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Congress just got more marijuana friendly
BY TOM ANGELL ON NOVEMBER 10TH, 2016 AT 10:38 AM
Marijuana ballot measures won big on Election Day, and so did candidates who support reforming cannabis policies.
While several federal marijuana law reform amendments were already approved during the current Congress with broad bipartisan votes, the composition of the new Congress that will be seated in January is likely to be even more supportive of cannabis issues.
For example, Republican Tom Garrett, who said in a recent debate that, “I’m advocating for the return to the state’s role as it relates to determining the appropriate marijuana policy,” was elected on Tuesday to replace the retiring Congressman Robert Hurt.
Since taking office in 2011, Hurt, also a Republican, has consistently voted against floor amendments to prevent the federal government from impeding implementation of state marijuana laws.
In Minnesota, Republican Jason Lewis, who has strongly criticized the war on drugs, was elected to replace retiring Congressman John Kline (R). Kline, like Hurt, has repeatedly voted against House proposals to respect state marijuana laws.
More broadly, as a result of California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada voting to end cannabis prohibition on Tuesday, there are now 68 more members of the House and eight members of the Senate who represent places where marijuana is legal for adults over 21.
And with Arkansas, Florida and North Dakota joining the list of states with comprehensive medical cannabis programs, there are 33 more House members and six senators representing patients who can use the drug legally.
That should give a boost to at least two key measures that marijuana law reform supporters have been pushing in recent years.
One, which prevents the Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from spending money to interfere with state medical marijuana laws, has been approved by bipartisan votes and enacted into law for the past two years. The vote tally in support of that measure seems likely to grow significantly when it is considered again next year.
A second amendment, which would prevent the Justice Department and DEA from interfering in any state marijuana laws — including those allowing recreational use — came just nine votes shy of passing in the House last year.
Of course, not all of those legislators from the newly-legal states can be counted on to consistently back marijuana law reform measures, but it just became a lot harder for them not to. Opposing the measures effectively amounts to a legislator going on record and saying that it’s fine for the DEA to arrest their constituents who abide by state law.
“More states legalizing marijuana for medicinal and adult use does put pressure on Congress, and the votes are there to end federal prohibition of medical marijuana,” Michael Collins, deputy director of the Drug Policy Alliance, told Marijuana.com.
But, he said, “challenges in terms of committee chairs remain.”
Indeed, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), who won reelection on Tuesday, has been a key roadblock to reform as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Despite a broad list of bipartisan cosponsors, Grassley has refused to grant a hearing or a vote for far-reaching medical marijuana legislation. But pressure is likely to increase in the next Congress.
Mike Liszewski of Americans for Safe Access said that the House version of the bill should have a shot of moving next year.
“There may me be an opportunity to get a hearing for the successor to the CARERS Act in the House due to the retirement of Rep. Joe Pitts, who had blocked it in the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health,” he said.
Under a partisan analysis, while a growing number of Congressional Republicans have supported marijuana measures, Democrats have been much more likely to do so. And although Democrats failed to take control of either the House or Senate in Tuesday’s elections, they did gain seats in both chambers.
Plus, some of Congress’s most vocal opponents of marijuana law reform are now out of a job due the the election results.
Congressman John Mica (R-FL), who once held up a fake marijuana joint during a House hearing he chaired and has called cannabis a “gateway drug,” was defeated by political newcomer Stephanie Murphy.
And Congressman John Fleming, who once said, “The idea of medical marijuana is a joke,” tried to promote himself to the U.S. Senate. But he came in fifth in the race and now he’s out of Congress altogether. Fleming was one of a handful of members who consistently went to the House floor to argue against marijuana amendments. Now, his voice will be missing from the debate.
On the Senate side, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), who has spoken out forcefully against measures to let military veterans access medical cannabis recommendations through the Department of Veterans affairs, was defeated by Democratic Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, a military veteran herself who has consistently supported marijuana amendments in the House.
In Indiana, Congressman Todd Young, a Republican who supported marijuana amendments in the House, was elected to the Senate.
What Will The New President-Elect Do?
But what about the other elephant in the room? The oval shaped room.
Donald Trump has repeatedly pledged to respect state marijuana laws if elected president. While there is significant concern that an ardent cannabis opponent like Chris Christie or Rudy Giuliani could be named attorney general, attempting to overturn broadly-supported state marijuana policies would be an enormous distraction from other agenda items the new president cares more about, one that he may be well-advised not to allow.
A growing majority of Americans supports legalizing marijuana, and in a number of states, cannabis measures got more votes than the president-elect or the winner of the U.S. Senate contest. Cracking down on state-legal marijuana businesses and consumers would create political problems that a Trump administration does not need.
In all, with this week’s election results marijuana emerged further into the forefront of mainstream American politics, and reformers seem well-positioned to protect existing victories and potentially gain new ones.
http://www.marijuana.com/blog/news/2016/11/congress-just-got-more-marijuana-friendly/
Legalization vote finally wins in Maine
A misinformation campaign in Maine led by the state’s Trump-supporting governor couldn’t, in the end, keep a marijuana legalization law from being approved by voters.
The Associated Press tweeted early this afternoon that the measure in the end passed by a fraction of a percentage point.
Question 1 allows recreational cannabis possession, cultivation, and sales for adults 21 and over.
Question 1 would legalize the possession of up to 2 1/2 ounces of cannabis for adults 21 and over, who can also grow up to six plants in their homes.
Maine’s Bangor Daily News says that opponents may request a recount.
Cannabis cultivation and sales will be regulated by the state’s Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry. Retail dispensaries are allowed, as are marijuana social clubs, provided they are licensed and permitted by the locality in which they plant to operate. Sales of recreational cannabis are subject to a 10 percent tax.
Marijuana use is prohibited in public, with smoking outside of a home or other permitted area punishable by a $100 fine.
Though the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol effort benefited from more than $3.2 million from national drug reform groups, outspending a poorly-funded, out-of-state opposition campaign by a margin of nearly 15-to-1, support for the measure hovered right around 50 percent in the days leading up to the election.
Question 1 received endorsements from the state’s major newspapers, including the Portland Press Herald, and celebrity endorsers like travel writer Rick Steves, who contributed to the campaign to pass the measure. The former sheriff of Cumberland County, the state’s most-populous area, also endorsed the measure.
Reactionary folks like Maine’s pro-Trump Gov. Paul LePage did everything they could to upend the measure. LePage went as far as to record a falsehood-filled video in which he claimed that cannabis legalization could be “deadly” for Maine (which just so happens to be one of the many states ravaged by the country’s ongoing prescription opiate epidemic.) The measure was also opposed by a broad coalition of health and law enforcement groups, including the state’s attorney general.
Maine was one of the first several states to follow California’s lead, legalizing medical marijuana in 1999, though it took more than a decade for the state to allow permitted medical cannabis dispensaries.
According to a state estimate, tax revenue from the sales of legal weed in Maine could reach as high as $10 million.
http://hightimes.com/news/legalization-in-maine-a-tight-race/
Just more OTC bs Buy the fear
400 shareholders on the earnings call
It's Adelson's revenge :)
NEVADA LEGALIZES !
The result was a slap in the face to Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who bankrolled the opposition campaign, along of course with donating millions to similar battles in Florida and Arizona. Adelson managed to take the high irony of the hypocrisy of much legalization opposition to new levels, having made his billions through the combined vices of gambling and alcohol sales, and their potent combination.
In Nevada, he covered the $3.4 million opposition campaign cost almost entirely himself. The paper he bought, the Las Vegas Review Journal, editorialized against the measure as well. The money went to pay for misleading ads that tried to paint a picture of failed marijuana legalization in Oregon, Washington and Colorado, despite lawmakers from those states standing up for their systems.
http://hightimes.com/news/nevada-legalizes/
It's an OTC sale Lot's of bargains today !
$GWPH is only slightly down today since the sky is not falling
Catch that falling knife
What is a 'Falling Knife'
A falling knife is a slang phrase for a security or industry in which the current price or value has dropped significantly in a short period of time. A falling knife security can rebound since the sky is not falling.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fallingknife.asp
NEVADA LEGALIZES !
By Sam Harris-Brown November 09, 2016
Sin City will have a new attraction for tourists, now that the already tolerant Nevada has joined California and Massachusetts and has opted to count marijuana use among the personal choices that government doesn’t get to dictate.
The state’s libertarian streak shone through, with reports saying the measure would indeed pass.
The proposition will let adults in Nevada have and use marijuana, and aims to create a retail marijuana market for cannabis, similar to how alcohol is sold in the state. The measure routes tax money from legalization to the state’s schools.
The result was a slap in the face to Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who bankrolled the opposition campaign, along of course with donating millions to similar battles in Florida and Arizona. Adelson managed to take the high irony of the hypocrisy of much legalization opposition to new levels, having made his billions through the combined vices of gambling and alcohol sales, and their potent combination.
In Nevada, he covered the $3.4 million opposition campaign cost almost entirely himself. The paper he bought, the Las Vegas Review Journal, editorialized against the measure as well. The money went to pay for misleading ads that tried to paint a picture of failed marijuana legalization in Oregon, Washington and Colorado, despite lawmakers from those states standing up for their systems.
http://hightimes.com/news/nevada-legalizes/
THE BIG KAHUNA: CALIFORNIA
The biggest single blow against the country’s second failed experiment with Prohibition was struck by California voters on Tuesday, who overwhelmingly approved the legalization of recreational cannabis for adults.
With the passage of Prop. 64, California’s Adult Use of Marijuana Act, California becomes the largest state to have struck down state laws banning nonmedical marijuana use from the books.
“A few years ago, folks thought this was not likely to happen,” Lieut. Gov. Gavin Newsom said. “But here we are, the largest state in the union — and California will move forward with taxing and regulating marijuana for adult use.
“And you know why that matters? There are a million people right now, literally a million people, whose lives have profoundly changed.
“This is something that wasn’t highlighted in this campaign, but there a a million folks who have records associated with marijuana who have the opportunity to have their records cleared and have their lives back in equilibrium…. because this state stepped up and said the war on drugs is an abject failure.”
Prop. 64’s elimination of nearly every marijuana-related felony on California’s books takes effect immediately. Possession of up to an ounce of cannabis is now legal for all adults 21 and over, as is the cultivation of up to six plants. Any marijuana grown from those plants is legal to possess.
Possession of more than an ounce is still a misdemeanor, punishable by no more than a $500 fine and/or six months in county jail, and cultivation of more than six plants and possession for sale—for many decades felony crimes—are now also misdemeanors, carrying the same penalties.
Voters have also approved an imminent financial windfall for the state, courtesy of marijuana.
While recreational marijuana stores won’t open until permitted by the Legislature, sales at existing medical marijuana dispensaries are now subject to an additional 15 percent tax, on top of state and local sales taxes.
Aside from the tax issue, the state’s medical-marijuana industry is untouched. Current possession, cultivation, and sales rules for medical cannabis patients vary county by county, and are not affected by Prop. 64.
Adults without a medical recommendation from a physician will have to grow their own or obtain a recommendation in order to purchase cannabis at an existing medical marijuana dispensary.
California joins Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and the District of Columbia. Colorado and Washington were the first, voting to legalize in 2012.
But no victory is bigger than this one.
With adults in the nation’s most populous state—and one of the world’s most influential centers of culture and media, as well as one of its most robust economies—now able to use marijuana legally, federal law still outlawing the drug have never been less tenable.
Prop. 64 was California’s second chance at legalization in six years. In stark contrast to 2010, when Prop. 19—an effort funded almost entirely by marijuana advocate Richard Lee, the founder of Oakland cannabis grow school Oaksterdam University—was defeated by five percentage points and opposed by every major politician in the state, Prop. 64 had an enormous financial advantage and near-universal support from the state’s elected officials.
While supporters preached caution and did not celebrate until the end, the result was never seriously in doubt.
Led by tech billionaire Sean Parker and George Soros-backed Drug Policy Alliance, Prop. 64 had nearly $23 million to run its campaign, compared to $1.6 million available to a barely-visible opposition effort.
Polls throughout the year showed support for the measure nearing 60 percent. In addition to Newsom, the measure’s most prominent backer, Prop. 64 was endorsed by the state’s major newspapers—evening the traditionally Republican Los Angeles Times. In the days before the election, even U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, said she would vote for Prop. 64.
Prop. 64 is expected to eventually generate more than $1 billion in revenue and more than 100,000 jobs.
