All that's missing are more patients.
Since opening this summer, the three Washington, D.C.-based marijuana dispensaries have served a total of 111 patients in a district with about 600,000 residents. That's about 100 times fewer patients, on a per capita basis, than states such as California or Oregon, where the drug can also be legally used to alleviate illnesses.
Not surprisingly, all three of the dispensaries say they are losing money.
"I think there was a general expectation that the numbers would be higher," Jeffrey Kahn, owner of Takoma Wellness Center, said in an interview.
The low numbers reflect a medical marijuana program that is considered the most restrictive in the nation. Patients can get prescriptions only from doctors with whom they have had an ongoing relationship, and only if they suffer from one of four conditions: HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, cancer or severe muscle spasms, such as those caused by multiple sclerosis. Although just three dispensaries have opened, the law allows up to five.
To even visit one, patients must register with the health department, make an appointment and show a district-issued ID card before passing through security.
That's a stark contrast from California, where patient registration is voluntary, doctors use their own judgment to determine whether medical pot can relieve an ailment, and some dispensaries are located just steps from the beach or deliver to a patient's door. In other states, the list of qualifying conditions is longer. A law passed in Illinois this year included 30 ailments.
"They deliberately have the most buttoned-down laws in the country," said Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA. He said the district's strict rollout of medical marijuana reflected a desire by local officials "to keep the feds calm."
For more than a decade, D.C. officials struggled to make medical marijuana available to their residents. In 1998, 69% of district voters approved a medical marijuana initiative.
But such efforts were routinely overruled by conservative members of Congress, who wield unusual influence over the district's laws.
After the 1998 ballot measure, then-Rep. Bob Barr, a Republican from Georgia, amended the district's budget to keep money from being spent on the program, effectively blocking it.
But changing attitudes from Congress, as well as from the Justice Department, have opened the door for the district to quietly begin its medical marijuana program.
Even Barr, who left office in 2003, reversed his position after aligning with libertarians. His newfound opposition to government intrusion led him to lobby Congress in 2007 on behalf of the Marijuana Policy Project, a nonprofit advocacy group that supports legalization, to remove his own amendment. (He is now running for Congress again as a Republican in Georgia's 11th District.)
The Barr amendment was removed in 2009, and medical marijuana became legal in the district in 2010, drawing little notice from Congress.
By that time, medical cannabis was legal in 14 states. Even when Colorado and Washington state passed laws legalizing recreational marijuana use last year, Congress said "nothing. Not a whisper," said Kleiman, who advised Washington state officials on how to set up their legal marijuana program.
The Justice Department subsequently said it would not challenge the legalization programs as long as they were well-regulated.
That move paved the way for dispensaries in Washington, D.C., to operate with little fear of federal intervention. "We're part of a robust regulatory system that the Justice Department called for," said Takoma's Kahn.
Many patients and doctors praised the district's program, saying marijuana has been shown to relieve pain and improve appetites. Michelle Hill, a patient at another dispensary, Metropolitan Wellness Center, said the drug helped with the severe spasms she suffered because of a spinal cord ailment.
"When I smoked cannabis, I had none of those issues," she said at a D.C. Council hearing in October.
The district is looking into increasing availability by expanding the list of qualifying ailments.
"We'd love to be able to help those patients," Scott Morgan, a spokesman for the dispensary Capital City Care, said of allowing more ailments to be treated. "We're looking forward to that. We think that's going to be a big help to the program."
The changed landscape also has advocates confident that Congress will not object to a proposed local law that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of pot.
"Congress is unlikely to step in," said D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells, who has proposed making possession of 1 ounce or less of pot a civil offense, subject to a fine that may be as low as $25. The measure, aimed at curbing a disproportionate number of arrests of African Americans for marijuana possession, has support from 10 of 13 council members, as well as Mayor Vincent Gray. Seventeen states have similar laws.
Councilmember Yvette Alexander opposes decriminalization, warning it could exacerbate the district's drug problem.
"I think it's going to encourage the drug market even more, if there's no fear of a crime or criminal record," she said.
But Wells predicted that it would be law by early next spring.
"I was excited about the response — or rather lack of response — by Congress," said Dan Riffle, lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project, adding that he had not heard opposition from any legislators about the decriminalization bill.
"Everyone gets the message that marijuana is going to be legal sooner rather than later."
In the back, shelves are stocked with the latest marijuana accessories: pipes, cookbooks, even a machine that mixes the drug into butter or oil for cooking. All that's missing are more patients.
Since opening this summer, the three Washington, D.C.-based marijuana dispensaries have served a total of 111 patients in a district with about 600,000 residents. That's about 100 times fewer patients, on a per capita basis, than states such as California or Oregon, where the drug can also be legally used to alleviate illnesses.
Not surprisingly, all three of the dispensaries say they are losing money.
"I think there was a general expectation that the numbers would be higher," Jeffrey Kahn, owner of Takoma Wellness Center, said in an interview.
The low numbers reflect a medical marijuana program that is considered the most restrictive in the nation. Patients can get prescriptions only from doctors with whom they have had an ongoing relationship, and only if they suffer from one of four conditions: HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, cancer or severe muscle spasms, such as those caused by multiple sclerosis. Although just three dispensaries have opened, the law allows up to five.
To even visit one, patients must register with the health department, make an appointment and show a district-issued ID card before passing through security.
That's a stark contrast from California, where patient registration is voluntary, doctors use their own judgment to determine whether medical pot can relieve an ailment, and some dispensaries are located just steps from the beach or deliver to a patient's door. In other states, the list of qualifying conditions is longer. A law passed in Illinois this year included 30 ailments.
"They deliberately have the most buttoned-down laws in the country," said Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA. He said the district's strict rollout of medical marijuana reflected a desire by local officials "to keep the feds calm."
For more than a decade, D.C. officials struggled to make medical marijuana available to their residents. In 1998, 69% of district voters approved a medical marijuana initiative.
But such efforts were routinely overruled by conservative members of Congress, who wield unusual influence over the district's laws.
After the 1998 ballot measure, then-Rep. Bob Barr, a Republican from Georgia, amended the district's budget to keep money from being spent on the program, effectively blocking it.
But changing attitudes from Congress, as well as from the Justice Department, have opened the door for the district to quietly begin its medical marijuana program.
Even Barr, who left office in 2003, reversed his position after aligning with libertarians. His newfound opposition to government intrusion led him to lobby Congress in 2007 on behalf of the Marijuana Policy Project, a nonprofit advocacy group that supports legalization, to remove his own amendment. (He is now running for Congress again as a Republican in Georgia's 11th District.)
