YUMYUMSYRUP
Member
how about michigan and maine...Im pretty sure about michigan, but maine ive heard both things so i dont know...^^^^^^
Looking to move to a medical state..Tell me about ur state
- Thread starter YUMYUMSYRUP
- Start date
Why does it rule?
If been wondering about Oregon myself. I hear it is 24 plants and 24 ounces.
T
thefatman
Not true the medical marijuana laws in this state are bullshit.
Yearly, according to the Department of Justice, Alaska arrests around 1,500 people for marijuana-related offenses.
Most growing busts, by arrest warrants or as a result of search warrants, in Alaska are orchestrated by State Police working in what is called the joint drug task force which can contain members from any or all Alaskan and Federal law enforcement agencies within the state. Even the IRS and University Police department(s) sends at least one agent when a search warrants or arrest warrants are executed so they can get a portion of the booty.
Then after indictment and arrests the growing or felony mj violation cases are now typically turned over to the Feds. It used to say in the sate law books that no law enforcement resources or state funds will be used to investigate marijuana crimes, but that the crimes could be enforced if the marijuana crimes are discovered during the arrest or invest of the perpetrator for ab nother crime (this included misdemeanors or crimes where only citations are usually issued).
Medical Marijuana Users
Alaskans voted in medical marijuana laws in 1998. If a patient suffering from chronic pain, HIV or AIDS, epilepsy and other disorders characterized by seizures, cancer, cachexia, MS, and other disorders characterized by muscle spasms or nausea receives documentation from a physician that they ‘might benefit from the medical use of marijuana, than that patient or their primary caregiver may legally posses and cultivate marijuana. By law, they may possess 1 oz or less and cultivate 6 plants or less, with no more than three being mature. All qualifying patients are put into a confidential state-run registry and are issued identification cards. In addition, medical users are exempt from the laws governing being within 500 feet or less of a school or recreational center if their home falls within that radius.
What medical mj growers is going to only grow 6 plants at a time and only harvest enough at a time to possess no more then one ounce at a time. I know many medical mj users who smoke at least one ounce per week. Each certified medical mj user can only have one permitted mj grower at a time.
Non-Medical Users:
Non-medical users can currently use small amounts of marijuana in their homes for personal use, although this decriminalization is currently being challenged by the state in court. It is still illegal for non-medical users to sell or cultivate marijuana.
Confidential state registry information is open to ALL law enforcement agencies or any other government agencies that have need for the registry information for official use.
To me that does not seem very confidential.
T
thefatman
By law California medical marijuana growers can not sell/distribute or grow for a profit.
11362.765. (a) Subject to the requirements of this article, the individuals specified in subdivision (b) shall not be subject, on that sole basis, to criminal liability under Section 11357, 11358, 11359, 11360, 11366, 11366.5, or 11570. However, nothing in this section shall authorize the individual to smoke or otherwise consume marijuana unless otherwise authorized by this article, nor shall anything in this section authorize any individual or group to cultivate or distribute marijuana for profit.
Considering the selling prices listed in other threads I take it that California is quite lax at enforcing the above under lined portion of the SB420 Senate Bill.
est1977
Active member
MT challenged several unconstitiutional issues including the "for profit" clause.
http://www.dphhs.mt.gov/medicalmarijuana/decision.pdf
"...SB 423 prohibit medical marijuana providers from "accept[ing] anything of value, including monetary remuneration, for any services or products provided to a registered cardholder..."
"The State has declared medical marijuana a legal product in Montana. It has established a licensing and distribution system through providers. Persons engaged in that activity subject to the licensing and other restrictions within the law are engaged in legal activities."
"The Court is unaware of and has not been shown where any person in any other liscensed and lawful, industry in Montana---be he a barber, and accountant, a lawyer, or a doctor--- who, providing a legal product or service, is denied the right to charge for that service or is limited in the number of people he or she can serve."