The measure drew opposition from an unlikely alliance of law enforcement lobbies—including unions representing the state’s prison guards, police chiefs, and narcotics officers—and some of the same counterculture marijuana advocates they’d spent the last four decades pursuing, though not for all the same reasons.
Police and religious leaders bemoaned greater access to the plant, attempting to stoke fears of marijuana ads pandering the children on TV; the cannabis advocates who opposed Prop. 64 said the measure did not go too far enough, and was too friendly to big business.
http://hightimes.com/news/the-big-kahuna-california-legalizes-marijuana/
Woohoo !!
California : Prop 64 Passes !!
By Patrick McGreevy LA Times November 8, 2016
Voters on Tuesday approved Proposition 64, which would make California the most populous state in the nation to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.
The approval of the ballot measure, which led in recent polls, would create the largest market for marijuana products in the U.S. It comes six years after California voters narrowly rejected a similar measure. Activists said passage would be an important moment in a fight for marijuana legalization across the U.S.
“Proposition 64 will allow California to take its rightful place as the center of cannabis innovation, research and development,” said Nate Bradley, executive director of the California Cannabis Industry Assn.
The initiative allows Californians who are 21 and older to possess, transport and buy up to 28.5 grams of marijuana and to use it for recreational purposes. That expands the law that 20 years ago legalized marijuana for medical use in California.
Proposition 64 would allow Californians who are 21 and older to possess, transport, buy and use up to an ounce of cannabis for recreational purposes and allow individuals to grow as many as six plants. The measure would also allow retail sales of marijuana and impose a 15% tax.
With financial support from former Facebook President Sean Parker and New York hedge fund billionaire George Soros, the campaign was able to raise close to $16 million, about 10 times the money brought in by the opposition.
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom was the face of the campaign, arguing that the national "war on drugs" has failed while disproportionately hurting minority residents and wasting law enforcement resources.
California had led the way 20 years ago by legalizing medical marijuana use in the state.
Proposition 64 was opposed by most major law enforcement groups, including the California Assn. of Highway Patrolmen, the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California and the California Police Chiefs Assn.
Opponents cited problems including teen drug abuse and impaired driving experienced where recreational use was previously legalized: Colorado, Alaska, Oregon and Washington.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-election-day-2016-proposition-64-marijuana-1478281845-htmlstory.html
Massachusetts polling suggests strong victory
Polling in Massachusetts Suggests Strong Victory for Marijuana
BY DUKE LONDON ON NOVEMBER 8TH, 2016 AT 2:48 PM | UPDATED: NOVEMBER 8TH, 2016 AT 2:49 PM
Massachusetts voters will take to the polls today to answer the polarizing Question 4, which aims to legalize the recreational use and commercialization of marijuana for adults 21 and over. Should the Commonwealth collectively answer “yes” on Question 4, Massachusetts would become the first state in New England to fully legalize marijuana, beating early favorites like Vermont and Rhode Island to the proverbial punch.
As we showed you in September, the battle for position in the polls was quite heated at times. However, as the dust has nearly settled, the latest polls show some very positive results for those seeking to end marijuana prohibition in Massachusetts.
In the most recent poll from Western New England University Polling Institute, 61 percent of likely voters supported marijuana legalization, while a comparatively tiny 34 percent were opposed (5 percent of the poll’s respondents claimed to remain undecided on Question 4). The 27 percent difference is massive in polling terms and gives a slight inclination to how the state’s voters may lean on Election Day, as the numbers mark a major shift since just last month. In a September poll, 52 percent of respondents supported legalization, while 42 percent were against the idea; just a 10 percent difference.
All throughout the campaign process the opposition to Question 4 focused much of their time and effort appealing to fearful parents, a strategy that may not have paid off. The WNEU Polling Institute stated, “Although opponents of marijuana legalization have targeted some of their arguments toward parents, the survey found that 63 percent of likely voters who have children under the age of 18 support legalization, while 60 percent of voters who do not have minor children also back legalization.”
With Massachusetts polling so strongly in favor of marijuana legalization, it’s fair to say that Maine may have competition for the first New England state to end prohibition. Massachusetts is a major hub in the region, and a major shift in marijuana legislation is sure to cause waves in the states that surround it.
Connecticut
Both sides of Connecticut’s legal marijuana debate are keeping a watchful eye on the Question 4 vote in Massachusetts, as it will have a tremendous effect on how the issue is handled in the Constitution State. Connecticut decriminalized cannabis possession (under a half-ounce) in 2011 and legalized medical marijuana the following year, but full legalization has remained elusive.
In a 2015 Quinnipiac University poll of CT voters, 63 percent of respondents said they supported legalizing marijuana for recreational use. A bill that aimed to legalize, regulate, and tax the plant was introduced later that year and had roughly a dozen co-sponsors from the Democratic side of the aisle. Supporters of the bill argued that Connecticut needed to be the first state in the region to legalize marijuana for adult use because they’d lose out on precious tax resources otherwise. Opponents of the bill were hesitant to use what they referred to as “blood money” to fix the state’s economic woes, although gambling revenue from two of the world’s largest casinos (Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun) stuff the state’s coffers year after year.
The bill fell flat, and because Connecticut doesn’t have the option to cultivate new ballot initiatives, a new attempt at legalization will have to wait until legislature approves a bill and Governor Dannel Malloy signs off on it. The first four states to end marijuana prohibition (Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska) all achieved legalization via ballot initiatives.
Should new marijuana legislation make its way to Governor Malloy’s desk, he is steadfast in his opposition, as decriminalization and medical marijuana are the furthest he is willing to budge on the matter.
“I’ve done my part on marijuana,” Malloy said on Sunday to a group of Democratic supporters.
“We did medical and we did decriminalization [of small amounts of marijuana].”
“I’d rather not encourage it, which I think legalization does,” Malloy added. “Never say never, but it’s not my priority.”
Rhode Island
Our Nation’s smallest state is taking some big steps toward legalization, but they are being careful not to rush things. Rhode Island legalized marijuana for medical use in 2006, but the state is being very careful about how it proceeds with recreational legislature. Governor Gina Raimondo expanded oversight of the state’s medical program in this year’s fiscal planning. Raimondo cited the need to ready the state for the next step of full legalization as the reason for the increased surveillance on the state’s budding industry.
“I’m taking a slower approach to make sure [that] if we do it, we get it right,” said Gov. Raimondo. When asked about looming legalization in Connecticut’s neighbor to the north, Massachusetts, the Governor replied, “we have to look at it harder and faster.”
Gov. Raimondo went on to add, “If we legalize too quickly and without the right regulation, I worry about children, I worry about high schoolers, I worry about edibles.”
If the polling in Massachusetts is any indication, parents don’t seem to be quite as worried about legal marijuana as their elected officials.
Vermont
Like Rhode Island, Vermont is very worried about the “risk” that edibles pose to the state’s children. The Green Mountain State’s Governor, Peter Shumlin, has said that he does want his state to legalize and regulate marijuana for recreational use, but on their terms and no one else’s. Gov. Shumlin has called Question 4 in Massachusetts a “bad pot bill,” and made it clear that he would rather legalize through legislature than a bill initiative. Shumlin has expressed that Vermont’s long-term plan to legalize is “the most careful, deliberate attempt to regulate marijuana in America.”
“The bill’s approach is in stark contrast to the one proposed in the Massachusetts referendum that will be voted on in November, which would allow edibles that have caused huge problems in other states, smoking lounges, home delivery service, and possession of up to 10 ounces of marijuana. Vermont’s bill allows none of that,” Shumlin penned on his blog. “If Massachusetts moves forward with their legalization bill while Vermont delays, the entire southern part of our state could end up with all the negatives of a bad pot bill and none of the positives of doing the right thing.”
Jim Borghesani, the Communication Director for the Question 4 campaign in MA, got wind of Gov. Shumlin’s stance and offered a rebuttal. “He seems to focus on edibles as a negative and, unfortunately, I think he’s falling into the same exaggerations when it comes to edibles that a lot of other people have,” said Borghesani. “The problems with edibles in Colorado were pretty much contained to the first year of legal sales. The packaging has been changed, the portioning has been changed. It’s a learning process.”
“Just like any young industry, working through some things that they didn’t get right the first time around and we have the great advantage of learning, learning the best practices, looking at what’s happened in other states, learning from their initial early errors and making sure they don’t occur in Massachusetts,” Borghesani added. “We have every reason to think that when legal sales begin in 2018, that we will have the most advanced packaging and the most stringent labeling in the nation
http://www.marijuana.com/blog/news/2016/11/polling-in-massachusetts-suggests-strong-victory-for-marijuana/
Vegas voters ready to rumble
Lets get ready to rumble
Las Vegas Is Not Embracing Legal Weed with Open Arms
It will be an Election Day fight.
BY LISSA TOWNSEND RODGERS Esquire Magazine
NOV 7, 2016
If Las Vegas is known for anything, it's for getting away with everything. Liquor is always available, gaming tables are always open, and prostitutes wait just across the county line. On Election Day, Vegas could add one more indulgence to the list: marijuana. Question 2 is a ballot initiative that would legalize adult use of cannabis. Pot seems a natural fit for Nevada and Las Vegas, a city built on Fear and Loathing myths and Hangover dreams, but polls show an electorate that is split.
Attitudes toward marijuana are changing: A recent Gallup poll indicated that 60 percent of Americans favor legalization, and the nine states voting on legalization (including medical or recreational) set a record high. And over the past two years, Nevada has developed a solid medical marijuana industry. The grows are the size of airline hangars, with thousands of plants in stark white rooms and computer screens monitoring CO2 levels and watering cycles. Dispensaries are minimalist boutiques, with dozens of products in glass cases and helpful staffers in polo shirts discussing the merits of various indica/sativa strains with each customer. All of it is government-regulated, from employee background checks to the pesticides. And, if Question 2 passes, it will all be available to anyone over 21.
A RECENT GALLUP POLL INDICATED THAT 60 PERCENT OF AMERICANS FAVOR LEGALIZATION.
"It's obviously the fastest growing industry in the United States, and Nevada could really use the jobs it's going to create," says Leslie Bocksor, president of Electrum Partners, a firm that advises investors in the cannabis industry. Nevada has struggled to diversify beyond tourism, and a study by RCG Economics and the Marijuana Policy Group suggests that legal marijuana could put more than $7.5 billion into the economy in seven years. Legal weed created more than 2,000 jobs in Oregon in 2016, and 18,000 in Colorado in 2015. It also boosted Colorado's economy by $2.4 billion in 2015. If the Nevada initiative passes, Bocksor believes, "We will see Las Vegas and Nevada become one of the central locations for legal cannabis throughout the world."
Legal weed could also boost tourism among millennials, who don't quite share previous generations' fascination with Vegas gaming tables—hence the barrage of big-budget nightclubs, celebrity chef restaurants, and swanky shopping malls. (When Colorado legalized marijuana, tourism to Denver alone increased by 1 million people.) Many of the 40 million visitors coming to Las Vegas every year are seeking thrills they can't find at home. Walking into a store to peruse 100 different kinds of weed and edibles would certainly rank among them. Casinos themselves oppose Question 2—federal law says that casinos cannot directly benefit from the (federally illegal) marijuana industry. And if a casino can't get a dollar out of it, a casino doesn't want it around.
Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has previously contributed to anti-marijuana efforts in several states, but this year, Question 2 brought the devil's lettuce right to his marble doorstep. He responded by giving $2 million to Protecting Nevada's Children, an organization that opposes the initiative. PNC spokesman Pat Hickey says, "Question 2 is a poorly-written big marijuana initiative that doesn't restrict the production or advertising of child-friendly edibles. Legalization doesn't result in drug dealers or the black market going away." Adelson's cash produced billboards and mailers about deceptive gummy bears and the hazards for kids who get into someone's stash.
