Thursday, January 2, 2014

Colorado cannabis customers swarm as drug's sale goes legal

from bbc.co.uk

A line waits outside the Cannabis Club on Main Street in downtown Breckenridge, Colorado, for an 8:00 opening of the store 1 January 2014

In the ski resort town Breckenridge, customers were waiting for the store to open at 08:00

Long queues have been seen as the world's first state-licensed marijuana industry opened for business in the US state of Colorado.

Hordes of customers braved bitter cold and snow at about two dozen outlets across the mountainous state.

Residents aged 21 and over can buy 1oz (28g), while those from out of the state can purchase up to 0.25oz.

Washington state has also legalised cannabis, and is expected to allow the drug's sale later this year.

Colorado's system differs from the Netherlands in that the Dutch have never legalised cannabis, even though the purchase and consumption of small amounts of the drug have been informally permitted since 1976.

Sean Azzariti, a veteran of the Iraq war, makes the first legal recreational marijuana purchase in Colorado from advocate Betty Aldworth at the 3-D Denver Discrete Dispensary on January 1, 2014 in Denver, Colorado.

Sean Azzariti, an Iraq war veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, reportedly made Colorado's first legal recreational marijuana purchase in Denver

Last month, Uruguay became the first country in the world to fully legalise pot, but it has yet to set up its system.

Blustery winter weather could not deter Colorado's cannabis consumers from turning out in large numbers on 1 January, dubbed Green Wednesday, to see history in the making.

Joints, cannabis pastries and confectionary, and even marijuana-infused soaps, oils and lotions were on sale at licensed dispensaries.

Under the new rules, cannabis can only be smoked on private premises, with the permission of the owners.

Police reportedly issued citations to several shoppers who appeared to be under the impression that the new rules allowed them to smoke pot in public.

"It's a huge deal for me," Andre Barr, a 34-year-old deliveryman who drove all the way from the state of Michigan, told the Associated Press news agency. "This wait is nothing."

High prices

Jacob Elliott, 31, a defence contractor from Leesburg, Virginia, near Washington DC, told Reuters news agency as he queued outside the 3D Cannabis Center in Denver: "I never thought it would happen."

Shops hired extra staff to prepare for an influx of customers, as Nada Tawfik reports

Colorado's policy places it at the forefront of efforts in the US to legalise cannabis. In 18 other states, marijuana is approved for medical purposes, though the drug is still illegal under federal law.

The US Department of Justice has advised Colorado officials to ensure the drug remains within state borders or face a federal crackdown.

Signs at Denver International Airport warn travellers they are forbidden to take the drug home with them.

Store owners stocked up, hired extra security and prepared celebrations for their Green Wednesday grand opening.

But it wasn't just the customers that were high - the prices were enough to give some a sore head.

One dispensary was charging $70 (£42) for one-eighth of an ounce of cannabis, nearly three times what medical marijuana patients had been paying just a day earlier for the same amount.

Iraq war veteran Sean Azzariti, who has campaigned to legalise marijuana, reportedly made Colorado's first legal recreational marijuana purchase, at an outlet in Denver.

He said the drug helps to ease his symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I couldn't be happier," he told US media. "It's a huge stepping stone for other states as well, so it's a huge honour, to say the least."

Psychiatric fears

Under a measure approved by Colorado's voters, possession, cultivation and private, personal, recreational consumption of marijuana has already been legal in the state for more than a year.

A long line of buyers trails from a store selling marijuana in Pueblo West, Colorado 1 January 2014

Customers outside a marijuana store in the community of Pueblo West, central Colorado

But under the new law that took effect on Wednesday, cannabis is being sold and taxed like alcohol.

State officials expect it to raise $67m in annual tax revenue, a chunk of which will be used for school construction.

A total of 136 stores, mostly in Denver, have so far been given licences to sell marijuana with more permits pending.

Some communities elsewhere in Colorado have exercised their right not to have the stores.

Supporters of legalising cannabis have praised Colorado's move.

But critics say it sends the wrong message to the nation's youth and fear it will lead to serious health and psychiatric problems.

