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Canada becomes second country to legalise cannabis use

Canada becomes second country to legalise cannabis use

June 27, 2018 Mary Jane

Cannabis Act passes, with the legislation expected to take effect in a few months

Canada is to become the second country in the world to fully legalise marijuana, after the senate approved legislation paving the way for recreational cannabis to be legally bought and sold within the next two or three months.

Weve just witnessed a very historic vote that ends 90 years of prohibition, senator Tony Dean told reporters on Tuesday after the vote to pass the Cannabis Act.

It ends 90 years of needless criminalisation, it ends a prohibition model that inhibited and discouraged public health and community health in favour of just-say-no approaches that simply failed young people miserably.

The federal government has said it would give provinces and territories which are responsible for deciding how recreational cannabis will be distributed and sold eight to 12 weeks after the legislation is passed to get ready for sales, but the exact date that sales begin will be set by the federal government.

Justin Trudeaus Liberal government introduced the legislation last year in a bid to make Canada the second country in the world to legalise cannabis, after Uruguay. Medical marijuana is already legal in Canada.

On Tuesday, the prime minister welcomed the legislation being passed. Its been too easy for our kids to get marijuana – and for criminals to reap the profits, he wrote on Twitter. Today, we change that.

Initially, the government planned to begin retail sales by 1 July, but the timeline was delayed as the senate debated the legislation. Canadas upper chamber voted 52 to 29 on Tuesday to make marijuana fully legal in the country.

Some Conservative MPs and senators voiced their disappointment as the bill passed on Tuesday. Sad day for Canadas kids, senator Linda Frum wrote on Twitter.

Conservative senator Leo Housakos said: When you normalise the use of marijuana and youre a young person and you had certain reservations because of the simple fact that it was illegal, theres, I believe, a propensity to have somebody be more inclined to use it.

Once legalisation goes into effect, Canadians will be able grow up to four plants in their own home and carry up to 30 grams of dried cannabis for personal use. Those caught with more than this amount, or who supply marijuana to minors will face penalties.

Sales of cannabis which analysts estimate could eventually be worth somewhere between C$5bn and C$7bn annually will vary widely across the country. In Alberta, recreational cannabis will be available at more than 200 private retailers while in New Brunswick, the provincial government will operate a chain of stores called Cannabis NB.

The minimum age of consumption will fluctuate between 18 or 19 years depending on the province.

On Tuesday, supporters of the legislation stressed the cautious, prudent approach to the landmark change. What the governments approach has been is, yes, legalisation but also strict control, said Peter Harder, the governments representative in the Senate. That does not in any way suggest that its now party time.

The historic vote comes with its own set of challenges for the government; it has promised it will now explore the idea of clearing the criminal records of the hundreds of thousands of Canadians with past convictions for simple possession and will have to address the concerns of some Indigenous leaders who said they werent adequately consulted on the legislation.

Canadas softer approach to cannabis could also exacerbate the countrys already turbulent relationship with Donald Trumps administration. While nine US states and the District of Columbia have legalised recreational marijuana, the White House has previously suggested that the Department of Justice will do more to enforce federal laws prohibiting recreational marijuana, raising concerns over how Canadas approach will coexist with a potential US crackdown.

Nearly 400,000 people a day cross the border between Canada and the US. Since 2016, Canada has been pushing the US to change a policy that bans Canadians who admit to having used marijuana from travelling to the United States.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

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Canada closer to legalising marijuana after senate vote in favour

Canada closer to legalising marijuana after senate vote in favour

June 13, 2018 Mary Jane

The countrys upper chamber votes for legislation aimed at ending more than 90 years of prohibition, but with dozens of amendments

Canadas senate has voted to legalise recreational marijuana, clearing a major hurdle as the country moves towards becoming the first in the G7 to fully legalise the drug.

The countrys upper chamber voted 56-30 on Thursday in favour of legislation aimed at ending more than 90 years of prohibition. The senate, however, added nearly four dozen amendments, meaning the legislation will now return to the House of Commons for consideration.

The federal Liberal government, led by Justin Trudeau, introduced the legislation last year in a bid to make Canada the second country in the world to legalise the cannabis, after Uruguay. Medical marijuana is already legal in Canada.

The legislation divided the responsibilities between the federal and provincial governments, with Ottawa responsible for regulating production while leaving it to provinces and territories to decide how the drug will be distributed and sold.

Once passed and implemented, those who want to grow their own marijuana will be limited to four plants per household. Canadians will be allowed to carry up to 30 grams of dried cannabis for personal use while those who sell or give marijuana to minors or who drive under its influence will face stiff penalties.

Since becoming the Liberal leader in 2013, Trudeau has argued that the decriminalisation and regulation of marijuana would help keep the drug away from children and ensure profits dont end up in the hands of what he described as criminal elements.

While the sale of recreational marijuana is not expected to begin until August or September, the senate vote was one of the major obstacles standing in the way of legalisation as Conservatives senators sought to block the initiative.

The many amendments added by the senate and which will now be considered by MPs reflect some of this opposition, such as tighter restrictions on advertising by cannabis companies and allowing provinces to prohibit home cultivation.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

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I served 20 years for cannabis. Now the police are cashing in on it | Rosie Rowbotham

I served 20 years for cannabis. Now the police are cashing in on it | Rosie Rowbotham

June 13, 2018 Mary Jane

The same authorities who hounded dealers are now investors in cannabis and theres still no amnesty for past convictions. The hypocrisy is staggering, says Rosie Rowbotham, a former producer at CBC Radio

Over the course of my life, I have been convicted in four separate trials, sentenced to a total of 69 years in prison, and after many appeals served just over 20 of them the first two in maximum security. I was finally released on parole in 1997.

Given the length of time I was incarcerated, you might be thinking that I was involved in hard drugs or violence. After all, some murderers do less time than I did.

But my crime? Conspiracy to import, possess and sell cannabis.

I brought in tons of hash from the Middle East and tons of pot from Jamaica, Mexico and Colombia. Torontos infamous Rochdale College was my home base. After my first trial, I told the judge: Im going to do it again and I did but I can assure you I never got involved with any harder drugs, let alone anything violent. I was strictly a pot guy: a hippy capitalist from Belleville, Ontario, who wanted as big a piece of the North American market as he could get.

In jail, I saw myself as a prisoner of the war on drugs one of the thousands of others who lost part of their future in the long, cruel and ultimately futile attempt to stop people from buying, selling and smoking weed.

Norman Mailer testified on my behalf at my first trial, Neil Young at my second. Young told the court that he took exception to the prevailing stereotype of deadbeat pot smokers who could never make a positive contribution to society, pointing out that he was a prodigious toker and yet he still likely paid more taxes than everyone else in the court room combined.

Now a new day is dawning in Canada or so it seems. Possession of pot for recreational use is about to be legalized. Canadians will be able to possess up to 30 grams, buy it, share it, put it into edibles and grow a few plants.

To be honest, Ive never considered myself to be a marijuana activist. I wasnt a campaigner for legalization: I was making big money, and legalization would have been bad for my business.

I also dont trust or respect politicians, especially when it comes to pot. In 1969, the prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, set up the LeDain Commission to study the pot scene in Canada. After hearing from thousands of Canadians, the report recommended cannabis possession be legalized. I was 18 at the time, a pot smoker and hopeful. Nothing happened.

Fifty years later, however, the war on pot is finally over, and my side has won. So why am I not celebrating?