YUMYUMSYRUP
Member
i know in cali u grow for a profit..Hell they had a TV show about it..Guys says he makes 100k a yr just growing his herbs and selling it...I mean everyone that grow 12 or more plants is def making money..IMO
YUMYUMSYRUP
Member
Theres always 1 douchbag isnt there...GFU
YUMYUMSYRUP
Member
The laws are easy enough to look up.
What I would really want to know is what is the atmosphere like on the ground in each state/city. If a state has medical and the cops are still arresting people with rec's, I wouldn't want to move to a place like that.
What I would really want to know is what is the atmosphere like on the ground in each state/city. If a state has medical and the cops are still arresting people with rec's, I wouldn't want to move to a place like that.
YUMYUMSYRUP
Member
No record for me...thank god..
Colorado's medical pot business is for-profit, regulated – and thriving
Colorado's medical pot business is for-profit, regulated – and thriving
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/08/14/3836755/colorados-medical-pot-business.html
DENVER – After 15 years as a white-collar "corporate nomad," Dan Rogers found his new career in the thriving green-collar industry of Colorado, the only state in America with a for-profit medical marijuana market.
The equities trader and former investment banker now produces pot breeds "Reclining Buddha" and "Heartland Cream" in a converted printing press warehouse near downtown Denver.
In the nation's most heavily regulated medical cannabis industry, he also works under constant video surveillance.
Electronic eyes, required by Colorado's year-old Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division, track packaging of each shipment from Rogers' warehouse to his four marijuana stores, called Greenwerkz.
He submits product manifests and delivery routes for state approval. Still more cameras are recording as marijuana is unpacked and his state- licensed employees sell to state-registered patients.
"Everything from seed to sales is on video," Rogers said. "You need to know where every gram goes, where every plant is."
In Colorado, America's second-largest medical marijuana market behind California, marijuana capitalism flourishes under strict regulations approved by the state Legislature starting last year.
In California, dispensaries handling millions of dollars in transactions are supposed to operate as nonprofits – with medical marijuana users giving "donations" to "reimburse" operators and growers for costs.
Colorado stores simply pocket cash as profit. And, under new mandates that stores grow at least 70 percent of the marijuana they sell, weed industrialization is flourishing. It is happening despite U.S. Justice Department warnings over attempted large-scale cultivation in California or suspected medical pot profiteering in other states.
In Denver, the marijuana boom grows in old brick buildings and shuttered factories that only five years ago were being converted into artist lofts and live-work spaces for urban professionals.
A former truck and tractor parts factory now houses indoor farms for eight marijuana stores. Elsewhere, real estate broker John Wickens has leased a half-million square feet of space to medical pot entrepreneurs – including a 76,000-square-foot cultivation room for one store.
"This has helped the city tremendously," he said. "It steadied commercial real estate. There are buildings with 40,000 square feet sitting empty. Who else is going to take it?"
Denver interim city attorney David Broadwell said the city took in $3.5 million in marijuana sales taxes last year and hundreds of thousands in local licensing fees from 300 marijuana stores and other cannabis businesses. Colorado's medical pot market may be one-sixth of California's, yet Broadwell said Colorado's cannabis capitalism took the Golden State model "and put it on steroids."
The industry worries Tom Raynes, a former deputy state attorney general and local prosecutor who heads the Colorado District Attorneys' Council. He says Colorado pot businesses operate as an "assumption-of-risk industry" – doomed to collapse if the U.S. Justice Department, which considers all marijuana illegal, decides to intervene.
"I think they're inviting the federal battle," he said. "They're poking the tiger."
But Tom Massey, a Republican state representative from central Colorado who co-sponsored legislation regulating the industry, holds Colorado up as a national model, one that eased federal concerns by providing meticulous oversight to prevent diversion of medical marijuana to the illegal market.
"I think the feds are thinking that as long as we keep it for its intended use, they're going to turn a blind eye," he said.
Fees fund enforcement
In Colorado, where voters legalized medical marijuana use in 2000, fees on 730 retail stores and more than 1,000 cultivation centers and other cannabis businesses now fund the $10 million budget of the Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division. It is part of the Department of Revenue, which oversees the liquor and gambling industries.