Those on the Yes On 2! side maintain that legalization and regulation actually offer protection for Nevada's children. "As it stands right now, kids have access to pot," says Brandon Wiegand, vice-president of special projects at the Grove medical marijuana dispensary in Las Vegas. "What Question 2 does is pushes it into a regulated market where we can restrict who has access to cannabis—right now, drug dealers don't care if you're of age or not."
http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/news/a50297/nevada-marijuana-legalization-vote/
RELATED STORY
These Are the States Voting on Weed This Election
The Grove itself is a model of legal, 21st-century cannabusiness: A seed can enter its warehouse off the Vegas Strip and emerge a few months later as a delicious key lime teacake or handy disposable vape pen, and then be sold in one of its dispensaries a few miles away. Should Question 2 go through, tourists won't be able to just pick up a pocketful of Super Blue Dream pre-rolls and a few grams of Thin Mint shatter from a Grove dispensary on November 9, as the state legislature still has to hammer out the details. (If it doesn't pass, the curent medical marijuana program will continue.) Polling on the initiative leans pro-, but remains too close to call. But if Nevada does nix recreational marijuana and California and Arizona embrace it, Sin City will fall one major sin behind its neighbors.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a50095/marijuana-legalization-state-ballots/
Voters will decide what's right
God bless America !
God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the light from above
From the mountains to the prairies
To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home
From the mountains to the prairies
To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home
God bless America, my home sweet home
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Bless_America
Top 10 reasons to vote Yes
THE TOP 10 REASONS TO VOTE YES ON MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION
Are you one of the almost 57 million Americans living in a state that’s voting on marijuana legalization this Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016? Your vote YES may help end the criminality of marijuana for over one out of six Americans, bringing the total to almost one out of four Americans who will live in a legal state.
Here are the ten best reasons to help convince your friends and family to do the right thing and vote YES on legalization:
1) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA IS SAFER THAN ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO
How did we end up in a society where the two most damaging drugs—alcohol and tobacco—are the two legal ones? There are over a half-million deaths annually from those two substances. They also lead to countless illnesses and injuries that affect society in health-care costs, lost productivity, and law-enforcement expenses.
Marijuana is non-toxic and has never caused a fatal overdose in over 7,000 years of recorded human use. Its greatest harm is the arrest, incarceration, and lifelong hurdles created by prohibition. Opponents worry about “putting a third legal drug on the menu,” as if marijuana isn’t already the third-most popular drug used in America. It’s already on the menu; you just have to commit a crime to order it.
2) MARIJUANA PROHIBITION IS A COSTLY FAILURE
Next year is the 80th anniversary of the Marihuana Tax Act, our first nationwide attempt to suppress pot smoking. Back then, maybe a few hundred thousand people nationwide were “smoking reefers”. Today, it’s more likely than not that someone under age 50 has tried pot and there are over 30 million Americans consuming cannabis on a regular basis—whether it is “on the menu” or not.
The costs of this counter-productive prohibition are staggering. Since President Nixon declared a war on drugs, over 25 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana violations, costing us over $1 trillion to prosecute. But in the four states that have legalized, marijuana arrests have plummeted, crime has decreased, and youth use hasn’t budged.
3) MARIJUANA PROHIBITION FUNDS GANGS, CARTELS, & TERRORISTS
The drug trade has long been a source of income for organized crime. But now that four states have legalized marijuana; their domestic product is beating imported Mexican marijuana in both price and quality. Mexican farmers growing for the vicious violent drug cartels have seen their returns drop from $100 per kilo to under $25.
Legalization isn’t going to put the cartels out of business—they’re criminals who will turn to other crimes for their funding. But we can take from them the market for the most widely-used drug and shrink their customer base substantially.
Heres another way to look at it: Why should we continue to give business opportunities to violent criminals who don’t pay taxes and follow no regulations?
4) MARIJUANA PROHIBITION HURTS YOUTH & MINORITIES MOST
America is coming to grips with institutional racism in our criminal-justice system. Marijuana prohibition has been a prime factor in fueling that racism. African-Americans are four times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana violations, even though they use and sell marijuana at about the same rates.
Marijuana prohibition sets up an incentive for police to make easy arrests and reap forfeiture and drug grant dollars. This, in turn, leads police to concentrate on minority neighborhoods where pot smokers are more easily caught and have fewer resources to fight the charges. This contributes to the cycle of distrust between minority communities and the police. Legalization won’t fix bad racist cops, but it will provide them far less opportunity to act on their racism.
5) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA PROTECTS KIDS BETTER THAN PROHIBITION
For the past forty years, the Monitoring the Future survey has asked high school seniors how easy it would be for them to get a bag of pot. For forty years, the answer has consistently been between 80 to 91 percent of them claiming access to marijuana was either “easy” or “fairly easy.” That’s because weed dealers don’t check ID and don’t lose a license if they’re caught selling to a kid.
Nothing’s ever going to stop a determined kid from finding a joint, any more than kids today aren’t completely stopped from accessing alcohol and tobacco. But with those drugs, somewhere along the line a corrupt adult had to be involved. Now, kids sell weed to other kids. Legalization moves weed sales into secure, adults-only stores and reduces the profit potential for illegal sales. (When’s the last time you saw a high school tequila dealer?) Last year, with four legalized states, was the first year ever that “easy” access to weed for 12th graders dropped below 80 percent.
6) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA IS A SAFE THERAPEUTIC SUPPLEMENT
While half the states have initiated protections for medical use of marijuana, that doesn’t legalize the use of marijuana by patients. Even in California, where nearly anybody can get a medical marijuana recommendation and possession of less than an ounce is just a $100 ticket, there are still over 2,000 people a year who go to jail for marijuana alone, serving an average of over five months in a cage.
That’s because doctor’s visits and medical cards cost money; it costs upwards of $400 in some states to qualify and register for a medical marijuana card. Why should a disabled person in poverty or a sick person suffering a condition not covered by law be treated as a criminal for using an herb safer than over-the-counter aspirin or cough syrup?
7) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA REPLACES TOXIC, ADDICTIVE PHARMACEUTICALS
America is suffering from an opioid overdose epidemic. Legal pharmaceutical drugs kill more people annually than all illegal drugs combined. Marijuana is an herb one can grow at little cost and use to replace over 17 popular pharmaceutical medications. Legalizing marijuana will literally save the lives of countless patients.
The pharmaceutical industry knows this. That’s why Big Pharma has been funding anti-pot campaigns. This election, one of them, Insys Pharmaceuticals, has donated a half-million dollars to defeat legalization in Arizona. They’re a maker of Fentanyl, the opioid painkiller that took Prince’s life and is 100 times more powerful that heroin, and are seeking patents on synthetic cannabinoid drugs they’re researching.
8) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA OPENS THE POSSIBILITIES OF INDUSTRIAL HEMP
The demonization of marijuana is so entrenched in America that we even ban the non-psychoactive variety known as industrial hemp. We are one of the few countries in the world engaged in the lunacy of banning a plant because it looks like one that gets you high.
It’s a little like banning powdered sugar because it resembles cocaine!
While many states have passed laws allowing for industrial hemp cultivation and the federal government has passed laws allowing that to happen, these are all work-arounds for a crop that our Founding Fathers grew freely and copiously. Marijuana legalization will help open up the uses of hemp from food to fuel, fiber to medicine, building material to revolutionary energy technologies and more.
9) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA RAISES MILLIONS IN NEW TAX REVENUE
Legalization doesn’t invent marijuana; it just recognizes that it is a popular commodity that should be taxed and regulated like all other commodities. The market for marijuana is never going to go away; we can only determine who controls most of it—taxpaying, job-creating, law-abiding businesses, or murderous, police-corrupting, criminal cartels.
Prohibition doesn’t control marijuana—prohibition is the absence of control. States under prohibition gain nothing from it and spend money, time, and resources enforcing it. The four states that have legalized marijuana have already reaped over $200 million in combined tax revenue, while saving money in the police department, courts, prisons, parole and probation offices, and other agencies that are burdened by pot prosecutions.
10) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA WORKS!
It’s not 2009 anymore. Legalization of marijuana isn’t some hypothetical policy proposal—we’ve done it already in four other states. We had some initial difficulties concerning kids and edibles, but those have been addressed through education, labeling, and packaging changes the newly-legalizing states will adopt as well. Meanwhile, the older folks that legalization was intended for have increased their use substantially.
But despite putting legal marijuana “on the menu,” the roads are safer than ever, overall driving fatalities are down, workplace productivity is up, problematic dependence on marijuana is unchanged, and millions of dollars in tax revenue are rolling in. In Colorado alone, legalization has created over 18,000 jobs and contributed over $2.5 billion to the state economy.
http://hightimes.com/news/the-top-10-reasons-to-vote-yes-on-marijuana-legalization/
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Marijuana Legalization Election 2016
BY JANICE WILLIAMS 11/05/16 AT 7:42 AM
If the latest polls are any indication, adults will soon be able to roll up and spark up as they please in five states after Election Day.
Recent poll numbers show voters plan to approve recreational marijuana use for adults in just about each state that plans to vote on legalization laws on Tuesday, including Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada. Four others -- Arkansas, Florida, Montana and North Dakota -- will also vote for medical marijuana reform on Election Day. States need to get anywhere between 50 and 60 percent of votes to pass the marijuana measures on the ballot, and recent polls show enough voters will push the measures through.
The wave of states voting for marijuana reform could be a "tipping point" in the War on Drugs, according to Keith Stroup, of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. While speaking on the phone with International Business Times this week, the marijuana advocacy group founder was confident that at least four of the five legislation states would win and lead to even more changes in neighboring states that haven’t yet legalized marijuana in some form.
“I can’t imagine that this is not the tipping point. Because with every state that you win, then you have a congressional delegation from that state, most of whom have been opposed to legalization up until this time, that has to begin to pay attention and rethink their position,” Stroup said. “Obviously, if the majority of citizens in their state say, 'I want marijuana legalized,' then they have an obligation to begin to work for marijuana legalization on the federal level as well.”
In Arizona, voters will decide on Proposition 205, a measure that will allow adults 21 and up to recreational use, possess and grow up to six marijuana plants in their own homes. 50 percent of voters are in favor of the law, according to an Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite poll released in October. However, 42 percent of voters are still opposed to the measure while eight percent were unsure of how they would vote on the proposition come election day.
Although the poll percentages dropped between September and October, the majority of California voters are still in favor for Proposition 64: Adult Use of Marijuana Act. A poll by Public Policy Institute of California found that Prop. 64 support dropped down to 55 percent in October -- compared to September’s 60 percent -- but opposition was still relatively low, accounting for just 38 percent of voters while 6 percent were still undecided.
California makes up more than 12 percent of the U.S. population, and if that state alone passes recreational cannabis, then the five percent of the country’s population that has legalized full use of pot would spike up to roughly 25 percent, Stroup said. And that’s not including states that have approved medical cannabis.
More than half of voters in Maine are also in favor of the state’s recreational marijuana measure, Question 1. An October poll conducted by The Survey Center of the University of New Hampshire found 50 percent of voters intend to support legalizing cannabis while 41 percent of voters are still against the measure, the Portland Press Herald reported. Nine percent of voters were still undecided. The new law would allow adults to cultivate up to six marijuana plants in their own home and possess up to two-and-a-half ounces of pot purchased from licensed dispensaries.
55 percent of voters in Massachusetts are likely to approve Question 4, which would legalize and regulate marijuana use by adults similar to the state’s approach to alcoholic beverages. Only 40 percent of voters were against Question four. However, the numbers change in regards to voters opinions on recreational marijuana use in public and in their homes. About 84 percent said pot use inside of a home wouldn’t bother them, but 64 percent said pot use outside in the public would bother them.
In Nevada, 57 percent of voters are in favor of Question 2, which give adults permission to use and possess up to one ounce of pot recreational. The poll, conducted by Suffolk University in late September, found only 33 percent of people were against the amendment.
Should each of the five states pass recreational cannabis laws, it would mark the largest number of states to legalize marijuana at one time in U.S. history. Not to mention, if any of the nine measures pass, then more than half of the country would have legal weed to some capacity. Twenty five states and the District of Columbia have already passed pot laws of some sort.
If all or some of the nine measures pass, the 2016 election could potentially jolt the country out of prohibition, said Morgan Fox, communications manager for Marijuana Policy Project, a leading pro-pot group.
“When people start seeing their neighbors have more resources to depend on, having more tax money, having legitimate businesses running the market instead of criminals, that’s gonna make them really think about their own marijuana policies and start testing their own procedures,” he told IBT. “I think some people are never going to support legal marijuana for one reason or another, regardless to the information they’re presented with. But in general, I think that the more people that see marijuana can be successfully regulated, the more they are going to support doing it in their own states.”
If the measures do pass, Stroup predicts that other states will join the reform and residents will see new legislation pushed as soon as 2018.