Lets start with the movement to grant amnesty to people with past cannabis convictions. Im glad that the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has said he plans to move forward in a thoughtful way on fixing past wrongs that happened because of this erroneous law.

If the law is so erroneous, however, why is his government continuing to bust people for possession? In 2016, more than 17,000 Canadians were charged with a law that will soon disappear. Offering them amnesty would be a nice gesture, but the damage will have already been done. Why charge them in the first place?

A
A simple amnesty from the Canadian government is not enough. Photograph: Simon Webster/Rex Shutterstock

And how would amnesty work? After legalization in their states, several US cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and San Diego, moved to expunge all records of felony convictions for cannabis possession. Will Canada do the same? If not, amnesty will be a hollow gesture. Even then, Canadians with pot convictions may still not be allowed to travel to the US because American authorities have their conviction records on file.

Im also bothered by the fact that the governments current plan is to bar people with pot convictions from participating in the huge marijuana economy that is now emerging. We have the expertise. We know how to grow high-quality plants. We have the distribution networks. The governments policy is unfair, punitive and discriminatory: if it really believed in amnesty, it would let people with non-violent records for possession lead the way.

Instead, the government has turned the pot economy over to the people who lost the drug war: the cops and politicians who were responsible for destroying so many lives by turning pot smokers into criminals. Theyve been given the keys to the vault. Theyll be profiting from the same activities they used to prosecute. The hypocrisy is staggering.

Look at Julian Fantino, the former chief of the Toronto police service. In 2015, then a Conservative MP, Fantino declared his complete opposition to legalization, likening the decriminalization of marijuana to legalizing murder.

Fantino
Fantino receives a salute from Officer Pat Troll, a mascot from a series shown to Catholic schoolchildren. Photograph: Tony Bock/Toronto Star via Getty Images

Today, hes on the board of directors of Aleafia, a company that connects patients to medical marijuana. When asked about his change of heart on pot, Fantino replied that he had embarked on a fact-finding mission and discovered that marijuana was not the demon drug he once thought it was. Perhaps he should have done some fact-finding before he started tossing people in jail.

Also on the Aleafia board is Gary Goodyear, who held several cabinet positions in Stephen Harpers government the same government that proposed mandatory minimum sentences for anyone convicted of growing at least six marijuana plants. So is Raf Souccar, a former deputy commissioner of the RCMP whose portfolio included drug and organized crime enforcement. Former deputy Toronto police chief Kim Derry and ex-Ontario premier Ernie Eves are also members of the old law-and-order crowd who have rushed to cash in on the legalization of marijuana.

On its website, Aleafia describes Fantino as a leading expert on drug enforcement. Theyve got that right. Ive never had the pleasure of meeting the man, but shortly after joining the Toronto police department in 1969 he became a member of the drug squad, one of the hundreds of Toronto cops who pursued me relentlessly throughout the 1970s. Now he gets to cash in on the legalization of marijuana, while people with criminal records for something that is soon to become legal languish on the sidelines or, in many cases, still in jail. If Im a criminal, what word would you use to describe Fantino and all the other ex-cops and politicians who are now looking to get rich by switching to the other side?

A simple amnesty is not enough. It should include an apology for ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of people for no legitimate reason. They should be asking us to forgive them. I sentence them to have to live with themselves for the rest of their lives.

  • Rosie Rowbotham is a former producer at CBC Radio

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

Mary JaneI served 20 years for cannabis. Now the police are cashing in on it | Rosie Rowbotham
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All eyes on Canada as first G7 nation prepares to make marijuana legal

All eyes on Canada as first G7 nation prepares to make marijuana legal

June 10, 2018 Mary Jane

From crime to health to business, Canadas decision to legalize marijuana is a grand progressive experiment that promises to answer a host of questions

When Canopy Growth opened its first cannabis factory in an old chocolate plant near Ottawa four years ago, it did so predicting a bright future. Canada had already legalized medical marijuana, and Canopy predicted full legalization for recreational use to be next.

What the company hadnt predicted, however, was the sudden flood of foreign visitors. Politicians and police authorities from Jamaica, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Greece and Australia have all come knocking, as well as doctors from New Zealand, Brazil and Chile, along with groups of corporate investors and bankers so many that Canopy now sometimes splits up the groups according to their birthdays.

We knew wed have to give a lot of tours, so we just cut a window into the wall, said the company spokesman, Jordan Sinclair. We put windows in all of the doors.

Canada will be thrust even more directly under the international microscope on Thursday, when a vote in the Senate is expected to ratify Bill C-45, effectively making Canada the first G20 nation to legalize recreational marijuana.

Its going to be a bit of a science fiction experience for a while, said Benedikt Fischer, an expert on substance use at Torontos biggest psychiatric hospital. Its unique in the world, because its happening for the first time in a wealthy country. Its not like in the US, where there are these state experiments. Most people kind of ignore Uruguay. And so the world is really looking at this.

Governments, researchers and business leaders around the world all have their own reasons for keeping tabs. Legalization could affect Canadas crime patterns, health and countless other factors but exactly how, no one yet knows.

Each Canadian province plans to roll out its newly legalized market in a slightly different way, creating about a dozen mini-laboratories within one massive test case.

Even places that have already taken the legalization plunge are hoping Canada will solve some mysteries. After Colorado legalized marijuana five years ago, for example, organized crime reacted by ramping up supplies of black tar heroin, opiates and harder drugs, said Dr Larry Wolk, the states top public health official.

But Wolk says he is interested to watch that process unfold on a bigger scale in Canada, where the new law is expected to deal a much more significant blow to the black market. Any new mix of illicit drugs in the country could have new effects on public health.

Whats the impact of marijuana legalization on the opioid crisis? he asked as an example. Does it actually act as a substitute so that people can get off opiates for chronic pain? Is there a positive impact? Or is it a negative impact, because as a result theres more opiates in the black market? Is [pot] a gateway? We dont really have an answer.

One delicate balance for Canadian authorities has been guessing at what kind of pricing will be low enough to eradicate illicit sales yet not so low as to entice new users. Canadas finance minister, Bill Morneau, recently said the goal is keeping cannabis out of the hands of kids and out of the black market. That means keeping the taxes low so we can actually get rid of the criminals in the system.

One sign of success will be if Canada not only discourages underground sales, but converts illicit sellers to the new system, said Tim Boekhout van Solinge, a Dutch criminologist.

What I am mainly following is who will be the new legal growers, and whether authorities manage to get some of the illegal growers to become legal growers, he said.

Legal
Legal marijuana for sale at a shop in Salem, Oregon. Photograph: Andrew Selsky/AP

Each country around the world that has debated whether to relax cannabis laws has had its own priority in mind: from generating revenue to discouraging drug cartels. In Canada, the emphasis has been largely on public health. Cannabis will be sold in fairly plain packaging, and usually through government-run boards that already control liquor sales.

It wont be like buying Budweiser or branded alcoholic products, said Steve Rolles of Transform, a UK drug policy thinktank. Its going to be more like buying pharmaceuticals from a chemist.

Still, its hard to know whether Canada, or any similar western country, will be able to stick to that public-health focus, he said.

We have concerns that the lessons from alcohol and tobacco wouldnt be learned, and we might see overcommercialized markets in which profit-making entities would seek to encourage more use and could encourage risky consumption behaviours, he said.

So far, Canada has allowed a few major players to dominate the industry, and their influence remains to be seen, said US marijuana industry expert Mark Kleiman.

You dont want to build up big vested interests that then resist any change, he said. If you have commercial industry in cannabis, theyre going to end up writing the laws.