Employee David Marlow, right, helps a customer, who smells a strain of marijuana before buying it, at the crowded sales counter inside Medicine Man marijuana retail store, which opened as a legal recreational retail outlet in Denver 1 January 2014

A busy day for employees at Medicine Man in Denver on Wednesday

Head of security Kurt Britz (L) checks the driver's licence of Adam Hartle of Jacksonville, Florida at the 3-D Denver Discrete Dispensary 1 January 2014

Identification is checked at a Denver dispensary - marijuana buyers in Colorado must be 21 years old

Cheri Hackett, (2nd right) co-owner of the Botana Care marijuana store talks to Colorado Marijuana Enforcement officials (L) just before opening her doors to customers for the first time in Northglenn, Colorado 1 January 2014

A marijuana store owner talks to Colorado drug enforcement officials before opening for business

Lynne Johnston of Los Angeles, California celebrates after purchasing marijuana products at the 3-D Denver Discrete Dispensary 1 January 2014

Lynne Johnston of Los Angeles celebrates after buying marijuana products

WHAT AMERICA’S WAR ON DRUGS LOOKED LIKE IN 1969

from life.time.com

WHAT AMERICA’S WAR ON DRUGS LOOKED LIKE IN 1969

1 of 32

Co Rentmeester—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

A U.S. Customs agent points his gun at a car suspected of transporting marijuana, 1969.

CO RENTMEESTER

'60s

For all of the myriad, often-brilliant ways that LIFE covered the world in the middle part of the 20th century, the magazine had a rather fraught relationship with at least one pivotal aspect of the age: namely, the counter-culture of the 1960s, in the U.S. and around the globe.

That a publication of LIFE’s influence and reach only grudgingly paid attention to the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Hendrix and other avatars of the pop-culture revolution might suggest that every aspect of the era’s tumult passed virtually unnoticed. In fact, though, while LIFE might not have covered the Sixties with as much unceasing, breathless fascination as some other periodicals, when it did turn its attention to, say, the explosion of recreational drug use among Americans, its coverage was often admirably even-handed, and something close to exhaustive.

Co Rentmeester—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Case in point: In October 1969, LIFE ran a cover story (or rather, a series of stories) under the banner: MARIJUANA: At Least 12 Million American Have Now Tried It. Are penalties too severe? Should it be legalized?

Across 10 full pages, intermingling opinion, photography and reportage, LIFE took a hard look at pot smoking in the U.S., but waded deep into the debate — already heated then — of whether or not the country’s draconian marijuana statutes were doing more harm than good.

Part of the coverage, meanwhile, was a thoughtful, full-page essay by a former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (and Bonnie Raitt’s stepfather!), Dr. James L. Goddard.

An estimated 12 million Americans have tried the drug in recent years [Goddard wrote]. Now we are in a near crisis caused by ignorance and the blanket of misinformation which governmental agencies have used to cover their ineptitude. . . .

Our laws governing marijuana are a mixture of bad science and poor understanding of the role of law as a deterrent force. They are unenforceable, excessively severe, scientifically incorrect and revealing of our ignorance of human behavior. The federal and state laws should be revised to reflect the fact that marijuana is a hallucinogen and should be classified as such. The federal statutes should be repealed. . . .

[But] I do not believe that marijuana should now be legalized, and the steps which I have suggested will not satisfy those who seek to legalize it . . . One has only to visualize marijuana being more freely available and more widely used by adolescents who have not learned to cope with the problems of daily life and it is not difficult to reach the conclusion that cannabism would become a societal problem.

But the most riveting element of the feature in that issue of LIFE was a series of pictures by photographer Co Rentmester made at various points along the U.S.-Mexican border, in which he chronicled the efforts of U.S. Customs agents to stem the flow of (primarily) pot and certain kinds of drugs into the States through a program dubbed “Operation Intercept.”

The images in this gallery — many of which never ran in LIFE — provide a window into the government’s early attempts to patrol an enormous and notoriously porous border between the two countries, while also reminding us that America’s war on drugs is not only nothing new, but for decades has been a profoundly divisive response to a phenomenon that, like it or not, is not going away.

The rolling of a joint, photographed by LIFE's Co Rentmeester, 1969.

Co Rentmeester—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

The paraphernalia and the steps involved in the rolling of a joint, circa 1969, photographed by LIFE's Co Rentmeester.

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Related Topics: 1969, black and white photography, Co Rentmeester, Crime, Drugs, Marijuana, Mexico, Texas

Colorado's Pot Experiment

from wsj.com

Jan. 2, 2014 6:58 p.m. ET

On New Year's Day, Sean Azzariti, a former Marine who did two tours in Iraq, became the first American in a century to buy pot legally, as Colorado's state-licensed marijuana stores opened for business. Thus began a great social and economic experiment in drug legalization—but also with any luck a federalist education for the other states wondering whether to follow.

In 2012, voters in Colorado approved a state constitutional amendment ending the prohibition of growing, selling or consuming cannabis, and by all accounts the Jan. 1 transition was seamless. Thousands of residents and drug tourists lined up outside three dozen outlets to be part of the precedent (and presumably the afterparty). The stores used to be medical marijuana dispensaries and so were already set with inventory, retail space, staff and customers. They simply hung up a new shingle.