"If we win the table this year I can’t imagine what we’ll be like two years. We’re gonna have states lining up to vote on it. It’s a good time to be alive for a marijuana smoker," he said.
http://www.ibtimes.com/marijuana-legalization-2016-election-which-states-will-allow-recreational-drugs-next-2440603
Clark and Washoe county would miss out on huge tax revenue, while the rest of Nevada rakes in millions of tax dollars ?
How much would legal pot do for Nevada’s economy? Take a look
By legalizing recreational marijuana, Nevada voters would spark $7.5 billion in economic activity in the first seven years of sales.
That’s the biggest number in an extensive report released this week by RCG Economics and the Marijuana Policy Group, but it’s not the only eye-popping figure.
With voters poised to decide a ballot measure on the issue.
Here’s a by-the-numbers look into some of the researchers’ other findings and projections:
• $1.7 billion: Total wages and business owner income that would be generated in the first seven years after legalization.
• $464 million: Total tax revenue that would be generated in the first seven years after legalization. That breaks down to $257.4 million in sales and use tax, $147.1 million in excise tax, $47.2 million in license fees, $3.5 million in application fees, $521,000 in Nevada Commerce Tax and $8.3 million in payroll tax.
• 40,975: Total number of full-time jobs that would be added to the economy in the first seven years after legalization.
• 6,200: By 2024, the number of jobs that would be supported per year by regulation of the drug.
• $1.1 billion: Also by 2024, the annual economic activity related to regulation.
• $224.2 million: Estimated amount that Clark County visitors would spend on marijuana in 2018. That’s based on a price of $11 per gram, $2 more per gram than the projected price that locals would pay. As with most goods and services, marijuana would be more expensive on (or near) the Strip. The equation also is based on statistics-based projections on the number of annual visitors who would use marijuana (6.1 million), the average duration of their stay (3.4 nights) and their average daily consumption (0.98 grams).
• 53.5 million: Projected number of Clark County visitors in 2033. In 2015, Las Vegas drew 42.3 million.
The report will serve as a centerpiece of efforts by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, a coalition of 30 state and local leaders who said legalization would also benefit Nevada by eliminating the black market and steering money away from criminal dealers. In addition, proponents of the ballot measure say it will close the books on decades of drug policies that resulted in billions of dollars being misspent to catch, prosecute and jail nonviolent recreational marijuana users.
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/jul/15/how-much-would-legal-pot-do-for-nevadas-economy-ta/
Federal Prohibition Not ‘Tenable’ After State Marijuana Votes
Voters ready to legalize pot
Voters ready to legalize pot for tens of millions across U.S.
Supporters believe a California victory, let alone a sweep in all five states, could be what they need to change the federal discussion about the drug.
By Bernie Becker 11/05/16 07:33 AM EDT
Voters are poised to give a sweeping endorsement of legalizing marijuana, with ballot measures in five states on the verge of passing on Election Day, potentially setting the stage for loosening federal controls on the drug.
California -- home to 40 million people and the world’s sixth-largest economy -- is likely to relax its restrictions on pot for recreational use, according to the latest polls. And similar measures in Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada also have slight leads. Supporters believe a California victory, let alone a sweep in all five states, could be what they need to change the federal discussion about the drug, which is currently on par with heroin under U.S. law.
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"I've been calling 2016 the game-over year,” said Bill Piper of the Drug Policy Alliance, a pro-legalization group. “Because if California wins, that's going to put enormous pressure on Congress to end marijuana prohibition. If all five win, that's even better. If California legalizes, it's going to become much harder for Congress not to do anything."
Supporters of looser pot laws clearly have the momentum when it comes to public opinion. A new Gallup poll found that 60 percent of Americans, including around two in five Republicans, support legalized marijuana now — up from about 25 percent two decades ago, around the time California legalized it for medical use.
Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana just four years ago, and were joined by Alaska, Oregon and Washington, D.C., two years later.
Voters in another three states — Arkansas, Florida and North Dakota — will consider whether to legalize medical marijuana on Tuesday, while Montana has a ballot measure that would remove restrictions from the state's current medical marijuana law. Success in those states would make medical marijuana legal in a clear majority of states.
Even so, the opponents to the marijuana ballot measures -- themselves well-funded and well-organized -- say that legalization or any measures that make it easier for vendors to get banking services will hardly be a done deal, no matter what happens in November.
Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which has bipartisan backers like former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) and David Frum, a speechwriter for George W. Bush, has tagged the efforts to expand legalized marijuana as a sequel to "Big Tobacco" — an attempt to prioritize corporate profits over public health.
"The battle for settling the question of legalization will not end this November, or November 2020," said Kevin Sabet, who worked on drug policy in the Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations and is now the group's president.
Sabet was equally skeptical that a run of success at the ballot box this month would move Congress to take steps short of legalization anytime soon.
"I don't foresee Congress moving to make marijuana legal anytime soon," he said. "California medicalized marijuana 20 years ago — Congress still does not recognize smoked marijuana as medicine. All this talk of a 'tipping point' is marijuana business rhetoric."
The pro-marijuana forces don't see it that way. Their allies in Congress plan to start just after Election Day with a series of incremental efforts to ease federal restrictions on the marijuana trade.
Lawmakers face a Dec. 9 deadline for passing another government funding bill. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said he and other members would push to add a measure championed by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. Denny Heck (D-Wash.) that seeks to absolve banks of any punishment for doing business with legal pot dealers.
Currently, sellers of both recreational and medical marijuana have problems getting accounts at banks, which are wary of handling profits from the sales of a product that the Drug Enforcement Administration continues to classify as an easily abused drug without medical benefits.
That's forced the recreational pot business to traffic mostly in cash, making retailers worried about robbery and more likely to rely on armored cars to pick up their profits.
Because marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, legal retailers in the states also can't deduct the cost of normal business operations like employee salaries or rent, under a 1980s-era law targeting drug traffickers. That means above-board marijuana businesses can pay effective tax rates of 70 percent or higher, according to the National Cannabis Industry Association.
Blumenauer has long sponsored a measure to exempt legal marijuana merchants from the law barring them from using normal business deductions, a measure that's also supported by GOP lawmakers with a libertarian bent, like Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.
It's unlikely that bill could pass Congress as a standalone measure. But Blumenauer also noted that his fellow Oregon Democrat, Ron Wyden, is the bill's sponsor in the Senate and on track to become Finance chairman again if Democrats take control — giving the measure's supporters more opportunity to slip it into larger packages.
Still, there are several reasons to think that the current marijuana restrictions won't go down without a fight. Some marijuana opponents on Capitol Hill are powerful and entrenched themselves, like Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). And lawmakers seeking to whittle down federal marijuana restrictions in this year's appropriations process have largely come up empty, despite some encouraging early progress.
That’s not deterring Blumenauer. He has traveled to Arizona and Nevada, both states where casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is bankrolling anti-legalization efforts, to stump for the ballot measures.
“We really do have the momentum here,” he said. “And that’s largely because this is an effort that’s been driven by the voters themselves.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/marijuana-ballot-measures-activists-watershed-230760#ixzz4P9GAa4kB
Strong majority favor California Proposition 64
By Patrick McGreevy Reporter LA Times
California appears poised to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, with a strong majority favoring Proposition 64 ahead of Tuesday’s vote.
A new statewide poll shows 58% of likely voters support Proposition 64 and 37% oppose it. The number who said they don’t know how they will vote dropped from 8% last month to 4% in the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll released this week.
Next week’s decision comes six years after a similar initiative was rejected by 53.5% of California’s voters.
“The electorate has gotten younger and more demographically diverse,” said Dan Schnur, director of the poll and of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. “The change over the last six years has been more cultural than political. Society feels differently about marijuana legalization now than it did then.”
The initiative enjoys its strongest support, at 74%, among likely voters ages 18 to 29, while only 46% of voters over age 64 back the idea, according to the poll, which was conducted Oct. 22-30.
Pot users were much more likely to say they favor Proposition 64 — 72% did so. The survey found 43% have used marijuana for recreational purposes and 54% said they had not. Of the group who hasn’t used marijuana, support was split, 46% in favor and 48% against the measure.
Of those who have used it, 30% said they have done so in the last year. Among those who have not, just 2% said they are much more likely to use it if Proposition 64 passes, 5% said they are somewhat more likely to use it, and 89% said they are no more likely to smoke pot if it is legalized.
California is one of five states considering legalization measures on Nov. 8 and is seen as a battleground state for the national movement to relax drug laws.
Proposition 64 would allow the growing, transporting and retail selling of marijuana to individuals, who will be allowed to possess up to one ounce of pot.
The measure, supported by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Facebook President Sean Parker, also allows Californians to grow up to six marijuana plants. Buying marijuana at state-licensed shops would come with a 15% excise tax.
The measure is supported “strongly” by 47% of likely voters and is supported, but “not so strongly,” by 11%.
The poll found support a little softer among Latino voters, 43% of whom “strongly” support the initiative and 13% “not so strongly.”
Why? For many voters it is a question of finances.
Among respondents who support the initiative, 23% of all voters and 30% of Latinos said they do so because legalizing marijuana “would generate a billion dollars in tax revenue for California, which would go towards after school programs and job training initiatives.”
That opportunity was the first reason offered by Barkev Tatevosian, a 28-year-old administrative analyst from Los Angeles who plans to vote for Proposition 64 but does not use marijuana.
“The revenues are already being seen, but they are going into the wrong hands,” Tatevosian said. “People who want to get marijuana are already getting it, they are just getting it from the wrong hands.”
The poll found 22% support the measure because they believe the criminal justice system is broken and legalizing pot would allow more of a focus on violent criminals.
Eighteen percent said they support Proposition 64 to take the marijuana market out of the hands of the drug cartels and allow government regulation.
For 13%, pot should be legal because “using it is a personal choice, not something the government should regulate.”
And 10% of supporters say marijuana should be legal because it is less dangerous than alcohol.
That argument is partly why Heather Leikin, a realtor from Culver City, supports Proposition 64.
Donning blue-jean skirts and makeshift habits, Sister Kate and Sister Darcy are orderless and self-proclaimed nuns who have been reverently growing and producing cannabis-based tonics and salves in their Merced operation known as the Sisters of the Valley. The Sisters say their nonpsychoactive products are imbued with healing intent, and their customers claim the “plant medicines” treat myriad ailments.
The ballot box guide to California's propositions »
“I think that marijuana is better than alcohol as far as safety goes, as far as health goes,” said Leikin, 43. “I don’t see people killing each other on marijuana or overdosing on marijuana.”
Among all of those who oppose the measure, the biggest concern, cited by 23% of opponents, is that it is a drug whose use often leads to abusing other narcotics.
That issue is why Raul Duarte, a bus driver from Anaheim, plans to vote “No.”
“I think it’s a gateway drug for other, harder drugs, and we shouldn’t make it accessible to all the youngsters,” said Duarte, 29.
Other concerns were that the measure would suggest to children it’s OK to do drugs or that it could lead to stoned driving and deaths on the road.
“Colorado is dealing with some pretty extreme issues that I don’t think we need to deal with, like impaired driving,” said Barbara Mayers, a retired office manager from Poway, 79.
The survey of 1,500 registered voters was conducted for USC Dornsife and the Los Angeles Times by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and American Viewpoint. The margin of error for the overall sample is +/- 2.3 percentage points.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-marijuana-california-proposition-64-poll-20161102-story.html
Nevada Question 2 poll looks good
If Question 2 passes, marijuana customers could increase by ‘three or four times’
By Chris Kudialis Las Vegas Sun
Friday, Nov. 4, 2016 | 2 a.m.
Next week, Nevada will have the chance to join four other states to allow legalized recreational marijuana for adults.
Ballot Question 2 would not only allow Nevadans age 21 and older to have easier access to pot, it could provide more than $1.1 billion in tax revenue and economic activity over the course of the proposed law’s initial eight years, according to a study by Las Vegas-based RCG Economics.
Armen Yemenidjian, president and CEO of the three Essence Cannabis Dispensaries in the Las Vegas Valley, is ready for the change.
Yemenidjian, whose dispensary chain was recently ranked first in Nevada and included in the top 25 marijuana outlets nationwide by a Business Insider report, currently boasts an inventory of over 100 products, ranging from flower strands to vaping products and marijuana-infused body lotions. That inventory would double to about 200 products if Question 2 passes, he said, and customers would increase by “three or four times.”
“It’d be huge for us,” Yemenidjian said. “No doubt about it.”