For epidemiologists, Canada will provide the best-ever data sets on cannabis use.

Colorados health results have been encouraging, said Wolk. But overall, researchers lack solid data about cannabis use. Some key questions include addiction levels, how cannabis affects mental health, and effects on young people, said Israeli scientist Raphael Mechoulam, often called the grandfather of cannabis research.

About 10% of the users may be addicted less than alcohol or tobacco, he said. Some users, who are already prone to schizophrenia, may get the disease earlier. He said he is also keeping an eye on whether heavy use by young people may affect their central nervous system.

Another current Canadian health debate is how many people will be light, casual cannabis users, and how many will be heavy users.

The government still must decide how to approach products that are very potent in THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis, said Mark Ware, a drug researcher and pain specialist who helped lead Canadas federal taskforce advising the new legislation. Black-market sellers have produced increasingly strong concentrates, he said.

Those have not been the subject of studies up until recently, so the question of whether to regulate those, allow them in whatever context, and then be able to study their impacts on health, that would be very important, he said. But once theyre out there, its very hard to put them back in the box again.

Canadian police, meanwhile, will grapple with how to crack down on cannabis-impaired driving. Thats already a struggle around the world, regardless of marijuanas legality, said Rolles. But its much more difficult to measure impairment from cannabis than from alcohol, and enforcing a legal limit will prove tricky.

Meanwhile, many investors have already made huge profits from cannabis stocks, and a big question for them is whether the bubble bursts or the value keeps rising.

Theyre waiting to see if the skys going to fall, said Sinclair of Canopy. One of about 100 Canadian legal producers of medical cannabis, the company owns a third of the medical market, began trading on the Toronto stock exchange in 2016 and last month became the only cannabis producer on the New York stock exchange.

[Investors] are waiting to see if all the stigma and all the demonization of this product thats built up in 90 years of prohibition is true, Sinclair said. Its on us to demonstrate that its not.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

Mary JaneAll eyes on Canada as first G7 nation prepares to make marijuana legal
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What is CBD? The ‘miracle’ cannabis compound that doesn’t get you high

What is CBD? The ‘miracle’ cannabis compound that doesn’t get you high

May 29, 2018 Mary Jane

The cannabis-derived chemical is non-psychoactive, and while federally illegal has been hailed as a cure for disease

In early May, a federal court declined to protect cannabidiol (CBD), a chemical produced by the cannabis plant, from federal law enforcement, despite widespread belief in its medical value.

The ruling was contrary to existing evidence, which suggests the chemical is safe and could have multiple important uses as medicine. Many cannabis advocates consider it a miracle medicine, capable of relieving conditions as disparate as depression, arthritis and diabetes.

The perception of its widespread medical benefits have made the chemical a rallying cry for legalization advocates.

The first thing to know about CBD is that it is not psychoactive; it doesnt get people high. The primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). But THC is only one of the scores of chemicals known as cannabinoids produced by the cannabis plant.

So far, CBD is the most promising compound from both a marketing and a medical perspective. Many users believe it helps them relax, despite it not being psychoactive, and some believe regular doses help stave off Alzheimers and heart disease.

While studies have shown CBD to have anti-inflammatory, anti-pain and anti-psychotic properties, it has seen only minimal testing in human clinical trials, where scientists determine what a drug does, how much patients should take, its side effects and so on.

Despite the government ruling, CBD is widely available over the counter in dispensaries in states where marijuana is legal.

CBD first came to public attention in a 2013 CNN documentary called Weed. The piece, reported by Dr Sanjay Gupta, featured a little girl in Colorado named Charlotte, who had a rare life-threatening form of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome.

At age five, Charlotte suffered 300 grand mal seizures a week, and was constantly on the brink of a medical emergency. Through online research, Charlottes desperate parents heard of treating Dravet with CBD. It was controversial to pursue medical marijuana for such a young patient, but when they gave Charlotte oil extracted from high-CBD cannabis, her seizures stopped almost completely. In honor of her progress, high-CBD cannabis is sometimes known as Charlottes Web.

CBD
CBD has been sought for its healing properties. Illustration: George Wylesol

After Charlottes story got out, hundreds of families relocated to Colorado where they could procure CBD for their children, though not all experienced such life-changing results. Instead of moving, other families obtained CBD oil through the illegal distribution networks.

In late June, the US Food and Drug Administration could approve the Epidiolex, a pharmaceuticalized form of CBD for several severe pediatric seizure disorders. According to data recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the drug can reduce seizures by more than 40%. If Epidiolex wins approval it would be the first time the agency approves a drug derived from the marijuana plant. (The FDA has approved synthetic THC to treat chemotherapy-related nausea.)

Epidiolex was developed by the London-based GW Pharmaceuticals, which grows cannabis on tightly controlled farms in the UK. It embarked on the Epidiolex project in 2013, as anecdotes of CBDs value as an epilepsy drug began emerging from the US.

While parents treating their children with CBD had to proceed based on trial and error, like a folk medicine, they also had to wonder whether dispensary purchased CBD was professionally manufactured and contained what the package said it did. GW brought a scientific understanding and pharmaceutical grade manufacturing to this promising compound.

Fortunately, like THC, CBD appears to be well tolerated; as far as I can tell, there are no recorded incidents of fatal CBD overdoses.

Since Weed first aired, GWs stock has climbed 1,500%.

GWs first drug Sativex, which contains both CBD and THC, is available as a treatment for MS-related spasticity in Canada, Australia, and much of Europe and Latin America. The company is also studying cannabinoid-based drugs as a treatment for autism spectrum disorders, an aggressive brain tumor called glioblastoma, and schizophrenia.

Other industries, not subject to the strict regulations governing pharmaceuticals are eager to develop their own CBD products, everything from joints and vape pens to skin creams and edibles which may or may not have valid medical use.

In Los Angeles, its among the latest wellness fads. It can be found in cocktails, and an upscale juice shop will even add a few drops of CBD infused olive oil to a beverage for $3.50.

  • High time is the Guardians column about how cannabis legalization is changing modern life. Alex Halperin welcomes your thoughts, questions and concerns and will protect your anonymity. Get in touch:high.time@theguardian.com

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

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Joint effort: cannabis lobby heads to Washington to woo US lawmakers

Joint effort: cannabis lobby heads to Washington to woo US lawmakers

May 26, 2018 Mary Jane

Industry leaders descended on the capital this week amid hopes the country at large is slowly embracing legalization

More than 200 cannabis industry leaders descended upon Washington this week in the hopes of persuading the US Congress to embrace the growing movement for marijuana legalization.

The marijuana business owners and advocates bustled between the hallways of the House and Senate, meeting with hundreds of congressional offices and rallying on the Capitol lawn over a three-day lobbying tour organized by the National Cannabis Industry Association.

The event, which brought members representing 23 states and the District of Columbia, was not the first of its kind. But the advocates hailed a new front in the battle for federal marijuana reform against the backdrop of a rapid evolution on how the issue is perceived in the nations capital.

Theres an air of legitimacy around our group that makes me hopeful that the stigma is going to fall away, said Blake Mensing, a cannabis attorney from Massachusetts who helps clients obtain local permits and state licenses for adult use cannabis businesses.

With public opinion polls showing record support among Americans for marijuana legalization, its little surprise that the high has spread to Congress.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have taken a flurry of actions in recent months that signal the shifting tides.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, fast-tracked a bill in April that would legalize industrial hemp. The historical ban on hemp, which is derived from the cannabis plant, has long imposed barriers on the agriculture industry.