The Barr amendment was removed in 2009, and medical marijuana became legal in the district in 2010, drawing little notice from Congress.
By that time, medical cannabis was legal in 14 states. Even when Colorado and Washington state passed laws legalizing recreational marijuana use last year, Congress said "nothing. Not a whisper," said Kleiman, who advised Washington state officials on how to set up their legal marijuana program.
The Justice Department subsequently said it would not challenge the legalization programs as long as they were well-regulated.
That move paved the way for dispensaries in Washington, D.C., to operate with little fear of federal intervention. "We're part of a robust regulatory system that the Justice Department called for," said Takoma's Kahn.
Many patients and doctors praised the district's program, saying marijuana has been shown to relieve pain and improve appetites. Michelle Hill, a patient at another dispensary, Metropolitan Wellness Center, said the drug helped with the severe spasms she suffered because of a spinal cord ailment.
"When I smoked cannabis, I had none of those issues," she said at a D.C. Council hearing in October.
The district is looking into increasing availability by expanding the list of qualifying ailments.
"We'd love to be able to help those patients," Scott Morgan, a spokesman for the dispensary Capital City Care, said of allowing more ailments to be treated. "We're looking forward to that. We think that's going to be a big help to the program."
The changed landscape also has advocates confident that Congress will not object to a proposed local law that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of pot.
"Congress is unlikely to step in," said D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells, who has proposed making possession of 1 ounce or less of pot a civil offense, subject to a fine that may be as low as $25. The measure, aimed at curbing a disproportionate number of arrests of African Americans for marijuana possession, has support from 10 of 13 council members, as well as Mayor Vincent Gray. Seventeen states have similar laws.
Councilmember Yvette Alexander opposes decriminalization, warning it could exacerbate the district's drug problem.
"I think it's going to encourage the drug market even more, if there's no fear of a crime or criminal record," she said.
But Wells predicted that it would be law by early next spring.
"I was excited about the response — or rather lack of response — by Congress," said Dan Riffle, lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project, adding that he had not heard opposition from any legislators about the decriminalization bill.
"Everyone gets the message that marijuana is going to be legal sooner rather than later."
Denver Launches MJ Website on Do's & Don'ts of Law
Denver -- Have questions about marijuana? The city
of Denver is hoping to have that covered after it launched an
informational website Dec. 9.
The site is simple in construction and serves to answer frequently asked questions such as "is it illegal to drive high?" and "is it illegal to consume marijuana in public?" The answer to both questions is yes, by the way.
The city's marketing office put the site together after embarking on the endeavor in late October.
"The goal was to provide clarity and I think the site does that," said Sarah Kurz, director of strategic marketing for Denver.
Kurz said her office met with several outside groups such as Denver Public Schools, Denver Health and AAA Colorado to determine what questions should be answered on the site. She said all the groups were insistent that the information needed to be out there as soon as possible.
View the site at: http://www.colorado.gov/marijuanainfodenver
The site is simple in construction and serves to answer frequently asked questions such as "is it illegal to drive high?" and "is it illegal to consume marijuana in public?" The answer to both questions is yes, by the way.
The city's marketing office put the site together after embarking on the endeavor in late October.
"The goal was to provide clarity and I think the site does that," said Sarah Kurz, director of strategic marketing for Denver.
Kurz said her office met with several outside groups such as Denver Public Schools, Denver Health and AAA Colorado to determine what questions should be answered on the site. She said all the groups were insistent that the information needed to be out there as soon as possible.
View the site at: http://www.colorado.gov/marijuanainfodenver
Don't Rush Recreational Marijuana in California
California -- On New Year’s Day, Colorado becomes
the first state to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana, and
Washington will begin permitting pot shops a few months later.
It’s only a matter of time before California follows. There are four potential initiatives to legalize marijuana being considered for the November ballot, according to the Sacramento Bee. A recent Field Poll found 55% of California voters support legalization for the first time.
In reality, marijuana is already practically legal in the state. California’s medical marijuana law allows pretty much anyone to get a prescription for pot and fill it at a storefront dispensary. We just make people pretend they’re “patients” going to get their “medicine.”
But just because legalization in California is inevitable doesn’t mean we should hurry.
Look at the goofiness and confusion that continues to surround the medical marijuana industry in the state. Dispensaries are legal in some cities, not in others. Cities pass ordinances regulating pot shops, courts overturn the rules. Voters passed the California Compassionate Use Act of 1996 and the legislature authorized dispensaries in 2004, yet the regulatory environment is still hazy.
Legalization proponents should let California sit on the sidelines for another year or two, while the sales and recreational-use experiment plays out in Colorado and Washington. Postpone the ballot initiatives to 2016. California does not need to be a leader on legalized marijuana.
It’s only a matter of time before California follows. There are four potential initiatives to legalize marijuana being considered for the November ballot, according to the Sacramento Bee. A recent Field Poll found 55% of California voters support legalization for the first time.
In reality, marijuana is already practically legal in the state. California’s medical marijuana law allows pretty much anyone to get a prescription for pot and fill it at a storefront dispensary. We just make people pretend they’re “patients” going to get their “medicine.”
But just because legalization in California is inevitable doesn’t mean we should hurry.
Look at the goofiness and confusion that continues to surround the medical marijuana industry in the state. Dispensaries are legal in some cities, not in others. Cities pass ordinances regulating pot shops, courts overturn the rules. Voters passed the California Compassionate Use Act of 1996 and the legislature authorized dispensaries in 2004, yet the regulatory environment is still hazy.
Legalization proponents should let California sit on the sidelines for another year or two, while the sales and recreational-use experiment plays out in Colorado and Washington. Postpone the ballot initiatives to 2016. California does not need to be a leader on legalized marijuana.
First State-Licensed Marijuana Retailers To Open
Colorado -- The world's first state-licensed
marijuana retailers, catering to Colorado's newly legal recreational
market for pot, are stocking their shelves ahead of a New Year's grand
opening that supporters and detractors alike see as a turning point in
America's drug culture.
Possession, cultivation and private personal consumption of marijuana by adults for the sake of just getting high has already been legal in Colorado for more than year under a state constitutional amendment approved by voters.
But starting January 1, cannabis will be legally sold and taxed at specially regulated retailers in a system modeled after a regime many states have in place for alcohol sales - but which exists for marijuana nowhere outside of Colorado.
For the novelty factor alone, operators of the first eight marijuana retailers slated to open on Wednesday morning in Denver and a handful of establishments in other locations are anticipating a surge in demand for store-bought weed.