With 53 percent of Nevadans in favor of the proposal, according to a Oct. 26 KTNV-TV/Rasmussen Report poll, Question 2 will become law if Yemenidjian and state legislators in favor of the proposal have their way.
Current medical marijuana license holders will have the first opportunity at the new recreational licenses. Yemenidjian said all three of his valley dispensaries would turn into dual medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries.
With one section of the store for displaying marijuana products for medical customers and another section for recreational buyers, Yemenidjian said inventory of products like Island Sweet Skunk flower, edible cake pops and moisturizing body cream will be labeled separately for recreational buyers and his current medical buyers.
“The quality of the product would be the exact same,” Yemenidjian explained. “The only thing different would be the taxes.”
Andrew Jolley of The Source Dispensary also hopes to turn his two Las Vegas Valley dispensaries into dual-medical and recreational facilities. Now with over 150 current products, Jolley said he’ll continue expanding as early as January of next year.
“Many products serve both medical and recreational customers” Jolley said. “So there won’t be too much transition required in that regard.”
Just south of the Strip, marijuana grower Kevin Biernacki of the Grove has saved half of his 11,000 square-foot cultivation facility for the possibility of recreational marijuana. If Ballot Question 2 passes, Biernacki’s current 4,000 marijuana plant facility will become 8,000 total plants, requiring an additional 500 color-coordinated LED lights and several thousand more gallons of water purifying and storage tanks to double his current marijuana output.
“All this is saved for recreational,” Biernacki said this summer, pointing to three empty rooms in his cultivation facility. “Business would skyrocket if that passes.”
The Las Vegas marijuana growers and distributors didn’t divulge financial figures for their own businesses. But Armenidjian said passing recreational marijuana would be key for all of the state’s 42 dispensaries to stay afloat. While the medical model is still expanding and “somewhat stable,” Armenidjian said he knows of “a couple” medical dispensary owners who might not make the cut without Question 2.
“Right now we just don’t have enough in-state medical customers for everyone to get by,” he said.
Much will also depend on the Nevada Legislature.
With most of the provisions of the proposed law already outlined in Ballot Question 2, the Legislature’s main priority would be consolidating Nevada’s recreational and medical marijuana programs under state bureaus and ensuring the new medical program is ready to go by early 2018.
Among the Legislature’s top priorities would be moving the medical marijuana program from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Taxation, joining the proposed regulatory state body for the recreational marijuana.
The move to the taxation department will mirror how alcohol is regulated in Nevada, explained state Sen. Patricia Farley. The department monitors alcohol sales and revenue while business regulations and enforcements for violators are handled on the local level.
“The Department of Health and Human Services doesn’t really have the money or guidance to decides who does what,” Farley said. “So rather than reinvent the wheel, we just want to simplify things.”
State Sen. Tick Segerblom said the Legislature’s role is pivotal in moving the recreational program forward on time. While Nevadans voted on making medical marijuana legal in 2000, the first dispensary didn’t open until 2015.
Segerblom hopes a proactive state Legislature in 2017 will prevent the same result with recreational marijuana.
“When there’s uncertainty, everything takes longer,” Segerblom said. “We don’t want that.”
Yemenidjian said the sooner Question 2 passes, the more Essence and other dispensaries would benefit in the long-term.
“We’ve come this far as a state and there’s no turning back now,” he said. “So the question is whether we want to thrive or risk our investments.”
Keeping Nevada a medical marijuana-only state while others, like California and Arizona attempt to go recreational, could detract additional weed-seeking visitors from coming to Las Vegas, RCG Economics Principal John Restrepo said.
While most of Las Vegas’ more 42 million annual visitors come to the valley for its variety of gaming and entertainment options, adult-use marijuana would draw a “small yet notable” addition of weed-specific tourists here, Restrepo said. His 88-page economic analysis didn’t include a number of estimated marijuana-specific tourists, but such visitors would be “a certainty.”
“If Question 2 doesn’t pass, we’d lose out on the taxable revenues for adult-use, and you’d potentially lose visitors that wouldn’t come here otherwise,” Restrepo explained.
In Colorado, state officials say that since the recreational use model went into effect in Sep. 2014, over $100 million in tax revenue has been raised by state marijuana facilities.
That money went into a state research fund for marijuana studies, Colorado Director of Marijuana Coordination Andrew Freedman told cannabis website HighTimes in August, as well as substance abuse treatment facilities in Colorado and after-school youth drug prevention programs.
“I think a lot of people who don’t normally use marijuana are taking their vacation in Colorado and deciding to partake,” Freedman said.
In Washington State, recreational marijuana has contributed more than $65 million to state coffers since the program kicked off in July 2014.
State spokesman Mikhail Carpenter called the program “a success,” adding that it continues to expand quickly as tourists and locals alike move from black market sellers to regulated, licensed dispensaries.
“Above all, the recreational program has been very successful in taking a black market and bringing into a regulated industry,” said Carpenter, spokesman for the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, which regulates alcohol and marijuana sales.
Travel Oregon spokeswoman Linea Gagliano estimated as many as five percent of the state’s 27 million annual tourists have come for marijuana since the state enacted legalized recreational use last year. Through July, the state had collected over $18 million in tax revenue, translating to about $72 million in sales.
While Gagliano said Oregon’s tourism industry doesn’t focus its advertising on its legal marijuana industry because the plant is still federally illegal, it often resonates with visitors coming to explore the Beaver State’s popular food and outdoors scenes.
“People come here for great food and a beautiful outdoors scene,” Gagliano said. “We just happen to also have recreational cannabis.”
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/nov/04/if-question-2-passes-marijuana-customers-could-inc/
California is on the verge of legalizing pot
BY CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO
ccadelago@sacbee.com
Californians are set to legalize recreational marijuana in Tuesday’s election, two decades after voters approved cannabis for medicinal purposes, according to a new poll.
Proposition 64, which has consistently led in surveys, would allow adults 21 and older to use the drug, possess 1 ounce and grow six plants.
A survey by the Field Poll and UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies found that 57 percent of likely voters intend to support the measure while 40 percent say they will vote no. Support is down slightly from the September poll, when the initiative backed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and largely financed by billionaire entrepreneur Sean Parker led 60 percent to 31 percent, with the reminder undecided.
Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll, said Thursday that marijuana legalization “looks like it has enough” support to become law in California. A majority of those who already completed their ballots say they voted for it (56 percent to 40 percent).
Middle-aged voters and Latinos have come around after being highly opposed to a previous legalization measure, Proposition 19, in 2010, DiCamillo added. That initiative lost by seven points, 53.5 percent to 46.5 percent.
“A lot of the opposition has melted away,” he said.
Digging deeper into the shift, the final pre-election Field Poll for Proposition 19 had voters aged 40 to 49 turning against the measure. They currently back Proposition 64 by more than 2 to 1. Latinos, meantime favor the measure, 59 percent to 37 percent, whereas 55 percent of Latinos opposed Proposition 19 in the final survey.
Perhaps the largest movement has occurred regionally: Inland counties rebuffed the latest version of pot legalization by more than 20 points, while they are about evenly divided today.
Supporters, backed by more than $16 million in contributions, have pitched the measure as the smartest approach to address the failures of prohibition. They believe enforcement has been aimed disproportionately on communities of color, and argue young people are able to get the drug despite it being illegal.
Opponents, including law enforcement and the California Hospital Association, have raised just $1.6 million. They contend the initiative is being driven by profit-minded individuals and companies and assert that advertising rules are weak and will expose children to pot ads. They also argue it should have contained a legal limit for drivers.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article112413612.html#storylink=cpy
Fortune : Investors are piling into marijuana
Investors Are Piling Into Marijuana Ahead of Legalization Ballots
by Reuters NOVEMBER 4, 2016, 6:23 AM EDT
Some estimate the market will reach $50 billion over the next decade.
With marijuana legalization measures on the ballot in nine states Tuesday, investment opportunities are attracting money from Wall Street, Silicon Valley and publicly traded companies.
Much of the new money is avoiding direct investment in marijuana cultivation and sales, which remain illegal under federal law. Instead of getting their hands “green,” new investors are putting their money into ancillary products, such as fertilizer, grow lights, software and payroll services.
Investors new to the sector said they are eager for a piece of a market that, by some estimates, will reach $50 billion over the next decade and are looking for ways to claim profits while minimizing legal risks.
Philadelphia sports empire scion Lindy Snider said she invested in startup Kind Financial, a firm that makes software to keep growers and retailers in compliance with shifting regulations. Silicon Valley angel investor Fulton Connor said he put money into a web marketplace linking growers and stores.
Scotts Miracle-Gro SMG -1.07% , a publicly traded gardening product manufacturer, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire companies that sell soil, lighting, fertilizer and other products to marijuana growers. Scotts’ chairman and CEO Jim Hagedorn told Forbes that marijuana was “the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in lawn and garden.”
And Microsoft MSFT -0.03% is partnering with Kind Financial to develop the part of its compliance software that will allow government regulators to track marijuana from farm to market.
Investors said they hope getting in early will serve them well in the long run. If California legalizes recreational marijuana use Tuesday, “we think it would triple the size of the legal market,” said financial services firm Cowen and Company analyst Vivien Azer.
If the federal government also were to legalize marijuana, large corporations would likely flood the zone, and getting a foothold would be far more difficult, said Connor, the angel investor. At that point, he said, new entrants would “want to buy rather than build” new companies, and early investors would be able to sell their businesses and reap the profits.
A Growth Industry
After growing steadily in 2013 and 2014, marijuana-related investment surged in 2015 when the number of U.S. industry deals more than doubled over the previous year; the 99 deals totaled more than $200 million in new investment, according to data compiled by CB Insights.
This year, the pace has slowed a bit as investors await election outcomes, but the analytics firm calculated 2016 is on track to post about 80 deals totaling nearly $100 million.
Large Wall Street firms also have started to take notice and provide guidance to their clients. Merrill Lynch issued a report on medical marijuana opportunities last year, and, in September, Cowen released an encyclopedic look at the industry, projecting the legal market would grow to as much as $50 billion in a decade, up from $6 billion now.
For investors to realize marijuana’s full potential, the Cowen analysts and others have concluded, federal law would need to be brought into alignment with state legalization laws.
Federal tax and banking rules, as well as federal narcotics laws, make operating dispensaries and growing marijuana difficult and unpredictable, even in states where such businesses already are sanctioned. Many banks won’t work with them because their operations violate federal law.
Still, several marijuana investment funds are near or have exceeded $100 million. Private equity firm Privateer Holdings announced this week it had finished raising $40 million this week, taking its total to $122 million.
Finding a Niche
The new investors in marijuana-related industries have a variety of reasons for putting money into the sector. Snider, an entrepreneur whose late father owned Philadelphia sports teams and stadiums, said she invested in several companies and funds after she founded a line of skincare products for cancer patients and became interested in marijuana’s potential for skin care.
She was an early investor in Kind Financial, the Microsoft partner that makes compliance software because she saw an opening to help marijuana companies become “more businesslike.”
Snider said she expects to make other investments as well.
“Right now I’m looking at about nine companies,” she said. “There are so many good ones.”
Risk Tolerance
Some investors are moving closer to the leaf than others. Former Goldman Sachs health industry banker Rick Kimball, for example, has put about $1 million into marijuana companies, including Chooze, which is creating new pot brands.
The company will not actually handle the marijuana. But it will sell vaporizer pens with Chooze’s LucidMood brand to licensees who will sell them after loading them with company-approved extracts of THC, marijuana’s physiologically active ingredient.
“It allows you to produce products, which are cannabis products but let somebody else, the licensees, deal with the regulatory issues and the regulatory conflict we have between the feds and the states,” Kimball said.
Chooze CEO Charles Jones said the company is confident it can avoid federal laws banning marijuana sales, but he acknowledged prosecutors could try to build a conspiracy case.
“If the feds ever decides to go after people, you know, we won’t be in the first round,” Jones said.
He said the company’s business plan will allow it to be nimble, moving quickly into new markets as they become legal.
New companies sometimes have to adapt to thrive, however, and that can add risk.
Connor led a group of Silicon Valley “angel” investors who focus on young companies into marijuana investments. The Sand Hill Angels group focused on ancillary enterprises, including software and biosciences, making a six-figure investment in Tradiv, an online marketplace that connects growers and stores, Connor said.
Tradiv does not handle marijuana itself, instead contracting out deliveries. Recently, it has begun considering bringing distribution in-house in light of what Chairman Aeron Sullivan described as “tacit consent” from federal law enforcement.