McConnell found an ally in his daily sparring partner Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, who announced his support for the proposal this month.

The marijuana industrys efforts include pushing for legislation that would grant legal marijuana businesses access to financial services, among other measures to prevent the federal government from prosecuting businesses that are in compliance with state laws.

The states have already proven that replacing the criminal marijuana markets with tightly regulated and transparent small businesses is working, said Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA). Now the responsibility falls on Congress to reform federal laws so that the legal cannabis industry can be treated fairly, like any other legitimate business sector.

The
The National Cannabis Industry Association points to economic benefits for states which tax and regulate marijuana. Photograph: Mark Leffingwell/Reuters

To further its case, the NCIA released a report highlighting economic benefits in the five states Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington that taxed and regulated the commercial production and sale of marijuana in 2017.

Those states collected more than $790m in state tax revenue that year, the report found, with tax revenue reaching $247m in Colorado alone. The analysis also cited a 445% increase in the number of marijuana industry job postings in 2017, according to the job placement firm ZipRecruiter, compared with an increase of 18% the year before.

Even longtime foes of marijuana legalization efforts have joined the bandwagon.

Last month the former House speaker John Boehner sent shockwaves through Washington by joining the board of Acreage Holdings, a firm that cultivates, processes and dispenses marijuana in 11 US states. The move marked a stunning reversal for the Ohio Republican, who once said he was unalterably opposed to decriminalizing marijuana.

In a statement provided to the Guardian, Boehner said there were a number of issues that had prompted the change. My thinking, like that of millions of other Americans, has evolved as Ive learned more about the issue, he said, pointing to the use of medical marijuana to treat patients of opioid addiction and the countrys veterans.

Descheduling the drug, Boehner added, will reduce the conflict between federal policy and state programs.

Even Donald Trumps administration has shown signs of easing its proposed crackdown on states that have legalized marijuana.

The US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, rescinded an Obama-era policy of non-interference with marijuana-friendly state laws, raising alarms of a forthcoming federal crackdown.

The move prompted Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican from Colorado, to block all of Trumps nominees to the justice department in a bid to compel the administration to reverse course. Last month, the president agreed his administration would not target the marijuana industry in Gardners home state, ending a three-month standoff.

Sessions even acknowledged the potential for some benefits from medical marijuana in a recent Senate hearing.

Charles Smith, a New York attorney and cannabis regulatory and compliance consultant, said the Trump administration had largely maintained the status quo on the drug.

The rescinding of the [Obama-era] guidance did cause a chilling effect, he added. There were deals lost, there were investors that backed out.

But we havent seen it on the ground where theyre carrying out enforcement actions, despite what the attorney general has said.

Some critics nonetheless view the evolution of Boehner and other former proponents of so-called tough-on-crime policies as cashing in on what is now a burgeoning industry.

Shanita Penny, president of the board of directors at the Minority Cannabis Business Association, said: Its not enough to just participate in this industry from a stance of wanting to make money.

Penny reiterated a similar message to lawmakers this week as she implored action on criminal justice reform.

Pennys group is focused on removing barriers that prohibit those with previous marijuana convictions from participating in the industry as a patient, employee or operator. Among the most pressing issues, from their vantage point, is reinvesting in the communities that have been disproportionately affected by the mandatory sentencing laws of years past.

You have to be willing to look at the harm that was done to communities that were over-policed, that were over-sentenced, that was destroyed because of the war on drugs and be ready to do some of the work to heal, Penny said.

We need the industry to start thinking about social responsibility and not let this be something that we address in hindsight.

  • This article was amended on 24 May 2018 to correct Shanita Pennys name and to remove a reference to pins marijuana business owners and advocates wore.



Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

Mary JaneJoint effort: cannabis lobby heads to Washington to woo US lawmakers
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How do you move mountains of unwanted weed?

How do you move mountains of unwanted weed?

May 13, 2018 Mary Jane

Oregon farmers have grown three times what their customers can smoke in a year, causing bud prices to plummet and panic to set in

A recent Sunday afternoon at the Bridge City Collective cannabis shop in north Portland saw a steady flow of customers.

Little wonder: a gram of weed was selling for less than the price of a glass of wine.

The $4 and $5 grams enticed Scotty Saunders, a 24-year-old sporting a gray hoodie, to spend $88 picking out new products to try with a friend. Weve definitely seen a huge drop in prices, he says.

tk

Across the wood and glass counter, Bridge City owner David Alport was less delighted. He says hes never sold marijuana this cheap before.

We have standard grams on the shelf at $4, Alport says. Before, we didnt see a gram below $8.

The scene at Bridge City Collective is playing out across the city and state. Three years into Oregons era of recreational cannabis, the state is inundated with legal weed.

It turns out Oregonians are good at growing cannabis too good.

In February, state officials announced that 1.1m pounds of cannabis flower were logged in the states database.

If a million pounds sounds like a lot of pot, thats because it is: last year, Oregonians smoked, vaped or otherwise consumed just under 340,000lb of legal bud.

That means Oregon farmers have grown three times what their clientele can smoke in a year.

Yet state documents show the number of Oregon weed farmers is poised to double this summer without much regard to whether theres demand to fill.

The result? Prices are dropping to unprecedented lows in auction houses and on dispensary counters across the state.

Wholesale sun-grown weed fell from $1,500 a pound last summer to as low as $700 by mid-October. On store shelves, that means the price of sun-grown flower has been sliced in half to those four-buck grams.

For Oregon customers, this is a bonanza. A gram of the beloved Girl Scout Cookies strain now sells for little more than two boxes of actual Girl Scout cookies.

But it has left growers and sellers with a high-cost product thats a financial loser. And a new feeling has descended on the once-confident Oregon cannabis industry: panic.

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The business has been up and down and up and down, says Don Morse, who closed his Human Collective II dispensary in south-west Portland four months ago. But in a lot of ways it has just been down and down for dispensaries.

This month, WW spoke to two dozen people across Oregons cannabis industry. They describe a bleak scene: small businesses laying off employees and shrinking operations. Farms shuttering. People losing their lifes savings are unable to declare bankruptcy because marijuana is still a federally scheduled narcotic.

To be sure, every new market creates winners and losers. But the glut of legal weed places Oregons young industry in a precarious position, and could swiftly reshape it.

Oregons wineries, breweries and distilleries have experienced some of the same kind of shakeout over time. But the timetable is faster with pot: for many businesses, its boom to bust within months.

Mom-and-pop farms are accepting lowball offers to sell to out-of-state investors, and what was once a diverse and local market is increasingly owned by a few big players. And frantic growers face an even greater temptation to illegally leak excess grass across state lines and into the crosshairs of US attorney general Jeff Sessions justice department.

If somebody has got thousands of pounds that they cant sell, they are desperate, says Myron Chadowitz, who owns the Eugene farm Cannassentials. Desperate people do desperate things.

In March, Robin Cordell posted a distress signal on Instagram.

The prices are so low, she wrote, and without hustling all day, hoping to find the odd shop with an empty jar, it doesnt seem to move at any price.

Cordell has a rare level of visibility for a cannabis grower. Her Oregon City farm, Oregon Girl Gardens, received glowing profiles from Dope Magazine and Oregon Leaf. She has 12 years of experience in the medical marijuana system, a plot of family land in Clackamas county, and branding as one of the states leaders in organic and women-led cannabis horticulture.

She fears shell be out of business by the end of the year.

The prices just never went back up, she says.

The
The prices just never went back up.