"It will be like people waiting in line for tickets to a Pink Floyd concert," said Justin Jones, 39, owner of Dank Colorado in Denver who has run a medical marijuana shop for four years and now has a recreational pot license.
Jones said he is confident he has enough marijuana on hand for Day One but less sure of inventory levels needed after that.
About 90 percent of his merchandise is in smokable form, packaged in small child-proof containers. The rest is a mixture of cannabis-infused edibles, such as cookies, candy and carbonated drinks.
"People seem to prefer smoking," he said.
From Medical To Recreational
Washington state voters legalized recreational marijuana at the same time Colorado did, in November 2012, but it has yet to be made commercially available there.
Pot designated strictly for medical use has been sold for some time in storefront shops in several of the nearly 20 states, including Colorado and Washington, that have deemed marijuana legal for health purposes.
But Colorado is the first to open retail pot stores, and craft a regulatory framework to license, tax and enforce its use for recreation.
Outside of the United States, Uruguay's parliament recently cleared the way for state-sanctioned marijuana sales, but the South American nation is at least months away from having a system in place.
The Netherlands has long had an informal decriminalization policy, with Amsterdam coffee shops allowed to sell marijuana products to customers. But back-end distribution of the drug to those businesses remains illegal.
"It will actually be fully legal in Colorado, at least under state law, whereas in the Netherlands it's been tolerated, not actually legal," Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a pro-liberalization group, told reporters earlier this month.
"Colorado is essentially the first. It's really the first in which this is explicitly legal and where marijuana is being grown legally, sold wholesale legally, sold retail legally," Nadelmann said.
"This is groundbreaking," said Mike Elliot, spokesman for Colorado's Medical Marijuana Industry Group. "We are way ahead of Washington state, Amsterdam and Uruguay."
Critics of liberalized marijuana laws likewise view Colorado's new order as a landmark, albeit one they see in a more negative light.
Kevin Sabet, co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a leading anti-legalization group, said the movement toward ending pot prohibition is sending the wrong signal to the nation's youth.
Ending Prohibition
"There will still need to be a black market to serve people who are ineligible to buy on a legal market, especially kids," Sabet said. "It's almost the worst of both worlds."
Critics say the social harms of legalizing pot - from anticipated declines in economic productivity to a potential rise in traffic and workplace accidents - will outweigh any benefits.
Legalization backers point to tax revenues to be gained and argue that anti-marijuana enforcement has accomplished little but to penalize otherwise law-abiding citizens, especially minorities.
They also argue that legalization will free up strained law enforcement resources and strike a blow against drug cartels, much as repealing alcohol prohibition in the 1930s crushed bootlegging by organized crime.
But Sabet counters, "We are witnessing the birth of big marijuana," which he compared to the tobacco industry.
Under Colorado's law, however, state residents can only buy as much as an ounce of marijuana at a time, while individuals from out of state are limited to quarter-ounce purchases. State law also limits cultivation to six marijuana plants per person.
Those limits were not enough to deter a 30-year-old high school sports coach who is visiting Colorado from North Carolina but gave his name only as Matt.
"I don't really drink a whole lot, but I'd prefer to smoke a little bit and have a good time with the friends that I hang out with," he told Reuters on Friday. His New Year's plans include a "Cannabition" pot party in Denver.
Marijuana remains classified an illegal narcotic under U.S. law. But in a major policy shift in August, the Obama administration said it would give states leeway to experiment with pot legalization, and let Colorado and Washington carry out their new laws permitting recreational use.
The state has issued a total of 348 recreational pot licenses to businesses statewide, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue's Marijuana Enforcement Division.
Of those, 136 are for retail stores, 178 for cultivation operations, 31 for manufacturing of infused edibles and other sundries, and three are for testing facilities.
Last month, Colorado voters approved a combined 15 percent excise and 10 percent sales tax to be imposed on recreational pot sales, with the first $40 million raised to fund school construction projects.
The Colorado Legislative Council estimates the marijuana taxation scheme will generate $67 million annually in tax revenue to state coffers.
Only people over age 21 can buy recreational pot. Public use of marijuana remains illegal, as is driving while stoned. The state has set a blood-THC (the active ingredient in cannabis) limit of 5-nanogram-per-milliliter threshold for motorists.
Other states are taking a wait-and-see approach to the Colorado and Washington experiments before they take the leap toward legalization, said Rachel Gillette, head of Colorado's chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
"Colorado has found an exit strategy for the failed drug war and I hope other states will follow our lead," she said.
Possession, cultivation and private personal consumption of marijuana by adults for the sake of just getting high has already been legal in Colorado for more than year under a state constitutional amendment approved by voters.
But starting January 1, cannabis will be legally sold and taxed at specially regulated retailers in a system modeled after a regime many states have in place for alcohol sales - but which exists for marijuana nowhere outside of Colorado.
For the novelty factor alone, operators of the first eight marijuana retailers slated to open on Wednesday morning in Denver and a handful of establishments in other locations are anticipating a surge in demand for store-bought weed.
"It will be like people waiting in line for tickets to a Pink Floyd concert," said Justin Jones, 39, owner of Dank Colorado in Denver who has run a medical marijuana shop for four years and now has a recreational pot license.
Jones said he is confident he has enough marijuana on hand for Day One but less sure of inventory levels needed after that.
About 90 percent of his merchandise is in smokable form, packaged in small child-proof containers. The rest is a mixture of cannabis-infused edibles, such as cookies, candy and carbonated drinks.
"People seem to prefer smoking," he said.
From Medical To Recreational
Washington state voters legalized recreational marijuana at the same time Colorado did, in November 2012, but it has yet to be made commercially available there.
Pot designated strictly for medical use has been sold for some time in storefront shops in several of the nearly 20 states, including Colorado and Washington, that have deemed marijuana legal for health purposes.
But Colorado is the first to open retail pot stores, and craft a regulatory framework to license, tax and enforce its use for recreation.
Outside of the United States, Uruguay's parliament recently cleared the way for state-sanctioned marijuana sales, but the South American nation is at least months away from having a system in place.
The Netherlands has long had an informal decriminalization policy, with Amsterdam coffee shops allowed to sell marijuana products to customers. But back-end distribution of the drug to those businesses remains illegal.
"It will actually be fully legal in Colorado, at least under state law, whereas in the Netherlands it's been tolerated, not actually legal," Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a pro-liberalization group, told reporters earlier this month.