Paul Schmidt is one of the division's medical marijuana G-men. An enforcement director in a black pinstriped suit, he drops in on marijuana stores and grow rooms, reviewing the security and integrity of sales transactions and cataloging plants marked for state counting with bar codes or special radio chips.
"It was really strange for me initially, because I used to call these people defendants," said Schmidt, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent who once directed federal raids on pot fields in Oregon. "Now I call them an industry."
With 55 employees and more than 30 compliance officers, the medical marijuana division licenses thousands of pot employees. Background checks ban anyone with a felony drug conviction from owning, investing or working in the marijuana businesses.
The state also registers all medical marijuana patients. Their numbers nearly doubled in a year to 130,000, with 20,000 more under review or rejected for improper paperwork. Last year, Colorado used $9 million in $90-per-patient medical marijuana program fees to help close a state budget gap.
Norton Arbelaez, a 31-year-old Tulane University law school graduate, is one of the emerging faces of Colorado's medical marijuana industry. He exuded professionalism as he led a tour of his River Rock store and cultivation center in a former Denver bus terminal building.
Before Arbelaez showed off his "Jack Frost Sativa" with its "very piney, very lush smell" or his "Bubba Kush" used by a favorite patient for her cancer symptoms, he pointed out his 32 video cameras.
Arbelaez and his partners invested $45,000 in surveillance, meeting state mandates that, by January 2012, will require all marijuana businesses to maintain 20 hours of video feeds that Colorado regulators can access online.
"We've waived our Fourth Amendment protections. We've given every piece of personal information to the state," he said. "It's Big Brother. Let's not kid ourselves."
Oversight costs are high
For Arbelaez and many others, it is also big business. He and partners invested close to $1 million in their retail and growing operation. They are only now close to turning a profit – but the future of his marijuana business looks prosperously green.
More than two dozen local Colorado jurisdictions have banned marijuana businesses. But in places such as Denver, Boulder and even conservative Colorado Springs, a medicinal Green Rush took off in 2009, before state regulation.
Denver's South Broadway Street was dubbed "Broadsterdam" or "the Green Mile" as pot shops opened in a frenzy. Dozens remain – mom and pop stores such as the Little Green Pharmacy with its shimmering neon marijuana leaf or the Little Brown House with its sign for "the house of the $5 joints."
"The model before (regulation) was embarrassing, uncomfortable, unwelcoming," said Alex Arguello, 25, who with two friends and his father later opened Colorado Wellness Inc., a dispensary and climate-controlled cultivation center. "I went into one business and there was a guy behind a black trash bag. He pulled it back and said, 'What do you need?' "
Arguello and partner Edward "Chuck" McLamb, who both came out of the jewelry and pawn shop business, are now comfortably operating in a state-licensed marijuana store. But many stores went under, unable to afford – or deal with – the demands and costs of new government oversight.
In Boulder, which took in $1 million in taxes and local fees on marijuana businesses in 2010, the college town that once teamed with more than 100 stores and grow rooms saw its industry shrink to an estimated 45 retail centers.
"There were a lot of people who got into this thinking this was going to be a real cash cow," said Michael Bellingham, 38, co-owner of the Boulder MM Dispensary, one of the city's original pot stores. "But a lot of them realized they were in over their heads."
Bellingham cashed out his 401(k) and borrowed from family members so he and his partner could outfit a warehouse to meet the state's marijuana store cultivation mandates. He said many stores merged with pot growers in shotgun marriages that were destined to fail.
Pair sells cannabis foods
State regulation offered the lure of legitimacy for Scott Durrah, an award-winning restaurateur known for his Caribbean-cuisine 8 Rivers eatery in Denver. With wife Wanda James, a marketing executive and leading Colorado fundraiser for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, they secured state medical marijuana licenses as "infused products" manufacturers.
Today, their Simply Pure kitchen makes cannabis foods – from marinara sauce and mango salsa to granola bars and gluten-free jam – for 285 Colorado marijuana stores.
"We grow all our own cannabis. We don't buy anything from anyone," James said. "We cook with 100 percent bud."