Cordell ran headlong into Oregons catastrophically bountiful cannabis crop.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) handed out dozens of licenses to new farmers who planted their first crop last spring. Mild weather blessed the summer of 2017 and stretched generously into the fall. And growers going into their second summer season planted extra seeds to make up for flower lost to a 2016 storm, the last vestige of a brutal typhoon blown across the Pacific from Asia.

That storm naturally constrained the supply even though there were a lot of cultivators, says Beau Whitney, senior economist for New Frontier Data, which studies the cannabis industry.

It kept supply low and prices high in 2017 even though the state was handing out licenses at an alarming rate.

It was a hot new market, Whitney says. There werent a whole lot of barriers to entry. The OLCC basically issued a license to anyone who qualified.

Chadowitz blames out-of-state money for flooding the Oregon system. In 2016, state lawmakers decided to lift a restriction that barred out-of-state investors from owning controlling shares of local farms and dispensaries.

It was a controversial choice one that many longtime growers still resent.

The root of the entire thing was allowance of outside money into Oregon, Chadowitz says. Anyone could get the money they needed. Unlimited money and unlimited licenses, youre going to get unlimited flower and crash the market.

As of 1 April, Oregon had licensed 963 recreational cannabis grows, while another 910 awaited OLCC approval.

That means oversupply is only going to increase as more farms start harvesting bud.

The OLCC has said repeatedly that it has no authority to limit the number of licenses it grants to growers, wholesalers and dispensaries (although by contrast, the number of liquor stores in Oregon is strictly limited).

Since voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2014, many industry veterans from the medical marijuana years have chafed at the entrance of new money, warning it would destroy a carefully crafted farm ecosystem.

The same problem has plagued cannabis industries in other states that have legalized recreational weed. In 2016, Colorado saw wholesale prices for recreational flower drop 38%. Washington saw its pot drop in value at the same time Oregon did.

The OLCC remains committed to facilitating a free market for recreational marijuana in which anyone can try their hand at growing or selling.

[The law] has to be explicit that we have that authority to limit or put a cap on licenses, says OLCC spokesman Mark Pettinger. It doesnt say that we could put a cap on licenses. The only thing that we can regulate is canopy size.

The demand for weed in Oregon is robust the state reeled in $68m in cannabis sales taxes last year but it cant keep pace with supply.

A
A cannabis harvest at East Fork Cultivars, Oregon.

Whitney says its not unusual for a new industry to attract speculators and people without much business savvy.

Whenever you have these emerging markets, theres going to be a lot of people entering the market looking for profit, he says. Once it becomes saturated, it becomes more competitive. This is not a phenomenon that is unique to cannabis. There used to be a lot of computer companies, but theres not so many anymore.

Across rolling hills of Oregon farmland and in Portland dispensaries as sleek as designer eyewear shops, the story plays out the same: Business owners cant make the low prices pencil out.

Nick Duyck is a second-generation farmer and owner of 3D Blueberry Farms in Washington county. I was born and raised on blueberries, he says.

But last June, Duyck launched Private Reserve Cannabis, a weed grow designed to create permanent jobs for seasonal workers.

By starting up the cannabis business, says Duyck, it keeps my guys busy on a year-round basis.

He invested $250,000 in the structural build-outs, lighting, environmental controls and other initial costs to achieve a 5,000 sq ft, Tier I, OLCC-approved indoor canopy.

Ongoing labor and operational costs added another $20,000 a month.

Weed prices were high: Duyck forecast a $1,500 return per pound. If Duyck could produce 20lb of flower a week, hed make back his money and start banking profits in just three months.

A
A gram of weed was selling for less than a glass of wine.

Octobers bumper crop tore those plans apart.

We got in at the wrong time, Duyck says. The outdoor harvest flooded the market.

By the start of the new year, Duyck was sitting on 100lb of ready-to-sell flower an inventory trickling out to dispensaries in single-pound increments.

So he turned to a wholesaler, Cannabis Auctions LLC, which holds monthly fire sales in various undisclosed locations throughout Oregon.

Weed auctions operate under a traditional model: sellers submit their wares, and buyers dispensary owners, intake managers and extract manufacturers are given an opportunity to inspect products before bidding on parcels awarded to the highest dollar.

Duyck sent 60lb of pot to the auction block in December. He had adjusted his expectations downward: he hoped to see something in the ballpark of $400 a pound.

It sold for $100 a pound.

The price per pound that it costs us to raise this product is significantly higher than the hundred dollars a pound, says Duyck. (A little light math points to a $250-per-unit production cost.) Currently, were operating at a $15,000-per-month loss, Duyck says.

If prices dont improve soon, Duyck says he wont be able to justify renewing his OLCC license for another year.

The dispensaries that are out there, a lot of them have their own farms, so they dont buy a lot of product from small farms like us Duyck says. If you really want to grow the product, you almost have to own the store also.

Middlemen store owners without farms are also suffering. Take Don Morse, who gave up selling weed on New Years Eve.

Morse ran Human Collective II, one of the earliest recreational shops in the city, which first opened as a medical marijuana supplier in 2010. At times, Morse stocked 100 strains in his Multnomah Village location.

A
A cannabis crop. I think if we let it be a painful moment, and not try to cover it up, were going to be better off for it.

Morse lobbied for legal recreational weed and founded the Oregon Cannabis Business Council.

The shift to recreational was costly. With his business partner Sarah Bennett, Morse says he invested more than $100,000 in equipment to meet state regulations.

By last summer, new stores were popping up at a rapid pace. Morses company wasnt vertically integrated, which means it did not grow any of its own pot or run a wholesaler that might have subsidized low sales.

Competition around us was fierce, and the company started losing money, and it wasnt worth it anymore, Morse says. At our peak, we had 20 employees. When we closed, we had six.

Prices went into free fall in October: the average retail price dropped 40%.

Morse couldnt see a way to make the numbers work. Human Collective priced grams as low as $6 to compete with large chains like Nectar and Chalice, but it struggled to turn a profit.

When youre the little guy buying the product from wholesalers, you cant afford to compete, he says. Theres only so far you can lower the price. Theres too much of everything and too many people in the industry.

So Morse closed his shop: We paid our creditors and that was that. That was the end of it.

Despite losing his business, Morse stands behind Oregons light touch when it comes to regulating the industry.

Its just commercialism at its finest, he says. Let the best survive. Thats just the way it goes in capitalism. Thats just the way it goes.

Just as mom-and-pop grocery stores gave way to big chains, people like Morse are losing out to bigger operations.

Chalice Farms has five stores in the Portland area and is opening a sixth in Happy Valley. La Mota has 15 dispensaries. Nectar has 11 storefronts in Oregon, with four more slated to open soon.

Despite the record-low prices in the cannabis industry, these chains are hiring and opening new locations, sometimes after buying failed mom-and-pop shops.

The home page on Nectars website prominently declares: Now buying dispensaries! Please contact us if you are a dispensary owner interested in selling your business.

Nectar representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Mason
Mason Walker, the CEO of East Fork Cultivars.

Because the federal government does not recognize legal marijuana, the industry cannot access traditional banking systems or even federal courts. That means business owners cant declare bankruptcy to dissolve a failed dispensary or farm, leaving them with few options. They can try to liquidate their assets, destroy the product they have on hand and eat the losses.

Or they can sell the business to a company like Nectar, often for a fraction of what theyve invested.