"Colorado is essentially the first. It's really the first in which this is explicitly legal and where marijuana is being grown legally, sold wholesale legally, sold retail legally," Nadelmann said.
"This is groundbreaking," said Mike Elliot, spokesman for Colorado's Medical Marijuana Industry Group. "We are way ahead of Washington state, Amsterdam and Uruguay."
Critics of liberalized marijuana laws likewise view Colorado's new order as a landmark, albeit one they see in a more negative light.
Kevin Sabet, co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a leading anti-legalization group, said the movement toward ending pot prohibition is sending the wrong signal to the nation's youth.
Ending Prohibition
"There will still need to be a black market to serve people who are ineligible to buy on a legal market, especially kids," Sabet said. "It's almost the worst of both worlds."
Critics say the social harms of legalizing pot - from anticipated declines in economic productivity to a potential rise in traffic and workplace accidents - will outweigh any benefits.
Legalization backers point to tax revenues to be gained and argue that anti-marijuana enforcement has accomplished little but to penalize otherwise law-abiding citizens, especially minorities.
They also argue that legalization will free up strained law enforcement resources and strike a blow against drug cartels, much as repealing alcohol prohibition in the 1930s crushed bootlegging by organized crime.
But Sabet counters, "We are witnessing the birth of big marijuana," which he compared to the tobacco industry.
Under Colorado's law, however, state residents can only buy as much as an ounce of marijuana at a time, while individuals from out of state are limited to quarter-ounce purchases. State law also limits cultivation to six marijuana plants per person.
Those limits were not enough to deter a 30-year-old high school sports coach who is visiting Colorado from North Carolina but gave his name only as Matt.
"I don't really drink a whole lot, but I'd prefer to smoke a little bit and have a good time with the friends that I hang out with," he told Reuters on Friday. His New Year's plans include a "Cannabition" pot party in Denver.
Marijuana remains classified an illegal narcotic under U.S. law. But in a major policy shift in August, the Obama administration said it would give states leeway to experiment with pot legalization, and let Colorado and Washington carry out their new laws permitting recreational use.
The state has issued a total of 348 recreational pot licenses to businesses statewide, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue's Marijuana Enforcement Division.
Of those, 136 are for retail stores, 178 for cultivation operations, 31 for manufacturing of infused edibles and other sundries, and three are for testing facilities.
Last month, Colorado voters approved a combined 15 percent excise and 10 percent sales tax to be imposed on recreational pot sales, with the first $40 million raised to fund school construction projects.
The Colorado Legislative Council estimates the marijuana taxation scheme will generate $67 million annually in tax revenue to state coffers.
Only people over age 21 can buy recreational pot. Public use of marijuana remains illegal, as is driving while stoned. The state has set a blood-THC (the active ingredient in cannabis) limit of 5-nanogram-per-milliliter threshold for motorists.
Other states are taking a wait-and-see approach to the Colorado and Washington experiments before they take the leap toward legalization, said Rachel Gillette, head of Colorado's chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
"Colorado has found an exit strategy for the failed drug war and I hope other states will follow our lead," she said.
In California Mayor’s Rise Is a Sign of the Times
Sebastopol, Calif. -- When Robert Jacob ran for
the City Council here last year, he had already made the list of “Forty
Under 40 of 2012” in a local business magazine. So it was to be expected
that his business gave him face recognition among voters on the
campaign trail, many of whom greeted him by exclaiming, “You’re the pot
guy!”
A founder of Sebastopol’s lone dispensary for medical marijuana, Peace in Medicine, and a strong advocate of its use, Mr. Jacob far outraised and outspent his rivals by running the most expensive campaign in Sebastopol’s history. He won and quickly became vice mayor but was not done.
This month, Mr. Jacob, 36, was chosen as mayor by the City Council — the first person from the medical marijuana industry to become mayor of an American city, according to cannabis advocates.
The selection spoke to the wider social acceptance of marijuana, medical or otherwise, in the United States, one year after Colorado and Washington voted to become the first two states to legalize its recreational use. That it happened in Sebastopol, a city in Sonoma County that retains its hippie past despite the gentrification in recent years that has made it known more for its pinot noir than its traditional Gravenstein apples, was hardly a surprise.
Mr. Jacob’s political ascendancy also points to the marijuana industry’s growing economic power, and it hints at what may lie ahead in Colorado and Washington. In its list of “Forty Under 40,” The North Bay Business Journal listed Mr. Jacob alongside people from the food, wine, tech, finance and other more conventional sectors. In Sebastopol, a city of 7,400 people an hour north of San Francisco, his medical marijuana dispensary was the 14th-biggest business in 2012, funneling $46,400 in taxes to the city.
Still, the federal government regards any use of marijuana as illegal. What is more, in the last couple of years, United States attorneys have shut down hundreds of dispensaries across California after sending warning letters to operators, landlords and local officials who passed or put into effect ordinances regulating medical marijuana businesses in their municipalities. In the letters, the prosecutors, working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, threatened the recipients with criminal charges and the seizure of assets.
So as both the mayor and a medical marijuana businessman, Mr. Jacob could be seen as a symbol of how federal laws lag behind the times, or he could become an inviting target.
While joking that talking about his dispensary’s position in relation to federal law “makes me sweat,” Mr. Jacob said he felt confident about its legal status. City officials said that no one associated with Mr. Jacob’s dispensary or in the city’s government had received a warning letter from the federal authorities.
“We don’t push the envelope,” Mr. Jacob said. “We really operate within a medicinal perspective, from our name to our advertising to the way we display our medicine to the way we treat each individual patient’s needs when they walk through the door. We’re an organization that respects the intent of cannabis as medicine.”
The dispensary, which opened in 2007, is in a nondescript gray, two-story building on one of the city’s main avenues. Nothing outside indicates the nature of its business. Inside, Peace in Medicine cultivates the atmosphere of a clinic or spa, with works from local artists on its walls, a world away from the clublike ambience and images of fast cars, Bob Marley and bikini-clad women found in many other dispensaries.
Lawrence McLaughlin, the city attorney and manager, said the thought that the mayor was engaged in an activity considered illegal under federal law was “not a worry at this point for me.” He added, “I can see the trend where things are going in the United States over all regardless of who’s in power in Washington, being that marijuana use is being legalized in more and more states.”
A resident of Sebastopol since 2004, Mr. Jacob is a relative newcomer. He grew up in Rodeo, in the East Bay, the son of immigrants, his father from Mexico and his mother from Iraq. He moved with his family to the Central Valley, but uncomfortable in the area’s conservative culture because he was gay, he said, at 15 he decamped to San Francisco, where he first lived in a homeless shelter for youths. In San Francisco, Mr. Jacob went to high school and also worked for several social services groups, helping victims of domestic violence and H.I.V.-positive youths.