While federal law prohibits the sale and distribution of marijuana, the U.S. Justice Department has said it would defer to states that sanctioned the drug, so long as the states set up and enforce “strict” regulatory schemes.
Still, Connor said his angels were not interested in testing such murky legal waters.
“For us it’s a technology play,” he said. “We don’t want to be breaking the law.”
http://fortune.com/2016/11/04/investors-marijuana-legalization-ballors/
Sky is falling :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Penny
Just like last Friday
Top 10 reasons to vote yes
THE TOP 10 REASONS TO VOTE YES ON MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION
Are you one of the almost 57 million Americans living in a state that’s voting on marijuana legalization this Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016? Your vote YES may help end the criminality of marijuana for over one out of six Americans, bringing the total to almost one out of four Americans who will live in a legal state.
Here are the ten best reasons to help convince your friends and family to do the right thing and vote YES on legalization:
1) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA IS SAFER THAN ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO
How did we end up in a society where the two most damaging drugs—alcohol and tobacco—are the two legal ones? There are over a half-million deaths annually from those two substances. They also lead to countless illnesses and injuries that affect society in health-care costs, lost productivity, and law-enforcement expenses.
Marijuana is non-toxic and has never caused a fatal overdose in over 7,000 years of recorded human use. Its greatest harm is the arrest, incarceration, and lifelong hurdles created by prohibition. Opponents worry about “putting a third legal drug on the menu,” as if marijuana isn’t already the third-most popular drug used in America. It’s already on the menu; you just have to commit a crime to order it.
2) MARIJUANA PROHIBITION IS A COSTLY FAILURE
Next year is the 80th anniversary of the Marihuana Tax Act, our first nationwide attempt to suppress pot smoking. Back then, maybe a few hundred thousand people nationwide were “smoking reefers”. Today, it’s more likely than not that someone under age 50 has tried pot and there are over 30 million Americans consuming cannabis on a regular basis—whether it is “on the menu” or not.
The costs of this counter-productive prohibition are staggering. Since President Nixon declared a war on drugs, over 25 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana violations, costing us over $1 trillion to prosecute. But in the four states that have legalized, marijuana arrests have plummeted, crime has decreased, and youth use hasn’t budged.
3) MARIJUANA PROHIBITION FUNDS GANGS, CARTELS, & TERRORISTS
The drug trade has long been a source of income for organized crime. But now that four states have legalized marijuana; their domestic product is beating imported Mexican marijuana in both price and quality. Mexican farmers growing for the vicious violent drug cartels have seen their returns drop from $100 per kilo to under $25.
Legalization isn’t going to put the cartels out of business—they’re criminals who will turn to other crimes for their funding. But we can take from them the market for the most widely-used drug and shrink their customer base substantially.
Heres another way to look at it: Why should we continue to give business opportunities to violent criminals who don’t pay taxes and follow no regulations?
4) MARIJUANA PROHIBITION HURTS YOUTH & MINORITIES MOST
America is coming to grips with institutional racism in our criminal-justice system. Marijuana prohibition has been a prime factor in fueling that racism. African-Americans are four times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana violations, even though they use and sell marijuana at about the same rates.
Marijuana prohibition sets up an incentive for police to make easy arrests and reap forfeiture and drug grant dollars. This, in turn, leads police to concentrate on minority neighborhoods where pot smokers are more easily caught and have fewer resources to fight the charges. This contributes to the cycle of distrust between minority communities and the police. Legalization won’t fix bad racist cops, but it will provide them far less opportunity to act on their racism.
5) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA PROTECTS KIDS BETTER THAN PROHIBITION
For the past forty years, the Monitoring the Future survey has asked high school seniors how easy it would be for them to get a bag of pot. For forty years, the answer has consistently been between 80 to 91 percent of them claiming access to marijuana was either “easy” or “fairly easy.” That’s because weed dealers don’t check ID and don’t lose a license if they’re caught selling to a kid.
Nothing’s ever going to stop a determined kid from finding a joint, any more than kids today aren’t completely stopped from accessing alcohol and tobacco. But with those drugs, somewhere along the line a corrupt adult had to be involved. Now, kids sell weed to other kids. Legalization moves weed sales into secure, adults-only stores and reduces the profit potential for illegal sales. (When’s the last time you saw a high school tequila dealer?) Last year, with four legalized states, was the first year ever that “easy” access to weed for 12th graders dropped below 80 percent.
6) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA IS A SAFE THERAPEUTIC SUPPLEMENT
While half the states have initiated protections for medical use of marijuana, that doesn’t legalize the use of marijuana by patients. Even in California, where nearly anybody can get a medical marijuana recommendation and possession of less than an ounce is just a $100 ticket, there are still over 2,000 people a year who go to jail for marijuana alone, serving an average of over five months in a cage.
That’s because doctor’s visits and medical cards cost money; it costs upwards of $400 in some states to qualify and register for a medical marijuana card. Why should a disabled person in poverty or a sick person suffering a condition not covered by law be treated as a criminal for using an herb safer than over-the-counter aspirin or cough syrup?
7) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA REPLACES TOXIC, ADDICTIVE PHARMACEUTICALS
America is suffering from an opioid overdose epidemic. Legal pharmaceutical drugs kill more people annually than all illegal drugs combined. Marijuana is an herb one can grow at little cost and use to replace over 17 popular pharmaceutical medications. Legalizing marijuana will literally save the lives of countless patients.
The pharmaceutical industry knows this. That’s why Big Pharma has been funding anti-pot campaigns. This election, one of them, Insys Pharmaceuticals, has donated a half-million dollars to defeat legalization in Arizona. They’re a maker of Fentanyl, the opioid painkiller that took Prince’s life and is 100 times more powerful that heroin, and are seeking patents on synthetic cannabinoid drugs they’re researching.
8) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA OPENS THE POSSIBILITIES OF INDUSTRIAL HEMP
The demonization of marijuana is so entrenched in America that we even ban the non-psychoactive variety known as industrial hemp. We are one of the few countries in the world engaged in the lunacy of banning a plant because it looks like one that gets you high.
It’s a little like banning powdered sugar because it resembles cocaine!
While many states have passed laws allowing for industrial hemp cultivation and the federal government has passed laws allowing that to happen, these are all work-arounds for a crop that our Founding Fathers grew freely and copiously. Marijuana legalization will help open up the uses of hemp from food to fuel, fiber to medicine, building material to revolutionary energy technologies and more.
9) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA RAISES MILLIONS IN NEW TAX REVENUE
Legalization doesn’t invent marijuana; it just recognizes that it is a popular commodity that should be taxed and regulated like all other commodities. The market for marijuana is never going to go away; we can only determine who controls most of it—taxpaying, job-creating, law-abiding businesses, or murderous, police-corrupting, criminal cartels.
Prohibition doesn’t control marijuana—prohibition is the absence of control. States under prohibition gain nothing from it and spend money, time, and resources enforcing it. The four states that have legalized marijuana have already reaped over $200 million in combined tax revenue, while saving money in the police department, courts, prisons, parole and probation offices, and other agencies that are burdened by pot prosecutions.
10) LEGALIZED MARIJUANA WORKS!
It’s not 2009 anymore. Legalization of marijuana isn’t some hypothetical policy proposal—we’ve done it already in four other states. We had some initial difficulties concerning kids and edibles, but those have been addressed through education, labeling, and packaging changes the newly-legalizing states will adopt as well. Meanwhile, the older folks that legalization was intended for have increased their use substantially.
But despite putting legal marijuana “on the menu,” the roads are safer than ever, overall driving fatalities are down, workplace productivity is up, problematic dependence on marijuana is unchanged, and millions of dollars in tax revenue are rolling in. In Colorado alone, legalization has created over 18,000 jobs and contributed over $2.5 billion to the state economy.
http://hightimes.com/news/the-top-10-reasons-to-vote-yes-on-marijuana-legalization/
—
What’s on Tuesdays ballot
Marijuana Initiatives: What’s On Your Ballot?
By Hilary Bricken on November 3, 2016 Canna Law Blog
With four days to go until the Presidential election and with nine states voting on marijuana legal reform, it’s time to briefly visit each marijuana ballot initiative, especially since legalization or medical marijuana reform in one state can greatly impact other marijuana-friendly states and even federal marijuana policy. With a recent Gallup poll showing 60% of Americans favor cannabis legalization, come November, we expect to see a lot more legalized cannabis around the country.
Here are the nine marijuana ballot initiatives up for vote on November 8:
Florida: Florida first tried passing a medical marijuana constitutional amendment by a vote of the people in 2014. Florida’s 2014 Amendment 2 took a strange and rocky road to the ballot box the first time around. The Florida State attorney general filed a challenge to strike it down, alleging it misled the public about its true intent and effect. The Amendment 2 campaign had to go before the Florida’s Supreme Court to keep Amendment 2 alive, which it did. Florida billionaire Sheldon 3 ponied up massive funds to fight against Amendment 2 through a well-funded group that claimed medical marijuana is the new “date-rape drug” and circulated a video that claimed Amendment 2’s main financial backer and supporter, lawyer John Morgan, was seeking total legalization of marijuana, not just medical. Amendment 2 made it to the ballot box but failed to get the votes needed to pass. Florida requires a 60% supermajority vote for constitutional amendments and Amendment 2 fell short by around 3%. What makes the 2016 Use of Marijuana for Debilitating Medical Conditions ballot amendment different from Amendment 2? Frankly, not much beyond clearer language this time regarding regulation and oversight of medical marijuana businesses, qualifying patients, and caregivers. That and the fact that recent polling indicates Floridians will pass the new Amendment 2.
Montana: Montana has a tortured relationship with marijuana. It initially approved medical marijuana by ballot initiative in 2004 and the program survived a 2011 attempt to legislatively repeal it. Though Montana patients can still access marijuana, the cultivation to distribution chain in Montana is opaque and lacks any serious state oversight or regulation. Nonetheless, Montanans will vote on Initiative 182 this November in an effort to expand access to medical marijuana for patients and loosen restrictions created by the legislature as part of its 2011 appeal attempt. Initiative 182 will authorize the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services to register, license, regulate, and oversee “providers” of medical marijuana who may cultivate, manufacture, and dispense medical marijuana. An October poll shows only around 44% of Montana voters support I-182.
North Dakota: In our “State of Cannabis” series where we rank all of 50 states on marijuana laws and policy, North Dakota landed at an uninspiring 33 on the list. Yet North Dakota cannabis advocates were able to get a measure on the ballot to legalize medical marijuana and another measure to legalize recreational marijuana. A poll in late 2014 showed that 47% of North Dakota respondents support legalization of medical marijuana, but only 24% support legalizing recreational marijuana. Measure 5 proposes a program that “would create identification cards with specific criteria before they can be issued by the Department of Health for patients, caregivers, compassion centers and other facilities. The Act would create procedures for monitoring, inventorying, dispensing, and cultivation and growing of marijuana to be regulated and enforced by the Department of Health. A qualified patient could be dispensed up to three ounces of usable marijuana. For violations, the Act would authorize the Department of Health to provide for corrective action, suspension, revocation, appeal, hearings, and referral for criminal prosecution. The Act would require the Department of Health to submit an annual report to the legislature regarding program statistics.”
Arkansas: Arkansas ranked number 40 in our State of Cannabis series, but that ranking will drastically change if Issue 6 passes this month. Until the Arkansas Supreme Court rejected Issue 7 earlier this month because of signature problems, it was looking like Arkansas would actually have two cannabis measures on its ballot this year. Issue 6, known as the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2016, would allow certain qualifying patients to access MMJ and create a regulatory system for cultivation, manufacture, and distribution of medical marijuana. Issue 6 is currently polling at around 45% voter support.
California: California’s vote on Proposition 64 will likely be the most important cannabis vote our country will ever see. If Proposition 64 passes in California, California will regulate and tax recreational marijuana like alcohol. It is expected that California’s recreational cannabis economy will be at least ten times larger than Washington State, which currently has the highest legal recreational cannabis sales. If you want to know more about the ballot initiative, go here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Recent polling indicates that Proposition 64 will handily pass.
Arizona: Arizona has had a medical marijuana program since 2010, but its voters will soon get to decide on Proposition 205 to regulate marijuana like alcohol for adults 21 and older. Polling shows the initiative is at about 48% support.