She said their regulated, professionally run kitchen and their personal standing in the community brought "a face to cannabis that people couldn't demonize."
But Rogers, operator of the Greenwerkz stores and two cultivation warehouses, decided he didn't want to stand out too much after Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole issued a memo June 29.
It said "large-scale, privately-operated marijuana cultivation centers" – even if legal under state laws – aren't immune from federal prosecution.
Rogers and his partners were considering buying two other medical marijuana retail chains – a deal that would have made them the largest pot provider in Colorado. They abruptly backed out.
"We decided there was no need to be the biggest," Rogers said. "We don't need to be the target. You don't want to poke the dog. We just walked away."
Colorado's medical pot business is for-profit, regulated – and thriving
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/08/14/3836755/colorados-medical-pot-business.html
DENVER – After 15 years as a white-collar "corporate nomad," Dan Rogers found his new career in the thriving green-collar industry of Colorado, the only state in America with a for-profit medical marijuana market.
The equities trader and former investment banker now produces pot breeds "Reclining Buddha" and "Heartland Cream" in a converted printing press warehouse near downtown Denver.
In the nation's most heavily regulated medical cannabis industry, he also works under constant video surveillance.
Electronic eyes, required by Colorado's year-old Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division, track packaging of each shipment from Rogers' warehouse to his four marijuana stores, called Greenwerkz.
He submits product manifests and delivery routes for state approval. Still more cameras are recording as marijuana is unpacked and his state- licensed employees sell to state-registered patients.
"Everything from seed to sales is on video," Rogers said. "You need to know where every gram goes, where every plant is."
In Colorado, America's second-largest medical marijuana market behind California, marijuana capitalism flourishes under strict regulations approved by the state Legislature starting last year.
In California, dispensaries handling millions of dollars in transactions are supposed to operate as nonprofits – with medical marijuana users giving "donations" to "reimburse" operators and growers for costs.
Colorado stores simply pocket cash as profit. And, under new mandates that stores grow at least 70 percent of the marijuana they sell, weed industrialization is flourishing. It is happening despite U.S. Justice Department warnings over attempted large-scale cultivation in California or suspected medical pot profiteering in other states.
In Denver, the marijuana boom grows in old brick buildings and shuttered factories that only five years ago were being converted into artist lofts and live-work spaces for urban professionals.
A former truck and tractor parts factory now houses indoor farms for eight marijuana stores. Elsewhere, real estate broker John Wickens has leased a half-million square feet of space to medical pot entrepreneurs – including a 76,000-square-foot cultivation room for one store.
"This has helped the city tremendously," he said. "It steadied commercial real estate. There are buildings with 40,000 square feet sitting empty. Who else is going to take it?"
Denver interim city attorney David Broadwell said the city took in $3.5 million in marijuana sales taxes last year and hundreds of thousands in local licensing fees from 300 marijuana stores and other cannabis businesses. Colorado's medical pot market may be one-sixth of California's, yet Broadwell said Colorado's cannabis capitalism took the Golden State model "and put it on steroids."
The industry worries Tom Raynes, a former deputy state attorney general and local prosecutor who heads the Colorado District Attorneys' Council. He says Colorado pot businesses operate as an "assumption-of-risk industry" – doomed to collapse if the U.S. Justice Department, which considers all marijuana illegal, decides to intervene.
"I think they're inviting the federal battle," he said. "They're poking the tiger."
But Tom Massey, a Republican state representative from central Colorado who co-sponsored legislation regulating the industry, holds Colorado up as a national model, one that eased federal concerns by providing meticulous oversight to prevent diversion of medical marijuana to the illegal market.
"I think the feds are thinking that as long as we keep it for its intended use, they're going to turn a blind eye," he said.
Fees fund enforcement
In Colorado, where voters legalized medical marijuana use in 2000, fees on 730 retail stores and more than 1,000 cultivation centers and other cannabis businesses now fund the $10 million budget of the Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division. It is part of the Department of Revenue, which oversees the liquor and gambling industries.