Enlarge Image

A line waits outside the Cannabis Club on Main Street in downtown Breckenridge, Colo., for an 8 a.m. opening of the store, Wednesday Jan. 1, 2014.Associated Press

As in 19 other states, "medicinal" use has been legal in Colorado since 2000, though the distinction with recreational consumption was always mostly notional. About 3% of Coloradans have marijuana cards and can supply most anyone who wants to get high. The irony is a pack of cigarettes is probably harder to obtain than a joint or drug-laced baked goods, which sums up the politics of Boulder.

Yet regulating commercial sale like alcohol and permitting recreational use outright for the general public is still an important legal and cultural passage. Under Colorado's rules, any resident over age 21 can buy up to an ounce per transaction, while visitors are limited to a quarter-ounce. An ounce is enough for about 60 joints. Cash only, please.

People are allowed to smoke on private property but not in public. Zoning laws let some communities keep out the pot business if they prefer, such as Colorado Springs, so about three-quarters of the 136 licenses issued so far are for the Denver area.

Cannabis prices climbed slightly on opening day as demand outstripped supply, but they could decline over time. Marijuana is expensive only because of prohibition; there's a reason it's called "weed." Competition may transform what is now both an in-state cottage business and a transnational criminal market, and prices will find an equilibrium like any other commodity.

Colorado imposes a 25% markup using sales taxes for wholesale processors and store fronts, on top of other state and local taxes. Legalization advocates predict a revenue windfall, but that won't accrue if underlying pretax prices plunge.

Taxes and regulations are also difficult to enforce because of the left-over black market and the fact that marijuana is so cheap and easy to grow. Plants are inherently harder to control than liquor: Moonshine excepted, few people are distilling their own spirits in their garage, and unlike a keg, a bag of pot can be slipped into a pocket or glove compartment.

Low prices, advertising, the perseverance of the underground marijuana economy and the general social normalization of marijuana use will naturally encourage more consumption, which carries troubling implications for young people and problem users who smoke all the time. States ought to monitor changes in Colorado's rates of marijuana-related crime and delinquency, teenage use, drug dependence and addiction, and accidents on the roads or ski slopes. Some adults seem to be able to smoke responsibly, but like alcohol the effects of pot on the juvenile brain are not benign.

Marijuana possession remains a federal crime until Congress changes the Controlled Substances Act, which is supposed to trump state law. But the Obama Administration is suspending enforcement to allow Colorado to undertake its experiment, with Washington state to follow later this year.

The feds say they'll intervene if governments can't prevent distribution to minors or trafficking across state borders, but those are both inevitable and no one should expect that Attorney General Eric Holder's troops will arrest people as they cross into Utah. Those are President Obama's voters.

The larger question is whether the benefits exceed the costs to U.S. society. On top of tax receipts, the legalizers promise to build more schools and roads as resources are shifted away from law enforcement and imprisonment. That's almost certainly oversold because few marijuana users end up in jail today and no one knows the costs of more drug use. Legalizers also invoke individual liberty, even if the only places liberals support less government are in personal behavior and national-security surveillance.

Marijuana politics are changing, especially in California, the West and New England, but the consequences of legalization are unknowable in advance. Perhaps the gains will be everything the stoners claim, though bong-inspired visions tend to be defeated by reality.

Colorado and Washington voters may come to regret their decision if they notice a surge in drug use, or more violence, or a generation of underdeveloped young people. Legalization, once achieved, will be hard to reverse. Better, then, to let Colorado go first, and watch what happens.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Legal marijuana sales begin in Colorado, making history

from latimes

The much anticipated first pot sales unfolded in a handful of stores across the state, ushering in a new era as many on both sides of the legalization debate watched the early transactions.

“One minute exactly until we make history,” shouted a harried Jay Griffin, the 43-year-old general manager of Dank Colorado, a tiny shop tucked into a nondescript office building in an industrial district of Denver. With hip, urban decor, the store looked much like an upscale coffee house.

A line of about 40 people stretched down the hallway, waiting patiently and without incident as Steve “Heyduke” Judish, a 58-year-old retired federal worker, stepped to a counter to become the first customer at the first retail store in Colorado to get its license last month.

Judish peeled off $30 cash and walked out with 1/8 ounce of Larry OG, a potent strain of marijuana that connoisseurs like for its euphoric rush. “It’s cool to be part of history,” he said with a grin. He had put his name on a list to be the first customer 14 hours earlier.

But, really, he said he had been waiting 40 years for the moment.