After moving here, Mr. Jacob said he found many people “hiding in their homes and basement and cabins, cultivating cannabis,” which inspired him and a handful of other business partners to take their first anxious steps toward opening the dispensary.
“We went to a pay phone and I called the Police Department,” Mr. Jacob recalled. “I said: ‘Hi, I’m Robert. I am a medical marijuana patient, and I want to grow cannabis in Sebastopol. Can you tell me what the rules are?’ ”
A police officer explained California’s regulations to him. “Then we all got into the car and drove away from the pay phone as fast as possible,” he said. “We were afraid that they were going to come down and get us.”
The dispensary found a receptive community here. Sebastopol’s population has grown older and wealthier in recent decades, but its politics are rooted on the left.
Green Party candidates have made it to the City Council. In the past year, the Council has passed ordinances requiring solar power on new homes and commercial buildings, as well as restricting drive-through businesses and chain stores. Its divisions, said Sarah Glade Gurney, a council member and former mayor, are divisions inside the left.
“People like to argue with the Greens, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t green themselves,” she said.
As for Mr. Jacob, who was unanimously chosen by the Council to be mayor, he said that he wants to be known for more than being the first medical marijuana insider to become mayor of an American city.
Referring to his management experience overseeing 45 employees at Peace in Medicine, he said he would work toward uniting the City Council, which had been divided in recent years over development projects, including a CVS pharmacy. Having supported the new restrictions on businesses, he said that he wants to preserve Sebastopol’s small-town charm.
“There’s been a lot about me being the marijuana mayor,” Mr. Jacob told a gathering at a Christmas luncheon at the Fire Department.
“I’m doing everything I can in many ways to change that perspective. And if that means I’ve got to put on dress shoes that hurt my feet and a tie every day, and wear a nice suit and make sure it’s pressed and pay for a dry cleaner, I’m going to do that.”
A version of this article appears in print on December 26, 2013, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: In California, a Mayor’s Rise Is a Sign of the Times.
A founder of Sebastopol’s lone dispensary for medical marijuana, Peace in Medicine, and a strong advocate of its use, Mr. Jacob far outraised and outspent his rivals by running the most expensive campaign in Sebastopol’s history. He won and quickly became vice mayor but was not done.
This month, Mr. Jacob, 36, was chosen as mayor by the City Council — the first person from the medical marijuana industry to become mayor of an American city, according to cannabis advocates.
The selection spoke to the wider social acceptance of marijuana, medical or otherwise, in the United States, one year after Colorado and Washington voted to become the first two states to legalize its recreational use. That it happened in Sebastopol, a city in Sonoma County that retains its hippie past despite the gentrification in recent years that has made it known more for its pinot noir than its traditional Gravenstein apples, was hardly a surprise.
Mr. Jacob’s political ascendancy also points to the marijuana industry’s growing economic power, and it hints at what may lie ahead in Colorado and Washington. In its list of “Forty Under 40,” The North Bay Business Journal listed Mr. Jacob alongside people from the food, wine, tech, finance and other more conventional sectors. In Sebastopol, a city of 7,400 people an hour north of San Francisco, his medical marijuana dispensary was the 14th-biggest business in 2012, funneling $46,400 in taxes to the city.
Still, the federal government regards any use of marijuana as illegal. What is more, in the last couple of years, United States attorneys have shut down hundreds of dispensaries across California after sending warning letters to operators, landlords and local officials who passed or put into effect ordinances regulating medical marijuana businesses in their municipalities. In the letters, the prosecutors, working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, threatened the recipients with criminal charges and the seizure of assets.
So as both the mayor and a medical marijuana businessman, Mr. Jacob could be seen as a symbol of how federal laws lag behind the times, or he could become an inviting target.
While joking that talking about his dispensary’s position in relation to federal law “makes me sweat,” Mr. Jacob said he felt confident about its legal status. City officials said that no one associated with Mr. Jacob’s dispensary or in the city’s government had received a warning letter from the federal authorities.
“We don’t push the envelope,” Mr. Jacob said. “We really operate within a medicinal perspective, from our name to our advertising to the way we display our medicine to the way we treat each individual patient’s needs when they walk through the door. We’re an organization that respects the intent of cannabis as medicine.”
The dispensary, which opened in 2007, is in a nondescript gray, two-story building on one of the city’s main avenues. Nothing outside indicates the nature of its business. Inside, Peace in Medicine cultivates the atmosphere of a clinic or spa, with works from local artists on its walls, a world away from the clublike ambience and images of fast cars, Bob Marley and bikini-clad women found in many other dispensaries.
Lawrence McLaughlin, the city attorney and manager, said the thought that the mayor was engaged in an activity considered illegal under federal law was “not a worry at this point for me.” He added, “I can see the trend where things are going in the United States over all regardless of who’s in power in Washington, being that marijuana use is being legalized in more and more states.”
A resident of Sebastopol since 2004, Mr. Jacob is a relative newcomer. He grew up in Rodeo, in the East Bay, the son of immigrants, his father from Mexico and his mother from Iraq. He moved with his family to the Central Valley, but uncomfortable in the area’s conservative culture because he was gay, he said, at 15 he decamped to San Francisco, where he first lived in a homeless shelter for youths. In San Francisco, Mr. Jacob went to high school and also worked for several social services groups, helping victims of domestic violence and H.I.V.-positive youths.
After moving here, Mr. Jacob said he found many people “hiding in their homes and basement and cabins, cultivating cannabis,” which inspired him and a handful of other business partners to take their first anxious steps toward opening the dispensary.
“We went to a pay phone and I called the Police Department,” Mr. Jacob recalled. “I said: ‘Hi, I’m Robert. I am a medical marijuana patient, and I want to grow cannabis in Sebastopol. Can you tell me what the rules are?’ ”
A police officer explained California’s regulations to him. “Then we all got into the car and drove away from the pay phone as fast as possible,” he said. “We were afraid that they were going to come down and get us.”
The dispensary found a receptive community here. Sebastopol’s population has grown older and wealthier in recent decades, but its politics are rooted on the left.
Green Party candidates have made it to the City Council. In the past year, the Council has passed ordinances requiring solar power on new homes and commercial buildings, as well as restricting drive-through businesses and chain stores. Its divisions, said Sarah Glade Gurney, a council member and former mayor, are divisions inside the left.