Paul Schmidt is one of the division's medical marijuana G-men. An enforcement director in a black pinstriped suit, he drops in on marijuana stores and grow rooms, reviewing the security and integrity of sales transactions and cataloging plants marked for state counting with bar codes or special radio chips.
"It was really strange for me initially, because I used to call these people defendants," said Schmidt, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent who once directed federal raids on pot fields in Oregon. "Now I call them an industry."
With 55 employees and more than 30 compliance officers, the medical marijuana division licenses thousands of pot employees. Background checks ban anyone with a felony drug conviction from owning, investing or working in the marijuana businesses.
The state also registers all medical marijuana patients. Their numbers nearly doubled in a year to 130,000, with 20,000 more under review or rejected for improper paperwork. Last year, Colorado used $9 million in $90-per-patient medical marijuana program fees to help close a state budget gap.
Norton Arbelaez, a 31-year-old Tulane University law school graduate, is one of the emerging faces of Colorado's medical marijuana industry. He exuded professionalism as he led a tour of his River Rock store and cultivation center in a former Denver bus terminal building.
Before Arbelaez showed off his "Jack Frost Sativa" with its "very piney, very lush smell" or his "Bubba Kush" used by a favorite patient for her cancer symptoms, he pointed out his 32 video cameras.
Arbelaez and his partners invested $45,000 in surveillance, meeting state mandates that, by January 2012, will require all marijuana businesses to maintain 20 hours of video feeds that Colorado regulators can access online.
"We've waived our Fourth Amendment protections. We've given every piece of personal information to the state," he said. "It's Big Brother. Let's not kid ourselves."
Oversight costs are high
For Arbelaez and many others, it is also big business. He and partners invested close to $1 million in their retail and growing operation. They are only now close to turning a profit – but the future of his marijuana business looks prosperously green.
More than two dozen local Colorado jurisdictions have banned marijuana businesses. But in places such as Denver, Boulder and even conservative Colorado Springs, a medicinal Green Rush took off in 2009, before state regulation.
Denver's South Broadway Street was dubbed "Broadsterdam" or "the Green Mile" as pot shops opened in a frenzy. Dozens remain – mom and pop stores such as the Little Green Pharmacy with its shimmering neon marijuana leaf or the Little Brown House with its sign for "the house of the $5 joints."
"The model before (regulation) was embarrassing, uncomfortable, unwelcoming," said Alex Arguello, 25, who with two friends and his father later opened Colorado Wellness Inc., a dispensary and climate-controlled cultivation center. "I went into one business and there was a guy behind a black trash bag. He pulled it back and said, 'What do you need?' "
Arguello and partner Edward "Chuck" McLamb, who both came out of the jewelry and pawn shop business, are now comfortably operating in a state-licensed marijuana store. But many stores went under, unable to afford – or deal with – the demands and costs of new government oversight.
In Boulder, which took in $1 million in taxes and local fees on marijuana businesses in 2010, the college town that once teamed with more than 100 stores and grow rooms saw its industry shrink to an estimated 45 retail centers.
"There were a lot of people who got into this thinking this was going to be a real cash cow," said Michael Bellingham, 38, co-owner of the Boulder MM Dispensary, one of the city's original pot stores. "But a lot of them realized they were in over their heads."
Bellingham cashed out his 401(k) and borrowed from family members so he and his partner could outfit a warehouse to meet the state's marijuana store cultivation mandates. He said many stores merged with pot growers in shotgun marriages that were destined to fail.
Pair sells cannabis foods
State regulation offered the lure of legitimacy for Scott Durrah, an award-winning restaurateur known for his Caribbean-cuisine 8 Rivers eatery in Denver. With wife Wanda James, a marketing executive and leading Colorado fundraiser for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, they secured state medical marijuana licenses as "infused products" manufacturers.
Today, their Simply Pure kitchen makes cannabis foods – from marinara sauce and mango salsa to granola bars and gluten-free jam – for 285 Colorado marijuana stores.
"We grow all our own cannabis. We don't buy anything from anyone," James said. "We cook with 100 percent bud."
She said their regulated, professionally run kitchen and their personal standing in the community brought "a face to cannabis that people couldn't demonize."