This time last year, it was basically all mom-and-pop shops, says Mason Walker, CEO of Cave Junction cannabis farm East Fork Cultivars. Now there are five or six companies that own 25 or 30%. Stores are selling for pennies on the dollar, and people are losing their life savings in the process.

Deep-pocketed companies can survive the crash and wait for the market to contract again.

What this means is, the market is now in a position where only the large [businesses] or the ones that can produce at the lower cost can survive, Whitney says. A lot of the craft growers, a lot of the small-capacity cultivators, will go out of business.

Oregon faces another consequence of pot businesses closing up shop: leftover weed could end up on the black market.

Already, Oregon has a thriving illegal market shipping to other states.

US attorney for Oregon, Billy Williams, has said he has little interest in cracking down on legal marijuana businesses, but will prosecute those shipping marijuana to other states.

That kind of thing is whats going to shut down our industry, Chadowitz says. Anything we can do to prevent Jeff Sessions from being right, we have to do.

Ask someone in the cannabis industry what to do about Oregons weed surplus, and youre likely to get one of three answers.

The first is to cap the number of licenses awarded by the OLCC. The second is to reduce the canopy size allotted to each license Massachusetts is trying that. And the last, equally common answer is to simply do nothing. Let the market sort itself out.

Up
Up in smoke: opinions vary about what Oregon must do to address its weed surplus.

Farmers, such as Walker of East Fork Cultivars, argue that limiting the number of licensed farms in Oregon would stunt the states ability to compete on the national stage in the years ahead.

Were in this sort of painful moment right now, says Walker, but I think if we let it be a painful moment, and not try to cover it up, were going to be better off for it.

Walker and other growers hope selling across state lines will someday become legal.

Every farmer, wholesaler, dispensary owner and economist WW talked to for this story said that if interstate weed sales became legal, Oregons oversupply problem would go away.

Under the current presidential administration, that might seem a long shot. But legalization is sweeping the country, Donald Trump is signaling a looser approach, and experts say Oregon will benefit when the feds stop fighting.

The thing about Oregon is that it is known for its cannabis, in a similar way to Oregon pinot noir, Whitney says. For those who are able to survive, they are positioned extremely well not only to survive in the Oregon market but also to take advantage of a larger market assuming things open up on a federal level.

Looking for more great work from the Portland, Oregon, alt-weekly paper and website Willamette Week? Here are some suggestions:

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Mary JaneHow do you move mountains of unwanted weed?
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Im a pot evangelist: meet America’s dope queens

Im a pot evangelist: meet America’s dope queens

April 24, 2018 Mary Jane

As more US states legalise marijuana, more women are stepping up to meet the need for weed. Meet the entrepreneurs cutting through the stigma

Like most other American industries, marijuana has traditionally been dominated by men. Overwhelmingly they grew it, they dealt it and they smoked it. Hopes that the legal marijuana industry would be more egalitarian than others have largely deflated. According to a 2017 survey, women hold 27% of executive positions in cannabis, only slightly more than in the country at large. Nevertheless, the plants status as a quasi-legal drug has created an opportunity for women to forge groundbreaking careers.

Cannabis businesses are obsessed with tearing down the stigma that continues to dog the plant. Many of the most ambitious companies want to make inroads with affluent adults and parents who dont use, or no longer use, cannabis; if the prevailing stereotype is that weed is a drug used by low-achieving men, the thinking is that women will be better at getting their husbands and boyfriends to use pot.

Thirty US states have legalized medical marijuana and it is among the countrys fastest-growing industries. Sales rose 33% last year, topping $10bn, even though only a few states, including California, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon, have robust industries, and product cant be transported across state lines. But compared with other lucrative industries, such as tech, it is far more open to people who lack highly specialised education and have lived unconventional lives.

There is immense interest in marijuanas potential as a medicine, but in most cases the evidence is more anecdotal than confirmed by mainstream science. Its far easier for a pot business to enter the more nebulous wellness category. Today, in every dispensary in the US, there are cannabis products packaged like high-end personal care products; and even pharmaceuticals, designed to convince women its OK to try cannabis.

Female entrepreneurs believe legalization will bring immense medical and social benefits. The five women who share their story here all photographed by Pietro Chelli in recent years are a doctor, a mother of a young child with cancer, and three very different entrepreneurs. Each in her own way is cutting through the stigma.

Cheryl Shuman, 57, Beverly Hills Cannabis Club, Los Angeles, California

I first tried cannabis in 1996, after I was sexually assaulted. Doctors had put me on anti-anxietals and antidepressants and they turned me into a zombie. I had got to the point where I didnt want to get out of bed. Eventually, my therapist said to me: Cheryl, with all due respect, you just have to smoke a joint. Only in LA, right? Until then Id been a good girl. Ive still never had a beer, never had a cigarette.

My therapist had his plants in his back yard and kept his stash in mason jars. He rolled a joint. I was impressed he could roll it with only one hand. I took the first puff and almost coughed my lungs up. By the second puff, I said: You know what, this is really great. I felt instantly better.

Instead of taking pills, I would just roll a joint every day. I told my kids, as I didnt want to lie to them. It was an entry to an underground society of professional, smart, dynamic, educated people, who use this for wellness. Who knew?

Today Im a pot evangelist. Ive spoken all over the world Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico. Last year, I was only home in Beverly Hills for 16 days, and those were for events. My business now is basically being a matchmaker, pairing investors with exciting opportunities, ranging from biotech companies to branding, to a music festival. Its like being a real-estate broker I make things happen: What do you need?

Back when I first got involved in cannabis it was largely used by gay men to deal with the nausea and wasting of Aids. Ultimately, cannabis was legalized because of love for them. Many in the cannabis community have also had an experience similar to coming out of the closet the grass closet. Now we can hold our heads up high and lead an authentic life.

Tracy Ryan, 42, CannaKids, Los Angeles, California

Tracy
Tracy Ryan with her daughter Sophie: This wasnt a secret we could keep to ourselves. Photograph: Pietro Chelli/Institute

I got into this four and a half years ago, when my daughter Sophie was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor. She was eight and a half months old. The doctors told us Sophies only chance to survive was a 13-month course of chemotherapy. Confronting this extremely difficult situation, my husband and I began to research ways to save our daughter. We decided that cannabis treatment was something we wanted to do alongside chemotherapy.

Sophie took her first dose of cannabis at nine months. It was on camera for a documentary, Weed the People, which premieres at the SXSW festival in Texas this March. Over the first 13 months, a tumor that wasnt supposed to shrink shrank by 95%. Thanks to the shrinkage, much of Sophies vision has been saved.

My husband and I knew this wasnt a secret we could keep to ourselves. Today, our company CannaKids has provided medical-grade cannabis to more than 2,000 children and adults in California. We dont look like what people imagine stoners to be. We love our kid and take care of her, and people listen to us.

Weve also partnered with Cure Pharmaceutical to fund cannabis and cancer research at the Technion Institute in Israel. We still dont know the right formula of cannabis and chemotherapy to address cancer. But research we support in mice has eliminated one type of pediatric cancer with cannabis alone. We hope to finalize the human tissue phase soon, then advance to human trials.

Since she was first diagnosed, Sophie has had several recurrences of her cancer. She has taken concentrated cannabis oil for four and a half years now. When her doctors at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles put her on an experimental drug that required her to stop additional supplements and medications, they advised that she continue taking cannabis.

She still receives chemotherapy, once every two weeks. She never fully lost her hair, but now has a full head of it. Shes in the 81st percentile for height and weight, and is in kindergarten with healthy kids her age. She has her own business cards and is a networker, like her mother.