“People like to argue with the Greens, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t green themselves,” she said.
As for Mr. Jacob, who was unanimously chosen by the Council to be mayor, he said that he wants to be known for more than being the first medical marijuana insider to become mayor of an American city.
Referring to his management experience overseeing 45 employees at Peace in Medicine, he said he would work toward uniting the City Council, which had been divided in recent years over development projects, including a CVS pharmacy. Having supported the new restrictions on businesses, he said that he wants to preserve Sebastopol’s small-town charm.
“There’s been a lot about me being the marijuana mayor,” Mr. Jacob told a gathering at a Christmas luncheon at the Fire Department.
“I’m doing everything I can in many ways to change that perspective. And if that means I’ve got to put on dress shoes that hurt my feet and a tie every day, and wear a nice suit and make sure it’s pressed and pay for a dry cleaner, I’m going to do that.”
A version of this article appears in print on December 26, 2013, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: In California, a Mayor’s Rise Is a Sign of the Times.
Colorado's Marijuana Sales To Start
Denver -- A gleaming white Apple store of weed is
how Andy Williams sees his new Denver marijuana dispensary. Two floors
of pot-growing rooms will have windows showing the shopping public how
the mind-altering plant is grown. Shoppers will be able to peruse drying
marijuana buds and see pot trimmers at work separating the valuable
flowers from the less-prized stems and leaves.
“It’s going to be all white and beautiful,” the 45-year-old ex-industrial engineer explains, excitedly gesturing around what just a few weeks ago was an empty warehouse space that will eventually house 40,000 square feet of cannabis strains.
As Colorado prepares to be the first in the nation to allow recreational pot sales, opening Jan. 1, hopeful retailers like Williams are investing their fortunes into the legal recreational pot world — all for a chance to build even bigger ones in a fledgling industry that faces an uncertain future.
Officials in Colorado and Washington, the other state where recreational pot goes on sale in mid-2014, as well as activists, policymakers and governments from around the U.S. and across the world will not be the only ones watching the experiment unfold.
So too will the U.S. Department of Justice, which for now is not fighting to shut down the industries.
“We are building an impressive showcase for the world, to show them this is an industry,” Williams says, as the scent of marijuana competes with the smell of sawdust and wet paint in the cavernous store where he hopes to sell pot just like a bottle of wine.
Will it be a showcase for a safe, regulated pot industry that generates hundreds of millions of dollars each year and saves money on locking up drug criminals, or one that will prove, once and for all, that the federal government has been right to ban pot since 1937?
Cannabis was grown legally in the U.S. for centuries, even by George Washington. After Prohibition’s end in the 1930s, federal authorities turned their sights on pot. The 1936 propaganda film “Reefer Madness” warned the public about a plant capable of turning people into mindless criminals.
Over the years, pot activists and state governments managed to chip away at the ban, their first big victory coming in 1996 when California allowed medical marijuana. Today, 19 other states, including Colorado and Washington, and the District of Columbia have similar laws.
Those in the business were nervous, fearing that federal agents would raid their shops.
“It was scary,” recalls Williams, who along with his brother borrowed some $630,000 from parents and relatives to open Medicine Man in 2009. “I literally had dreams multiple times a week where I was in prison and couldn’t see my wife or my child. Lot of sleepless nights.”
That same year, the Justice Department told federal prosecutors they should not focus investigative resources on patients and caregivers complying with state medical marijuana laws — but the department reserved the right to step in if there was abuse.
In Colorado, the industry took off. Shops advertised on billboards and radio. Pot-growing warehouses along Interstate 70 in Denver grew so big that motorists started calling one stretch the “Green Zone” for its frequent skunky odor of pot.
The city at one point had more marijuana dispensaries than Starbucks coffee shops, with some neighborhoods crowded with dispensary sign-wavers and banners offering free joints for new customers. Local officials have since ratcheted back such in-your-face ads.
But the marijuana movement didn’t stop. Voters in Colorado and Washington approved recreational pot in 2012, sold in part on spending less to lock up drug criminals and the potential for new tax dollars to fund state programs.
The votes raised new questions about whether the federal government would sue to block laws flouting federal drug law. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper famously warned residents not to “break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly,” and activists predicated a legal showdown.
That didn’t happen. In August, the DOJ said it wouldn’t sue so long as the states met an eight-point standard that includes keeping pot out of other states and away from children, criminal cartels and federal property.
Colorado law allows adults 21 and older to buy pot at state-sanctioned pot retail stores, and state regulations forbid businesses from advertising in places where children are likely see their pitches.
Only existing medical dispensaries were allowed to apply for licenses, an effort to prevent another proliferation of pot shops. Only a few dozen shops statewide are expected to be open for recreational sales on New Year’s Day.
Continue Reading
Legal pot’s potential has spawned businesses beyond retail shops. Marijuana-testing companies have popped up, checking regulated weed for potency and screening for harmful molds. Gardening courses charge hundreds to show people how to grow weed at home.
Tourism companies take curious tourists to glass-blowing shops where elaborate smoking pipes are made. One has clients willing to spend up to $10,000 for a week in a luxury ski resort and a private concierge to show them the state’s pot industry.
Dixie Elixirs & Edibles, maker of pot-infused foods and drinks, is making new labels for the recreational market and expanding production on everything from crispy rice treats to fruit lozenges.
“The genie is out of the bottle,” says company president Tripp Keber. “I think it’s going to be an exciting time over the next 24 to 48 months.”
It’s easy to see why the industry is attracting so many people. A Colorado State University study estimates the state will ring up $606 million in sales next year, and the market will grow from 105,000 medical pot users to 643,000 adult users overnight - and that’s not counting tourists.
Toni Fox, owner of 3D Cannabis Center in Denver, anticipates shoppers camping overnight to await her first-day 8 a.m. opening. She’s thinking of using airport-security-line-style ropes to corral shoppers, and suspects she’s going to run out of pot.
A longtime marijuana legalization advocate, she knows it’s a crucial moment for the movement.
“We have to show that this can work,” she says. “It has to.”
The challenges, activists and regulators say, are daunting in Colorado and Washington.
One of the biggest questions is whether they have built an industry that will not only draw in tens of millions of dollars in revenue but also make a significant dent in the illegal market. Another is whether the regulatory system is up to the task of controlling a drug that’s never been regulated.
There are public health and law enforcement concerns, including whether wide availability of a drug with a generations-old stigma of ruining lives will lead to more underage drug use, more cases of driving while high and more crime.