In November 2012, Colorado voters approved Amendment 64, making it legal for people over 21 to buy small amounts of recreational marijuana beginning on New Year’s Day 2014.

Washington state passed a similar measure, but officials there say it will be later this year before the state is ready to open stores.

Internationally, Uruguay has cleared the way for state-sanctioned marijuana sales, but these also are not yet up and running. The Netherlands has long had an informal decriminalization policy, and patrons can buy marijuana products in Amsterdam coffee shops, but Colorado is the first place in the world where marijuana will be regulated and tracked from seed to store.

Residents with Colorado identification can buy up to an ounce of marijuana at a time. Those with an out-of-state ID can buy up to one-quarter of an ounce. Buyers are limited to those amounts at individual stores each day but are not restricted from shopping from store to store.

Under state law, however, buyers are only allowed to possess up to one ounce. Stockpiling carries legal risks, officials say

Proponents have long called the legalized sales a a windfall for state coffers since retail pot will come with a hefty 25% state tax on top of the usual sales tax of 2.9%. By some estimates it is expected to generate $67 million a year, with $27.5 million designated for schools, officials said.

Although Colorado issued more than 130 retail licenses last month, the labyrinth of expensive rules and regulations, the logistics of setting up shop with adequate supply and ensuring security meant not every owner who got a license opened on Wednesday. Eight stores in Denver were expected to open.

Marijuana is still illegal on the federal level, which typically trumps state law, but the Department of Justice in August issued a memo to federal prosecutors saying they should not pursue prosecution for recreational pot in Colorado and Washington.

While the excitement level was high in the retail shops, not all were cheering Colorado’s new place in the history books.

Kevin Sabat, co-founder of Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) called the landmark “the beginning of the era of Big Marijuana not unlike what we saw in this country with Big Tobacco.”

“This is an industry that makes money off addiction,” he said, adding that he worried children will be targeted and swayed into thinking marijuana is harmless. He vowed to continue the fight against legalization in other states. “We don’t think legalization is inevitable.”

ALSO:

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Denver issues 10 finalized licenses to recreational marijuana stores

Newtown massacre: Redacted report details bullet holes, casings, grief

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-legal-pot-sales-begin-colorado-20140101,0,4332170.story#ixzz2pBI6vr6i

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Nevada to miss medical marijuana deadline

from utsandiego.com

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — State officials say they will miss the Nevada Legislature's April 1 deadline to begin accepting applications from medical marijuana providers and growers.

Marla McDade Williams of the state Health Division said regulations must be approved before the agency can accept applications.

"We may have staff on board April 1, but we're looking to the summer before we can open requests for applications," she told the Nevada Appeal (http://bit.ly/1eK5kBN ).

Williams, who will manage the program for the Health Division, said she doubts the state will license facilities to provide patients with medical marijuana until September or October.

After the division writes the regulations, they must be approved by the state Board of Health and the Legislative Commission. They also must be reviewed by the Legislative Counsel Bureau.

Once the regulations win approval, Williams said, applicants have 30 days to submit paperwork to become a cultivator; manufacturer of marijuana-based products such as edibles; testing lab; or dispensary. The state then has a 90-day period to review applications.

Although Nevada voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing medical marijuana in 2000, patients had no legal way to obtain the drug.

The Legislature earlier this year established a regulated system for dispensing medical marijuana to patients with a state-issued card. The law sets up a taxing, regulatory and distribution system for medicinal pot. The law also authorizes one pot dispensary in each of Nevada's 14 rural counties, with up to 40 allowed in Clark County, 10 in Washoe and two in Carson City.

The Health Division is tasked with adopting regulations and implementing the law that was supposed to take effect April 1.

Williams provided an update during a hearing last week in Carson City to review proposed regulations.

Several lawyers representing potential applicants said it would be difficult to comply with some of the rules.

The audit requirements are particularly onerous, said Patrick McDonnell of the law firm Rainey & Devine. A rule requiring a full accredited audit every year could cost businesses from $25,000 to $50,000, he said.

"It's as if you're planning to audit the businesses to death," he said. "It's almost as if you're piling red tape on red tape here."

___

Information from: Nevada Appeal, http://www.nevadaappeal.com

Legal Drugs 101

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Colorado cannabis customers swarm as drug's sale goes legal

WHAT AMERICA’S WAR ON DRUGS LOOKED LIKE IN 1969

WHAT AMERICA’S WAR ON DRUGS LOOKED LIKE IN 1969

Colorado's Pot Experiment

Other states can see how legalization works out in the Stoner State.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Legal marijuana sales begin in Colorado, making history

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Nevada to miss medical marijuana deadline

Thursday, January 2, 2014

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