Forget about the word weed, forget marijuana: these children are taking medical cannabis. We dont want kids stoned. We want them happy, healthy and ready to go to school.

Kristi Lee Kelly, 40, Marijuana Industry Group, Denver, Colorado

Kristi
Kristi Lee Kelly: When we started, patients rights were not clear. Photograph: Pietro Chelli/Institute

In 2009, I left Maryland and a career in advertising and marketing to join Colorados cannabis industry. I thought it would be a way to participate in something early on that would really make a difference in peoples lives.

Its been so long since then. Someone a long time ago likened cannabis to dog years a year in cannabis is like seven years doing anything else. At first, investment options were extremely limited, and politicians were unwilling to address the issue. Ive had 23 bank accounts closed.

I started as an owner, operator and investor in a vertically integrated group of medical cannabis businesses. This meant we grew the plants, manufactured them into vaping oil and other products and sold them at our dispensaries. Eventually we accomplished what we set out to do, and I sold my shares in the company. I have since turned to helping others actualise their cannabis aspirations.

When we started, patients rights were not clear. Could you have a card, consume cannabis and work? How did a doctors recommendation interact with the other aspects of your life? Now we have thousands of patient stories. The growing body of scientific and state data has demonstrated that this plant isnt causing the harm that some people said it would.

When we look at how this plant has come and gone over centuries, this is a 3,000-year-old journey, not one that is necessarily sensitive from one administration to the next. The long-term contribution this plant can make to humankind has been documented.

In cannabis, Ive worked with aspiring business owners, policymakers and investors. Im also working with a hemp technology company. In the gold rush, some of the most successful people were the ones who sold picks and shovels to prospectors. Part of what Im doing is figuring out what the picks and shovels are.

Colorado is the most mature policy environment in the world. We tend to confront business challenges first; we continue to expand the conversation around cannabis; were looking at the social impact. Last year, the Marijuana Industry Group forged an agreement with the state Department of Transportation and Lyft [a ride-share company] to offer discounted rides to impaired cannabis users. Our goal is to reduce the number of people who are dying as a result of impaired driving, no matter the substance.

Bonni Goldstein, 53, Canna-Centers and Weedmaps, Los Angeles, California

Bonni
Bonni Goldstein: Doctors are finally opening their eyes to the fact that cannabis is safe. Photograph: Pietro Chelli/Institute

My background is in pediatric emergency medicine. Its high-stress work. I was working the night shift at a major Los Angeles hospital and being a mother during the day. Eventually I got burned out and took some time off.

About 10 years ago, a friend asked me about medical marijuana. I wasnt for or against it it just wasnt on my radar. But as I looked into it, it became clear to me that it was valid science.

I watched my friend get a medical marijuana card. She was struggling with the side-effects of chemotherapy; shed take the nausea medicine and throw it back up. But she got a vaporizer and it helped. I dont feel high, I feel better, she said. The cannabis let her participate in her life. She could sit at dinner and talk to her children.

I was really intrigued, and started working part-time in another doctors medical marijuana practice. It was an established office, very nice and professional. The patients were everyday people who have problems. The vast majority had been prescribed prescription drugs for anxiety, depression, insomnia and chronic pain and struggled with the side-effects. They all said the same thing: cannabis was giving them the benefits of the drugs without the side-effects. I now have my own practice in a suburb of Los Angeles.

In August 2013, CNN journalist Dr Sanjay Gupta told the story of Charlotte Figi, a little girl with a severe seizure disorder. Gupta was convinced she had benefited from taking cannabis. It generated a lot of interest. The parents of children with disorders like Charlottes wake up every day knowing their child could have 45 seizures and end up in hospital.

Earlier in my career, I was the chief resident at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles; today, children with intractible epilepsy are a large part of my practice. The goal is seizure freedom for the child: we dont always get that, but the vast majority are seeing seizures reduced by 50% or more.

There is a change under way in the medical community. Doctors who listen to their patients are hearing these people stop asking for Vicodin, sleeping pills, benzodiazepine. I think doctors are finally opening their eyes to the fact that cannabis is safe; in a lot of cases it reduces or eliminates the need for prescription medicine.

Julie Berliner, 31, Sweet Grass Kitchen, Denver, Colorado

Julie
Julie Berliner: Cannabis is the most exciting industry. Photograph: Pietro Chelli/Institute

I graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2009 with a degree in education. It was tough looking for a job in the middle of the recession, but dispensaries were opening up in town. It really was the wild, wild west back then: there were no rules for who could open a shop, or where they could open it.

A friend who had a dispensary tried some chocolate-chip cookies I made and asked if Id be willing to turn them into cannabis cookies for him to sell. When I said OK, he handed me five pounds of weed and said, Here you go.

Id never made cannabis cookies before, but decided to use the traditional method of infusing butter in a crock pot. I started baking fresh cookies and walking them over to the store for packaging. Today, with all the rules, its impossible to sell cannabis cookies the day they were baked, but back then you could.

I also worked at the shop as a receptionist, to better understand the industry. I liked helping people to feel better, or have a great time.

In the summer of 2010, it became necessary to have a license. It cost $1,000; but more significant than the money was that I knew if I went down this road I wouldnt be able to go back. There were no school principals who would be intrigued by my time baking weed cookies.

It also became necessary to create a commercial kitchen. Very few property owners were willing to lease their space to cannabis, and I decided to build a transportable kitchen in a race-car trailer. It still needed a fixed address. When I met with a potential landlord he was an older man with big bushy eyebrows. I could tell it was going to be a hard conversation, but he agreed to rent me space for our cherry red mobile kitchen. He has come to be one of our strongest supporters. We now lease the entire building and use the trailer as a smoking room and an inspiring part of the tour for visitors.

Cannabis is still the most exciting industry, but its starting to slow down. In many ways thats a good thing: were all settling in rather than hanging on.

Alex Halperin writes a fortnightly cannabis column, High Time.

Commenting on this piece? If you would like your comment to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazines letters page in print, please email weekend@theguardian.com, including your name and address (not for publication).

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Mary JaneIm a pot evangelist: meet America’s dope queens
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Dennis Peron, father of medical marijuana in California, dies at 72

Dennis Peron, father of medical marijuana in California, dies at 72

April 3, 2018 Mary Jane

Activist was prominent in San Francisco gay community and co-wrote California Proposition 215, legalizing medical pot

Cannabis

Dennis Peron, father of medical marijuana in California, dies at 72

  • Activist was prominent in San Francisco gay community
  • Peron co-wrote California Proposition 215, legalizing medical pot

Reuters in San Francisco

In

In a 1996 photo Dennis Peron, leader of the campaign for Proposition 215 and founder of the Cannabis Buyers Club, smokes a marijuana cigarette. Photograph: Andy Kuno/AP

Dennis Peron, the activist who fired up the movement to legalize medical marijuana in California, died on Saturday in a San Francisco hospital. He was 72.

Also a prominent figure in San Franciscos gay community, Peron was credited as a pioneer in recognizing the health benefits of pot at the height of the Aids crisis in the 1980s.

A man that changed the world, his brother Jeffrey Peron wrote on Facebook. It is with a heavy heart that I announce the passing of my brother Dennis Peron.

Peron, a friend of the murdered gay rights activist Harvey Milk, helped push through a San Francisco ordinance that allowed the use of medical marijuana.

That was seen as a precursor to the statewide legalization of medical pot in 1996, with the passage of California Proposition 215, which Peron co-wrote. Today, medical marijuana is legal in most US states and Washington DC.