As state officials watch for signs of trouble, they will also have to make sure they don’t run afoul of the DOJ’s conditions.
To stop the drug from getting smuggled out of state, regulators in both states are using a radio-frequency surveillance system developed to track pot from the greenhouses to the stores and have set low purchasing limits for non-residents.
Officials concede that there’s little they can do to prevent marijuana from ending up in suitcases on the next flight out. The sheriff in the Colorado county where Aspen is located has suggested placing an “amnesty box” at the city’s small airport to encourage visitors to drop off their extra bud.
To prevent the criminal element from getting a foothold, regulators have enacted residency requirements for business owners, banned out-of-state investment and run background checks on every applicant for a license to sell or grow the plant.
Whether the systems are enough is anyone’s guess.
For now, all the focus is on 2014. This being Colorado, there will be more than a few joints lit up on New Year’s Eve. Pot fans plan to don 1920s-era attire for a “Prohibition Is Over!” party and take turns using concentrated pot inside the “dab bus.”
Williams says he’s done everything he can, including hiring seven additional staffers to handle customers. All he has to do is open the doors.
“Are we ready to go? Yes,” he says. “What’s going to happen? I don’t know.”
“It’s going to be all white and beautiful,” the 45-year-old ex-industrial engineer explains, excitedly gesturing around what just a few weeks ago was an empty warehouse space that will eventually house 40,000 square feet of cannabis strains.
As Colorado prepares to be the first in the nation to allow recreational pot sales, opening Jan. 1, hopeful retailers like Williams are investing their fortunes into the legal recreational pot world — all for a chance to build even bigger ones in a fledgling industry that faces an uncertain future.
Officials in Colorado and Washington, the other state where recreational pot goes on sale in mid-2014, as well as activists, policymakers and governments from around the U.S. and across the world will not be the only ones watching the experiment unfold.
So too will the U.S. Department of Justice, which for now is not fighting to shut down the industries.
“We are building an impressive showcase for the world, to show them this is an industry,” Williams says, as the scent of marijuana competes with the smell of sawdust and wet paint in the cavernous store where he hopes to sell pot just like a bottle of wine.
Will it be a showcase for a safe, regulated pot industry that generates hundreds of millions of dollars each year and saves money on locking up drug criminals, or one that will prove, once and for all, that the federal government has been right to ban pot since 1937?
Cannabis was grown legally in the U.S. for centuries, even by George Washington. After Prohibition’s end in the 1930s, federal authorities turned their sights on pot. The 1936 propaganda film “Reefer Madness” warned the public about a plant capable of turning people into mindless criminals.
Over the years, pot activists and state governments managed to chip away at the ban, their first big victory coming in 1996 when California allowed medical marijuana. Today, 19 other states, including Colorado and Washington, and the District of Columbia have similar laws.
Those in the business were nervous, fearing that federal agents would raid their shops.
“It was scary,” recalls Williams, who along with his brother borrowed some $630,000 from parents and relatives to open Medicine Man in 2009. “I literally had dreams multiple times a week where I was in prison and couldn’t see my wife or my child. Lot of sleepless nights.”
That same year, the Justice Department told federal prosecutors they should not focus investigative resources on patients and caregivers complying with state medical marijuana laws — but the department reserved the right to step in if there was abuse.
In Colorado, the industry took off. Shops advertised on billboards and radio. Pot-growing warehouses along Interstate 70 in Denver grew so big that motorists started calling one stretch the “Green Zone” for its frequent skunky odor of pot.
The city at one point had more marijuana dispensaries than Starbucks coffee shops, with some neighborhoods crowded with dispensary sign-wavers and banners offering free joints for new customers. Local officials have since ratcheted back such in-your-face ads.
But the marijuana movement didn’t stop. Voters in Colorado and Washington approved recreational pot in 2012, sold in part on spending less to lock up drug criminals and the potential for new tax dollars to fund state programs.
The votes raised new questions about whether the federal government would sue to block laws flouting federal drug law. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper famously warned residents not to “break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly,” and activists predicated a legal showdown.
That didn’t happen. In August, the DOJ said it wouldn’t sue so long as the states met an eight-point standard that includes keeping pot out of other states and away from children, criminal cartels and federal property.
Colorado law allows adults 21 and older to buy pot at state-sanctioned pot retail stores, and state regulations forbid businesses from advertising in places where children are likely see their pitches.
Only existing medical dispensaries were allowed to apply for licenses, an effort to prevent another proliferation of pot shops. Only a few dozen shops statewide are expected to be open for recreational sales on New Year’s Day.
Continue Reading
Legal pot’s potential has spawned businesses beyond retail shops. Marijuana-testing companies have popped up, checking regulated weed for potency and screening for harmful molds. Gardening courses charge hundreds to show people how to grow weed at home.
Tourism companies take curious tourists to glass-blowing shops where elaborate smoking pipes are made. One has clients willing to spend up to $10,000 for a week in a luxury ski resort and a private concierge to show them the state’s pot industry.
Dixie Elixirs & Edibles, maker of pot-infused foods and drinks, is making new labels for the recreational market and expanding production on everything from crispy rice treats to fruit lozenges.
“The genie is out of the bottle,” says company president Tripp Keber. “I think it’s going to be an exciting time over the next 24 to 48 months.”
It’s easy to see why the industry is attracting so many people. A Colorado State University study estimates the state will ring up $606 million in sales next year, and the market will grow from 105,000 medical pot users to 643,000 adult users overnight - and that’s not counting tourists.
Toni Fox, owner of 3D Cannabis Center in Denver, anticipates shoppers camping overnight to await her first-day 8 a.m. opening. She’s thinking of using airport-security-line-style ropes to corral shoppers, and suspects she’s going to run out of pot.
A longtime marijuana legalization advocate, she knows it’s a crucial moment for the movement.
“We have to show that this can work,” she says. “It has to.”
The challenges, activists and regulators say, are daunting in Colorado and Washington.
One of the biggest questions is whether they have built an industry that will not only draw in tens of millions of dollars in revenue but also make a significant dent in the illegal market. Another is whether the regulatory system is up to the task of controlling a drug that’s never been regulated.
There are public health and law enforcement concerns, including whether wide availability of a drug with a generations-old stigma of ruining lives will lead to more underage drug use, more cases of driving while high and more crime.
As state officials watch for signs of trouble, they will also have to make sure they don’t run afoul of the DOJ’s conditions.
To stop the drug from getting smuggled out of state, regulators in both states are using a radio-frequency surveillance system developed to track pot from the greenhouses to the stores and have set low purchasing limits for non-residents.