But Rogers, operator of the Greenwerkz stores and two cultivation warehouses, decided he didn't want to stand out too much after Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole issued a memo June 29.
It said "large-scale, privately-operated marijuana cultivation centers" – even if legal under state laws – aren't immune from federal prosecution.
Rogers and his partners were considering buying two other medical marijuana retail chains – a deal that would have made them the largest pot provider in Colorado. They abruptly backed out.
"We decided there was no need to be the biggest," Rogers said. "We don't need to be the target. You don't want to poke the dog. We just walked away."
It's still like the wild wild west out here when it comes to the profit thing, almost everyone I know that sells to the dispensaries makes a hefty profit. Same thing with the medical reps, most people are just scamming to get a card so they can legally buy weed. As far as people getting popped, it's usually the vietnamese that rent 30 house in several neighborhoods and then bypass the meter, some Mexican nationals growing acres on national forest land or some dumb ass that decides they are going to transport their stuff out of state. Outside of those 3 instances, pretty much anything goes. welcome to the wild wild west!
california- easy to blend in, very crowded lots of crime so a little grow isnt big on anyones radar....have to worry more about rippers and thieves than cops, although if you plan on running 40 lights or some big commercial operation the cops will still swoop in and rough you up if you arent super low key...local prices suck and housing and electric rates are high..so for margins to be good you gotta grow more more more and that just floods an already saturated market..
maine- good laws and close to the most expensive markets...however the locals are pretty tight knit and they are pretty aware of all the new out of towners flockin to their state to grow weed...but maine would probably be my first choice if i wasnt so entrenched in cali, i would highly recommend knowing someone in the maine area first before moving there...
CO- nice market model but the regulations are very tough and you gotta be a resident for 2 years to even get considered....i like their model and the big warehouses but its totally beyond the grasp of most basic growers...not alot of people have 1 million bucks cash to invest into something like this
Michigan - they get nice prices out that way, real cheap housing..but the cops and rippers out there are pretty rough i hear..
Oregon - nice plant limits and pretty lax law enforcement but the local market sucks you would have to move your shit to another state...shit i recently saw oregon buds make their way down to california to get sold in the summer drought..
WA- they got a nice system in place as well in certain counties...gotta make sure you live in the right one...they are allowed 15 plants per patient and can sell to the local clubs...again gotta watch out for cops and rippers because even though people think they are legal under state law YOU CAN STILL BE BUSTED AND CHARGED!! you can use the MMJ for defense but nothing is garunteed...
maine- good laws and close to the most expensive markets...however the locals are pretty tight knit and they are pretty aware of all the new out of towners flockin to their state to grow weed...but maine would probably be my first choice if i wasnt so entrenched in cali, i would highly recommend knowing someone in the maine area first before moving there...
CO- nice market model but the regulations are very tough and you gotta be a resident for 2 years to even get considered....i like their model and the big warehouses but its totally beyond the grasp of most basic growers...not alot of people have 1 million bucks cash to invest into something like this
Michigan - they get nice prices out that way, real cheap housing..but the cops and rippers out there are pretty rough i hear..
Oregon - nice plant limits and pretty lax law enforcement but the local market sucks you would have to move your shit to another state...shit i recently saw oregon buds make their way down to california to get sold in the summer drought..
WA- they got a nice system in place as well in certain counties...gotta make sure you live in the right one...they are allowed 15 plants per patient and can sell to the local clubs...again gotta watch out for cops and rippers because even though people think they are legal under state law YOU CAN STILL BE BUSTED AND CHARGED!! you can use the MMJ for defense but nothing is garunteed...
Maine is cool but the pressure from the MDEA has def been changing my motives
YUMYUMSYRUP
Member
R u in california??? I dont wanna be huge as i dont think i could ever manage more than 20-30 plants but i would have big plants so weight wouldnt be an issue..Yeah more and more i think about it cali would be the easiest place to go to but man is it exspensive living there i need to stay around 800a month for an apt..And in cali i think u can move there and be approved in a matter of days instead of mths or yrs at some states..