Peron suffered from lung cancer. He lost his partner, Jonathan West, to Aids in 1990.

Born in New York, he was drafted in the late 1960s to serve in Vietnam, where he first encountered cannabis, according to media reports his brother posted on Facebook.

At the height of the US war on drugs in the early 1990s, Peron founded the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, the nations first public marijuana dispensary.

He was arrested several times and was once shot in the leg by a police officer, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Not many people would have had the courage at the time that he took up the mantle, Terrance Alan, a member of the citys Cannabis Commission, told the newspaper.

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Mary JaneDennis Peron, father of medical marijuana in California, dies at 72
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Pot entrepreneur and ex-felon fights for black role in California’s budding industry

Pot entrepreneur and ex-felon fights for black role in California’s budding industry

March 24, 2018 Mary Jane

When his medical cannabis operation was raided in 2008, Virgil Grant wound up in prison. Now hes back in business, and determined to make space for people of color in an industry thats fast being whitewashed

Cannabis

Pot entrepreneur and ex-felon fights for black role in California’s budding industry

When his medical cannabis operation was raided in 2008, Virgil Grant wound up in prison. Now hes back in business, and determined to make space for people of color in an industry thats fast being whitewashed

Rory

and Noah Smith in Los Angeles

Virgil

Virgil Grant, a runner, on the track at his alma mater Lynwood High School. Photograph: Noah Smith for the Guardian

They were two sides of Californias cannabis industry, ambitious operators who prepared for the day this state would become the worlds biggest legal market.

Eaze, a San Francisco-based startup, started delivering medical cannabis in 2014. Venture capital infusions enabled the company to hire dozens of employees, crunch data and refine a mobile app in advance of cannabis turning fully legal this month. It has been dubbed the Uber for weed.

A company photo posted on Twitter shows 47 employees smiling in front of the Golden Gate bridge. Almost all are white.

Official Kat Lady (@maybekatz)

Now that there’s fun weed, remember that while all those people are still incarcerated until they actually petition, this is what the team for the most popular weed delivery startup looks like

And I’m sure they’re decent folks and at least somewhat aware of the issues but damn pic.twitter.com/8FyuCWs0EJ

January 2, 2018

Virgil Grant came up a grittier way in Los Angeles streets. He ran track and studied psychology at university before dropping out to help run his fathers liquor store chain in Compton.

He started selling weed clandestinely, counting rap stars among his clients. I was on the same streets as the killers, the jackers, the police, he said. But, he added, I never saw myself as a drug dealer.

California legalised medical marijuana in 1995, allowing Grant to move out of the shadows.

By 2008 he owned six licensed medical cannabis dispensaries and trademarked his own brand, California Cannabis, for weed and spin-off products such as vapes, tinctures and clothing. Grant a driven personality who does not consume pot or alcohol envisaged rapid expansion, franchises and celebrity endorsements once California legalised marijuana for recreational use.

Then it all fell apart. Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided his home and businesses in 2008 and indicted him on multiple counts of drug conspiracy, money laundering and operating drug-related premises within 1,000 feet of a school. His dispensaries were shut and in 2010 he was sentenced to six years in prison.

Grant considers his conviction a racial injustice. I was black and owned six locations. I was heavily targeted in the war on drugs.

Whatever the truth about his individual case, there is no doubt law enforcement disproportionately targeted African Americans. They comprise about a 10th of LAs population but from 2000 to 2017 accounted for 40% of cannabis arrests.

Grant emerged from prison in 2014, his budding empire extinguished. The Compton entrepreneur was a broke, convicted felon. The only job he could get was unloading crates with undocumented workers for $9 an hour. Eaze, meanwhile, marked 2015 with $10m in funding, juicing its expansion across California.

I cant let them beat me

That could have been the end of the story: a white-owned, well-funded company rides the legalisation wave while the African American felon is sidelined, a pattern repeated across California.

Grant, 50, however, has not quit. He has clawed his way back into the industry and fully intends to become a cannabis mogul. With his smart shirt and tie and Mercedes, he looks the part.

Ive been in this industry 30 years. I understood what the future looked like a long time ago. I cant let corporations in suits and ties step in and just take it. I cant let them beat me or out-think me. That aint gonna happen.

That may sound like bluster but the fast-talking former athlete, who still runs track, is picking up speed in his attempt to once again own Compton.

Virgil
Virgil Grant with a bag of his California Cannabis. Photograph: Noah Smith for the Guardian

In 2016, through force of personality and networking, he co-founded the California Minority Alliance, a non-profit promoting inclusion in the cannabis industry, and the Southern California Coalition, a not-for-profit which imposed some order and cohesion on the industrys unruly stakeholders, from cultivators to retailers.

He became a regular visitor to LA city hall and the state capitol in Sacramento, buttonholing city councillors, state lawmakers, police, non-profits and regulators to help craft an enforcement scheme for medical and recreational pot.

The system put in place allows convicted felons to be part of the industry a sensible policy to let them work and pay taxes in a sector they helped create, said Grant.

The father of five has rebooted his brand, California Cannabis; launched a website; found a new supplier; and opened three dispensaries for medical pot to form the nucleus of an envisaged retail chain for recreational users, including tourists, once he gets licenses.

I lost six years but Im catching up. Perception is everything. If people see say 10 shops theyll think it must be a trusted brand, like McDonalds. Im aiming for high-end. Quality product and packaging, said Grant.

He spoke from one of his Compton stores surrounded by wares stamped with his slogan: Only the best grows in the west. In an adjacent room six workers sifted through cannabis heaped in 55-gallon containers, trimming it into 1lb sacks which Grant sells to other dispensaries.

Grant brushed off concerns that the Trump administration will crack down on an industry which is now fully legal in California, Colorado and six other states. He does, however, worry that federal threats will continue to deter banks from working with the industry, creating hassle and expense from handling lots of cash.

Above all he worries that African Americans and Latinos, having suffered disproportionately from pots criminalisation, will lose again if corporate America dominates the newly legalised market.

Hopefully we as people of colour will take our rightful position in this industry. Ill do my part, hiring and mentoring. I require two things of my workers: dont steal, be on time.

Apart from the trimmers and sales clerks Grants company is still largely a one-man operation he does almost everything. Once the money starts coming in Ill hire a marketing team.

Grant
Grant still runs track, and has high hopes for his return to the business world. I lost six years but Im catching up. Photograph: Noah Smith for the Guardian

Eaze, in contrast, has more than 80 employees, 300,000 users, a slick website, a PR firm and $52m in funding. We look forward to using our data, technology and platform to continue to serve our mission of providing safe, secure access to marijuana products at the lowest prices with the utmost convenience, CEO Jim Patterson said late last year.

When social media noted the absence of black faces in the companys staff photo Patterson issued a statement professing commitment to diversity and social equity: Were actively working to redress the disproportionately negative effects of marijuana prohibition on communities of color, evident not only in our hiring processes, but internal organization and community partnerships.

A company spokesperson told the Guardian the company was not all-white, despite the photo. Eaze does have African American employees on staff. She declined to provide numbers, citing privacy policy.

Time will tell whether Grant achieves his dream of wealth and early retirement to a beach house where he will eat salmon.

It wont be for lack of determination. During the interview at the dispensary where employees trimmed cannabis Grants eyes watered and he coughed. Yeah, he smiled, wiping away tears. Three decades doing this and Im still allergic.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

Mary JanePot entrepreneur and ex-felon fights for black role in California’s budding industry
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