Officials concede that there’s little they can do to prevent marijuana from ending up in suitcases on the next flight out. The sheriff in the Colorado county where Aspen is located has suggested placing an “amnesty box” at the city’s small airport to encourage visitors to drop off their extra bud.
To prevent the criminal element from getting a foothold, regulators have enacted residency requirements for business owners, banned out-of-state investment and run background checks on every applicant for a license to sell or grow the plant.
Whether the systems are enough is anyone’s guess.
For now, all the focus is on 2014. This being Colorado, there will be more than a few joints lit up on New Year’s Eve. Pot fans plan to don 1920s-era attire for a “Prohibition Is Over!” party and take turns using concentrated pot inside the “dab bus.”
Williams says he’s done everything he can, including hiring seven additional staffers to handle customers. All he has to do is open the doors.
“Are we ready to go? Yes,” he says. “What’s going to happen? I don’t know.”
Athletes and Pot
Denver -- It was the morning of a 2010 playoff
game, and one of the Nuggets had just smoked some nuggets. As the team
practiced, the player was so high that Rex Chapman, a team executive at
the time, had to pull him aside to get him to focus.
"Across all walks of life and in every profession, people smoke (marijuana). This is no secret, and pro sports are not exempt," said Chapman, who played 12 years in the NBA. "But employers deserve and pay for A-plus employees. There is a time and place for everything. As a member of a team, guys owe it to their teammates to put their best foot forward."
Marijuana use has long been a part of sports' subculture, especially and fittingly in a place nicknamed the Mile High City. It soon may become part of the mainstream. New laws taking effect Wednesday in Colorado allow the retail sale of recreational marijuana.
But as much as society often mirrors changes in sports culture, to most of the ruling bodies of sports, weed remains a four-letter word. Fiercely protective of their image, they don't want athletes openly smoking marijuana, regardless of what Colorado voters might say. There is evidence in recent surveys, however, that society's changing views toward marijuana, specifically widespread acceptance of the medicinal benefits in alleviating pain, are thawing previous hard-line stances.
Winter Olympic athletes, for example, are all but given a free pass for smoking marijuana while out of competition. And the World Anti-Doping Agency this past May increased the threshold for a positive marijuana test tenfold. The NHL, meanwhile, alone among the big four North American professional sports, does not include marijuana among its banned substances.
Nevertheless, advocates for the use of marijuana know they face an uphill challenge making cannabis legal for athletes.
"Across all walks of life and in every profession, people smoke (marijuana). This is no secret, and pro sports are not exempt," said Chapman, who played 12 years in the NBA. "But employers deserve and pay for A-plus employees. There is a time and place for everything. As a member of a team, guys owe it to their teammates to put their best foot forward."
Marijuana use has long been a part of sports' subculture, especially and fittingly in a place nicknamed the Mile High City. It soon may become part of the mainstream. New laws taking effect Wednesday in Colorado allow the retail sale of recreational marijuana.
But as much as society often mirrors changes in sports culture, to most of the ruling bodies of sports, weed remains a four-letter word. Fiercely protective of their image, they don't want athletes openly smoking marijuana, regardless of what Colorado voters might say. There is evidence in recent surveys, however, that society's changing views toward marijuana, specifically widespread acceptance of the medicinal benefits in alleviating pain, are thawing previous hard-line stances.
Winter Olympic athletes, for example, are all but given a free pass for smoking marijuana while out of competition. And the World Anti-Doping Agency this past May increased the threshold for a positive marijuana test tenfold. The NHL, meanwhile, alone among the big four North American professional sports, does not include marijuana among its banned substances.
Nevertheless, advocates for the use of marijuana know they face an uphill challenge making cannabis legal for athletes.
Denver Police Won't Actively Seek Pot-Smokers
Denver -- Extra Denver police officers will be on
hand to protect patrons of newly legalized recreational pot shops on
Wednesday, but they won't be actively looking to arrest them if they
light up in public."I am not going to
have a team of officers specifically going out looking for people
smoking marijuana," Police Chief Robert White said. "If we get
complaints or run into it, we're certainly going to investigate it. We
have to balance our resources as it relates to addressing these issues."
Here we go!!!!
“We have about five recreational orders to prepare right now, but
each order is about 10 times the size of our typical medical marijuana
orders,” said O’Rourke.
Love’s Oven is one of a handful of cannabis bakeries that got their recreational license Friday with retail pot business owners.
“We will be very busy,” said O’Rourke.
However, there are guidelines.
“All recreational products have to be 100 milligrams or less. As to medical marijuana, we sell 4,000 milligram cups of butter,” said O’Rourke.
O’Rourke says their ingredients also must be divided between recreational and medical.
Packaging will change too and be plain, simple, and not easy for kids to open.
The pastry chef, Hope, was busy on Saturday decorating tiny chocolate treats for recreational users.
“There are other items on our recreational menu that are not available for medical,” Hope said. “More things that are for the one time tries or first time users like caramel, and we also do funny things like misfortune cookies.”
O’Rourke feels fortunate to be part of something bigger than her baked goods.
“It is a part of history, and I’m sure other states will be following suit after awhile,” O’Rourke said, “This is the beginning of all of it.”
The owner of Love’s Oven said retail shops will be selling their baked goods for recreational use only to people who are 21 or older.
Love’s Oven is one of a handful of cannabis bakeries that got their recreational license Friday with retail pot business owners.
“We will be very busy,” said O’Rourke.
However, there are guidelines.
“All recreational products have to be 100 milligrams or less. As to medical marijuana, we sell 4,000 milligram cups of butter,” said O’Rourke.
O’Rourke says their ingredients also must be divided between recreational and medical.
Packaging will change too and be plain, simple, and not easy for kids to open.
The pastry chef, Hope, was busy on Saturday decorating tiny chocolate treats for recreational users.
“There are other items on our recreational menu that are not available for medical,” Hope said. “More things that are for the one time tries or first time users like caramel, and we also do funny things like misfortune cookies.”
O’Rourke feels fortunate to be part of something bigger than her baked goods.
“It is a part of history, and I’m sure other states will be following suit after awhile,” O’Rourke said, “This is the beginning of all of it.”
The owner of Love’s Oven said retail shops will be selling their baked goods for recreational use only to people who are 21 or older.
Monday, December 30, 2013
It has begun!
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2013/12/28/cannabis-bakery-preparing-for-legal-sale-of-recreational-pot/
Its legalized!
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/12/29/denver-issues-retail-licenses-for-recreational-pot-sales/
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