Nevada: Like California and Arizona, Nevada already has a heavily regulated medical cannabis regime but will now be voting on creating a recreational marijuana regime. Nevada’s Question 2 will allow adults over 21 to possess up to one ounce of marijuana flower or one-eighth of an ounce of concentrated marijuana with Nevada’s Department of Taxation regulate its legal cannabis market. The Initiative would create licenses for Cultivation Facilities (to cultivate, process, and package cannabis), Testing Facilities (to test cannabis and cannabis products), Manufacturing Facilities (to purchase, manufacture, process, and package cannabis), Distributors (to transport cannabis between cannabis establishments) and Marijuana Stores (to purchase from cultivation facilities, product manufacturing facilities, and other retailers and to sell cannabis and cannabis products to consumers). Question 2 is currently polls at about 50% support,
Maine: Question 1 is Maine’s recreational marijuana initiative. Maine has had medical marijuana since 1999 but Question 1 will legalize recreational cannabis for adults over 21 via “a tightly regulated system of licensed marijuana retail stores, cultivation facilities, product-manufacturing facilities, and testing facilities, and it [will] create rules governing the production, testing, transportation, and sale of marijuana and marijuana-related products (e.g. testing, labeling, and packaging requirements). Cities and towns will have the right to prohibit the operation of marijuana establishments.” March and September polls show 53% support for Question 1.
Massachusetts: Massachusetts has had regulated medical marijuana only since 2013, but it’s already voting on legalizing adult-use marijuana through Question 4. Question 4 will regulate and tax marijuana like alcohol, creating a licensing system for cultivators, manufacturers, and dispensaries. An October poll has Question 4 at 55% support.
http://www.cannalawblog.com/marijuana-initiatives-whats-on-your-ballot/
Voters can add legal mj to Vegas’vices. DP quoted
Ballot could add legal marijuana to Las Vegas’ list of vices
BY MICHELLE RINDELS, ASSOCIATED PRESS November 2, 2016 at 8:13 AM EDT
LAS VEGAS — Nevada already has legal brothels, round-the-clock casinos and a coy catchphrase declaring that “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” If voters approve, the state could soon add another vice in the form of recreational marijuana.
A proposal on the Nov. 8 state ballot would legalize pot, and entrepreneurs hope its passage could someday allow the drug at Las Vegas’ glamorous nightclubs and perhaps provide the framework for a future Amsterdam-style cannabis district.
“I really think this would be the third-largest market in the country,” said Derek Peterson, whose company operates marijuana dispensaries called Blum. He predicts that only California and New York would offer a bigger customer base than Las Vegas and its 42 million tourists a year. “I think it should be able to fit in really well with the whole dayclub/nightclub thing.”
Nevada has allowed medical marijuana since 2000, and Peterson sees recreational pot as an alternative for visitors tired of cocktails that can top $15 apiece and inflict hangovers. But before waitresses begin delivering high-grade marijuana at clubs along the Las Vegas Strip, weed proponents will have to win over not just voters, who narrowly support the initiative in polls, but a risk-averse casino industry.
The Nevada Resort Association came out against the measure, pointing to an opinion from gambling regulators that casino owners should avoid the marijuana industry because the substance remains illegal under federal law. Las Vegas Sands owner Sheldon Adelson has bankrolled most of the opposition, pouring $2 million of his fortune into a campaign that raises the possibility that small children could become intoxicated from candy-like marijuana edibles.
In spite of its libertine reputation, the rigorously regulated casino industry is known to err on the conservative side to avoid scandalizing the middle-aged tourists who are its bread and butter.
“I don’t know that this is a game changer in terms of tourism,” Virginia Valentine, president of the Nevada Resort Association, said of marijuana’s potential. “We’re really known for other things. You may attract people or turn them off.”
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which promotes Sin City’s amenities to the world, is neutral on the issue.
There’s no solid state-sponsored research on how legal recreational marijuana has affected tourism in places that have legalized it, although both sides point to Colorado to make their case.
Pro-marijuana interests cite a state study that found Colorado set an all-time tourism record in 2015, capping a fifth year of growth. It’s unclear how much of that is due to weed, and how much can be chalked up to other factors, such as good snow in recent years relative to competing ski states.
Nevada’s ballot initiative would not allow municipalities to put blanket bans on marijuana, as Colorado does. But it would bar consumption in buildings that are open to the public and permit local governments to restrict the locations of marijuana dispensaries and related businesses. It effectively blocks people from growing their own by banning the practice within 25 miles of a licensed marijuana store.
“I think it will be as much of a challenge for us as it will be a boon for us, because there’s no place in the world like Vegas,” said Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, whose urban district includes the Strip. “I think it’s going to take a while to work it out.”
Meanwhile, a Nevada lawmaker who has always pushed the envelope on marijuana says he’s requested a bill next spring that would allow Amsterdam-style pot coffeeshops and other places dedicated to public consumption. Democratic state Sen. Tick Segerblom envisions a pedestrian-centric outdoor entertainment district focused on giving visitors a new kind of “only-in-Vegas” experience centered around pot.
“It’s somewhere you do things you wouldn’t normally do,” said Segerblom, who’s so supportive of marijuana in Nevada that he sponsored a failed bill in 2015 to allow sick dogs and cats to use it. “Have fun, party, do things you wouldn’t do at home. Take a picture and brag about it.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/nevada-marijuana-ballot-legal/
What if Nevada legalizes recreational marijuana
By Chris Kudialis Las Vegas Sun
Nevada could become the sixth state to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults. With a Oct. 26 KNTV/Rasmussen Poll showing that 53 percent of Silver State residents are in favor of the new ballot initiative, the plant currently regulated like heroin and ecstasy could be almost as legally available as a bottle of liquor.
Almost. Although the ballot question would allow for adults 21 and older to possess and consume marijuana, the new law, if passed, wouldn’t just produce a free-for-all. Language in the bill provides for the 2017 Legislature to make amendments and clarify technicalities it believes are too loosely written.
As is, here’s a look at what would be allowed, what won’t be allowed and how the proposed model would be different from Nevada’s current medical marijuana industry.
What a person 21 years of age or older could do:
• Legally purchase and consume, per day, up to one ounce of marijuana, or up to one-eighth of marijuana concentrates, like shatter, oil and wax. Total purchases could not exceed 2.5 ounces per two weeks. A registry that would prevent customers from hopping from dispensary to dispensary is being considered.
• Smoke or consume edibles on their own private property, including the front yard, backyard or inside a home or apartment.
• Smoke or consume edibles on the private property of others, and venues that obtain a license for marijuana use.
• Grow up to six plants per person for personal use, if that person lives more than 25 miles away from a medical marijuana facility. No more than 12 plants per household
What they could not do:
• Distribute the plant to those under 21 years old. Penalty: misdemeanor or felony, depending on the quantity of marijuana
• Smoke in a public place, like a park, sidewalk, community center, or on private property where it’s not allowed. Penalty: $600 fine
• Smoke or consume edibles in a casino or a bar. Gaming and marijuana don’t yet mix, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board. As a federally illegal substance, marijuana isn’t welcome in casinos, which are pushed to abide by federal laws in addition to state laws. With a liquor license potentially at stake, bars are likely to stay away from legal weed as well, said Joe Brezny, executive director of the Nevada Cannabis Industry Association. State Sen. Tick Segerblom said he plans to address the issue in the 2017 Legislature, to make it easier for bars to allow marijuana smokers. Penalty: $600 fine.
• Grow the plant on property that doesn’t belong to you. For renters and lessees, permission to grow marijuana would have to be approved by their properties’ landlords. First offense: $600 fine and a misdemeanor. Second offense: $1,000 fine and a misdemeanor. Third offense: Gross misdemeanor. Fourth offense: Category E Felony
• Establish a marijuana facility of any kind within 1,000 feet of a public or private school; or 300 feet of a community center, such as parks, churches, daycare centers, recreational facilities and playgrounds. Penalty: Permit would not granted
Establishing the marketplace:
For the first 18 months after the recreational marijuana question goes into law, current medical marijuana state registration certificate holders (dispensary owners) would have dibs on building new facilities for recreational marijuana. That includes new dispensaries, cultivation and testing facilities as well as manufacturing facilities for products like bongs, bubblers and pipes.
After that, the general public would be able to join the industry with their own facilities. But the Nevada Department of Taxation, which is overseeing and regulating the proposed marijuana project, wouldn’t be handing out licenses like candy, either. Licenses would be limited by county, based on population.
The rules: Counties with greater than 700,000 residents can have up to 80 retail marijuana store licenses. Counties with 100,000-700,000 residents can have up to 20. Counties with 55,000-100,000 can have up to four, and counties with less than 55,000 residents can have up to two.
Only Carson City and four of Nevada’s 16 counties currently allow for medical marijuana dispensaries. The other 12 counties banned it with a vote.
Nevada State Sen. Tick Segerblom said the same local and county government rules would be in place if Question 2 were to pass. Counties and local municipalities would have the right to vote on whether they want to allow recreational marijuana facilities, too.
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/oct/31/what-to-expect-if-nevada-legalizes-recreational-ma/
Biggest investment opportunity since 1933
THE MARKET HASN'T SEEN AN OPPORTUNITY LIKE THIS SINCE 1933
Tuesday, November 1, 2016 - 11:30am
by Michael Vodicka
1933 was an important year for U.S. investors. That was the year the 18th amendment was repealed.
This regulatory breakthrough accomplished two things. For one, it once again made it legal to drink a cold beer after work.
Then, it unleashed one of the best investment opportunities of the century, setting the stage for a billion dollar wealth transfer and giving birth to future global leaders such as Budweiser and Jack Daniels.
If you weren't around back then to capitalize, don't worry. Today, that same cycle is repeating itself.
Cannabis is being legalized all across North America.
In the United States, 25 states have adopted medical marijuana programs. Three states have legalized recreational consumption. The list of cannabis-friendly states continues to grow. Nine states are set to vote on cannabis initiatives on Election Day (November 8).
In Canada, medical marijuana is already legal on the federal level. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party are making it a top priority to also legalize recreational cannabis. It is possible an initiative could be voted on in Canada within the next 12 months.
In Mexico, it's already legal for citizens to carry up to an ounce of cannabis. In April, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto suggested implementing a national medical marijuana program. Although such an initiative still looks years away, it signals an important shift in sentiment.
This recent wave of legalization has given birth to the fastest-growing industry in North America. Market research firm Arcview is projecting North American legal cannabis industry sales to grow more than 200% in the next four years to $22.8 billion.
Just like in 1933 when the federal government repealed the 18th amendment, this billion-dollar wealth transfer is creating a great investment opportunity.
One way to capitalize is with U.S. stocks such as Terra Tech (OTC: TRTC)
However, cannabis use in any form, medically or recreationally, is still illegal on the federal level in the United States. That creates more legal risk for companies operating in the U.S cannabis industry.
A safer way to invest is looking north of the border into Canada. Canada's cannabis market is still a fraction of the size of the U.S. market. But unlike the United States, medical marijuana is legal on the federal level in Canada. This is an important distinction for investors looking to curb risk in this frequently volatile industry.
StreetAuthority Daily is your all-inclusive guide to the stock market,
http://streetauthority.com/node/30701065
Florida mmj opponents screw up bigtime
In a last ditch effort to try to persuade the Florida voters to go against the state’s medical marijuana initiative (Amendment 2) in the upcoming election, Drug Free Florida set up a last-minute robocall program last weekend to round up opposition.
Things didn’t go as planned.
According to a report from Sunshine State News, Drug Free Florida’s “Vote No on 2” campaign began calling voters during the wee hours of Sunday morning. Some people complained of receiving calls as early as 3am, while others said the phone was ringing off the hook until sunrise.
“We were not amused,” said Pensacola resident Judy Druener, who told SSN that the No on 2 campaign awakened her household at 4:38 a.m. “I’m sure there are rules for when political calls can and can’t be made, but even if there aren’t, who in their right mind would pay a firm to manage a PR campaign that thinks making oh-dark thirty robo-calls are a good idea?”
It wasn’t long after residents started receiving the early morning anti-marijuana wake-up call that the No on 2 Facebook page lit up with a legion of angry people, who seemed prepared to drag whoever was responsible for cramping the style of their Sunday slumber out into the streets of the state’s 67 counties and flog them with a wet rubber hose.
“Who in the world authorized robo calls this morning at 5am in Tallahassee? I am very upset,” one person wrote. “I take care of my elderly parents and unfortunately, when I receive a call at 5 am I immediately think something is wrong with their health. Surprisingly at church today others shared the same concern that had received the same early call. I would like an explanation!”
One woman even suggested the early morning call might cause some No on 2 supporters to switch sides and stand in support for medical marijuana.
“A call at 5 a.m. Might cause a YES vote from some folks. Know it upset me. Very thoughtless move,” she wrote.
After catching a lot of heat from a mob of miffed Floridians, the No on 2 campaign took to its Facebook page to offer an apology.
“Our sincerest apologies to those voters who inadvertently received a recorded call during the early morning hours on Sunday,” the Vote No on 2 campaign said in a statement. “It was not our intention to have those calls made at that hour. These calls were supposed to be made starting in the early PM and were mistakenly sent in the early AM. We are very sorry for the inconvenience.”
A spokesperson for the No on 2 campaign told SSN the calls were supposed to be made between noon and 7 p.m.
There is only about a week left before the Florida voters hit the polls to decide whether the state should legalize a comprehensive medical marijuana program through Amendment 2. So far, the majority of the polls show more than 70 percent support on the issue. This is good news considering that Florida law forces ballot measure to receive 60 percent support. Incidentally, Amendment 2 failed back in 2014 by a measly two points.
http://hightimes.com/news/anti-medical-marijuana-campaign-screws-up-bigtime-in-florida/
Agreed. Negative ads are a waste of money.
We the people vote for what we think is right
Nevada has mmj and prostitution. How'd that pass ?
Who believes that reefer madness propaganda ?
Does anyone vote based on those goofy ads ?
60 minutes prolly has pharmaceutical sponsors
I thought the part about the thc babies was bad.
Everyone should know by now, you shouldn't drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or mj. And even taking some prescription medications like pain killers etc could be risky when you're pregnant. Even if it is legal.
Just don't do it.
Industry leaders provide cannabis election insight
By: Mitchell Colbert The Leaf Online
Though 2016 offers the public two rather lack-luster candidates, one who is clueless about online security and is still under an FBI investigation, and the other so utterly-uncouth it would be an insult to the English language to list all of the ways he is unfit to be President, there are still very important reasons to get out and vote, especially if you want to see legal cannabis in your state.
In an election which could “determine the future of pot in America,” a total of nine states will be voting on cannabis-related issues. The Cannabist reports that “Five states — Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada — will consider legalizing the recreational use of pot. Three others — Florida, Arkansas and North Dakota — will decide whether to permit marijuana for medical purposes. Montana will weigh whether to ease restrictions on an existing medical marijuana law.” Should those five states all vote to legalize the adult use of cannabis, fully 25% of Americans will live in states with legalized cannabis. Tom Angell, founder of the advocacy group Marijuana Majority, has commented on the “unprecedented number of marijuana initiatives on ballots this year,” and his website which tracks support for legalization is showing 88% of Americans supporting medical cannabis and 58% supporting adult use.
Nate Bradley, Executive Director of the California Cannabis Industry Association
“The passage of Proposition 64 will allow a regulated and professionalized cannabis industry to expand tenfold. I expect there will be millions of new jobs added to the nation’s economy.”
Derek Peterson, CEO of Terra Tech
“The growth of the cannabis industry is inextricably linked to regulations surrounding the plant on municipal, state and federal levels. While cannabis is still listed on the federal drug schedule, the numerous legalization measures set to be voted on in November will likely play a major role in the growth of the space. California’s legalization measure, Prop 64, is quite likely to pass, in which case we’ll likely see the creation of a tremendous number of new job opportunities, ancillary markets, and innovative businesses throughout the state. It’s my hope that California voters will look at Prop 64 as the comprehensive, safe and sensible ballot measure that it is and vote in its support next month.”
Pantelis Ataliotis, President of Dr. Dabber
“Nevada’s cannabis industry, while it’s certainly growing at an admirable rate, will expand to a tremendous size if Question 2 passes in the state. We’ve had a 400% increase in staff since January 1st as demand in the cannabis industry continues to grow, and I find it very unlikely that the trend towards general growth in the space will slow down anytime soon, especially if states such as Nevada legalize recreational cannabis.”
John Ryan, Director of United Life Science
“Based on our experience, when hemp was legalized in Kentucky this led to the initial deployment of $4M into the state which increased farmland productivity. We also spent a considerable amount of capital buying equipment from local stores and purveyors in very rural areas. We’ve now raised another tranche of significant capital and have added 6 full time payroll positions in KY, as well as 2 part time positions, and 2 in California. I would assume that further legislative endeavors will only increase the amount of investment in the space therefore creating income for local economies, jobs, and the potential of taxable revenues.”
Steve Gormley, CEO at Seventh Point LLC
“This November, voters in 9 states will decide on a wide array of propositions concerning recreational and medical marijuana. Voters in Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada will determine whether adults have the right to use recreational marijuana. Voters in Arkansas, Florida, Montana and North Dakota will decide if patients with illnesses best treated with cannabis products will be allowed legal access to their medicine. In all 9 states, lawyers will make a killing as a result of the potential new laws. I think it will take some time for the measures, if passed, to generate meaningful growth in the jobs within the industry. I certainly think California will likely be the biggest beneficiary on the jobs front, assuming Prop 64 passes.”
Anthony Franciosi, Founder of Honest Marijuana
“I find it quite likely that at least one state-specific legalization ballot measure will pass next month, if not more. Colorado’s industry at large, not to mention its entrepreneurial spirit, grew a tremendous degree when the adult recreational use of cannabis was made legal, and I have every reason to believe that other states such as California and Nevada will see similar gains.”
http://theleafonline.com/c/activism/2016/10/industry-leaders-provide-insight-2016s-cannabis-election/
5 cannabis stocks to invest in before election day
#4 TERRA TECH
KATIE MATLACK
October 28, 2016
#4 Terra Tech. (OTCMKTS: TRTC). Terra Tech, based in Newport Beach, Calif., is the only publicly traded American company that touches every aspect of the cannabis life cycle. These folks have four subsidiaries in diverse segments of the industry: Edible Gardens (local and sustainably-grown hydroponic produce), MediFarm LLC (medical cannabis businesses in Nevada), IVXX LLC (medical cannabis-extracted products for regulated medical cannabis dispensaries throughout California), and Blum, a dispensary company acquired just last quarter. Blum, originally based in Oakland, has recently expanded to Nevada, where it’s opened one Las Vegas location and has seven more planned. Terra Tech offers everything from its Half Caked line of edibles to Whoopi Goldberg’s line of cannabis claiming to alleviate menstrual cramps. A downside: Since they’re close to the flower, TRTC isn’t traded on a major exchange. Until the DEA reclassifies marijuana from a schedule 1 drug, it’s not likely to be. While it’s listed in the OTC Market Group’s OTCQX Market, which OTC says does not list penny stocks, the fact is that shares were recently trading at $0.41, which technically meets even the most generous definition of a penny stock. If you’re determined to invest in the front lines of the industry, even though doing so is very risky, Terra Tech may be the most established public company in a highly speculative space.
After Nov. 8, when voters in nine states will consider some form of cannabis legalization, the cannabis stock investment market may explode. If you’re feeling like you’d like to get in on the ground floor, consider Nov. 9 the day the street-level doors will be barred.
Want to jump in now? Be careful. Investors are already rushing into the market. According to New Cannabis Ventures, which tracks a large portfolio of cannabis stocks, marijuana-related equities have, on average, more than doubled in price since September 1. Many of those stocks are extremely volatile, however, and may plummet just as quickly as they’ve risen.
We’ve compiled this list of the largest, most stable and legal cannabis companies open to public investment. The article that follows should not be construed as investment advice; we are merely musing on an extraordinarily interesting and timely topic. Invest in these cannabis stocks at your own risk.
#1 Canopy Growth Corporation. [TSE: CGC] Canopy Growth is the parent company that owns Tweed, Tweed Farms Inc., and Bedrocan brands. Tweed is a commercial grower licensed under Canada’s Marihuana for Medical Purposed Regulations program (for people with chronic and terminal illnesses). Bedrocan is a Dutch company that, true to its roots in the third largest agricultural exporter in the world, offers pharmaceutical-grade cannabis under federally-regulated cannabis programs worldwide, and helps advance research, by licensing its technology and partnering with people and organizations. Canopy Growth produces and sells cannabis oil products and edibles, and the future up north is bright: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has declared he’ll soon legalize, tax and regulate marijuana — the implication being that legal adult-use cannabis, and a broad customer base, may be just over the horizon.
#2 GW Pharmaceuticals. [NASDAQ: GWPH] This British biotechnology firm manufactures pain drugs using compounds present in cannabis. GW Pharma has developed a multiple sclerosis treatment product, and has another in the works to treat children with severe epilepsy. Just a few months ago GW raised $252 million on Wall Street, with Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs serving jointly as the major underwriters for the raise.
#3 Microsoft. (NYSE: MSFT) Perhaps you’ve heard of this little Redmond, Wash., software company. With its purchase of Los Angeles-based Kind Financial earlier this year, Microsoft now offers software to track marijuana plants from “seed to sale.” It seems Microsoft is looking to liven up its revenue streams and image, in light of its dwindling desktop software business and its recent retrenchment of its geek bonafides with its acquisition of career social networking site LinkedIn. Kind Financial had long been a commercial client of Microsoft’s; Kind now works through Azure Government, Microsoft’s cloud platform with security and compliance protocols tailored to meet needs of organizations with heavy government oversight. The downside: Kind Financial’s cannabis-focused products contribute an infinitesimal bump to Microsoft’s bottom line, so this isn’t a pure cannabis growth-market play. The upside: It’s Microsoft. They’re not going out of business tomorrow.
#4 Terra Tech. (OTCMKTS: TRTC). Terra Tech, based in Newport Beach, Calif., is the only publicly traded American company that touches every aspect of the cannabis life cycle. These folks have four subsidiaries in diverse segments of the industry: Edible Gardens (local and sustainably-grown hydroponic produce), MediFarm LLC (medical cannabis businesses in Nevada), IVXX LLC (medical cannabis-extracted products for regulated medical cannabis dispensaries throughout California), and Blum, a dispensary company acquired just last quarter. Blum, originally based in Oakland, has recently expanded to Nevada, where it’s opened one Las Vegas location and has seven more planned. Terra Tech offers everything from its Half Caked line of edibles to Whoopi Goldberg’s line of cannabis claiming to alleviate menstrual cramps. A downside: Since they’re close to the flower, TRTC isn’t traded on a major exchange. Until the DEA reclassifies marijuana from a schedule 1 drug, it’s not likely to be. While it’s listed in the OTC Market Group’s OTCQX Market, which OTC says does not list penny stocks, the fact is that shares were recently trading at $0.41, which technically meets even the most generous definition of a penny stock. If you’re determined to invest in the front lines of the industry, even though doing so is very risky, Terra Tech may be the most established public company in a highly speculative space.
#5 Scotts Miracle-Gro. (NYSE: SMG) The name may ring a bell, but this ain’t your momma’s Miracle-Gro. Mired in stagnation after the Great Recession, in 2013 Miracle-Gro was reborn, after CEO Jim Hagedorn made a call to go after an emerging market—cannabis growers. Considering the company’s shares increased 13% in the past year, he seems to have made the right choice. And he’s all in: Last year Hagedorn invested $135 million in two CA-based fertilizer, soil, and accessory companies; spent $120 million on an unnamed lighting and hydroponics company in Amsterdam; and says another $150 million of investment in the industry is coming down the pike this year. An established corporate powerhouse in the lawn and garden industry, led by a CEO who’s in his element making bold moves? Seems ideally suited to the risky but potentially lucrative opportunity cannabis presents. Leadership of few other old-guard brands can stomach such acrobatics but Hagedorn, a Cold War fighter pilot who in his youth lived on radical communes doing drugs, seems right at home, and controls enough of the company to be able to call most of the shots. In its Pot Era, the company’s hydroponics arm has seen sales that are quadruple the growth rate of the rest of the company, and as a whole Scotts Miracle-Gro has operating margin projections projected to be nearly 30% higher this year than the company average. The company is researching a line of branded pesticides designed for pot (at the moment many growers are using corn pesticides, to the consternation of public health officials). An early signature product to watch for? Black Magic potting soil, which costs more than twice as much as regular potting soil, and ran TV ads during the NBA Finals last spring.
https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/cannabis-stocks-investment-before-election-day