Felons involvement and costs of building a business in the new industry

Is it possible to get involved in the cannabis industry with a previous cannabis felony in a non med state? Would I be able to legally work in any part of the business? As a grower/care giver, consultant, any part of operations? If the answer is no, is there any way around the law? Could I use someone else as a silent partner, while I actually do that hands on gardening work?
Are my dreams shattered for possessing an oz of cannabis in my non med state, or can I get involved still? How? Please help me out.

iirc it depends on when it occurred.
good luck finding someone to incriminate themselves fronting for you tho'.
Colorado is certainly alluring.

@The Revolution-

Read up, then follow up on state rules/regs.

A place to start:

http://sensiblecolorado.org/amendment-64-faq/

Looks like I need to read up to aridbud.

Are you able to extract the relevant information you are pointing our friend to in the link you've provided?

this is what I came up:

"Nothing in A64 prohibits a person with a felony conviction from owning a company that obtains a license to operate a marijuana business. However, the rules and regulations for obtaining a marijuana business license under Amendment 64 will be created by the Department of Revenue and the local licensing authorities over the next year. These rules may or may not include a prohibition on persons with felony convictions obtaining a marijuana business license."

is this what should we be reading?

I always found the notion of banning felons with previous cannabis charges a bit ridiculous and malicious. Almost like big business are writing the laws to harm their main competition. Those people who grew and provided people with high quality product during the years of prohibition should not be prevented from participation. Those who were arrested and had their lives turned upside down during the years of prohibition have sacrificed a lot so people could smoke when there were no cannabis stores you could visit. Telling them it is still illegal to operate when everyone else has the right to is the biggest sucker punch ever. All cannabis rights advocates should be trying to keep these people included. Otherwise it just looks like "Well I got mine, to hell with you."

I agree. Been getting sucker punched for years. Some of the laws blow my mind. Baffled by the ridiculousness. I agree. Why punish ppl over and over. My felony "crime" was providing friends, relatives, and sick ppl with small amounts of cannabis. I wasnt trafficking or doing anything heavy weight. One of my felony charges consists of 2g of cannabis flower.

Six years from the date you got charged if you have a mj felony. Had a friend have to wait it out and grow under the radar until he could be permitted legally in to working at big facilities.

You can own a cannabusiness in WA with a single marijuana related felony I believe. One only.

The state puts no limit on our workers, but background checks are routine and you're going to have a very hard time getting hired.

There are no laws for medical. Felons get sick too... or abuse the shit out of the laws designed to protect sick people, same as most everyone else in this state. A little column A, a little column B. MMJ in WA is basically the black market by a different name.

I suppose I will have to look into the laws on a state by state basis as they will all be different. Im in a nonmed state for now. My one case included multiple felony possession charges. As I stated above one was for 2grams, another 4g, another 2oz. And 1 gram of hash

RespectGreen said:

Six years from the date you got charged if you have a mj felony. Had a friend have to wait it out and grow under the radar until he could be permitted legally in to working at big facilities.

Click to expand...

this in CO? have not been able to find that information...

SirStynk,

I just wanted to say I've noticed over time how generous you are with your time and knowledge of an industry that is becoming more and more competitive and unwilling to provide newbies with insight. While I understand both sides of this, I just want to say thank you.

I would PM but it wont let me. I remember back in the day on IC only required 50 posts but that's not the case right now.

Just a bit a background to give you an idea where I am coming from. I am experienced. Not just in growing but in commercial production. The new recreational market is what I need help with. I was a paralegal for quite a few years so I also understand the need for retaining counsel etc.

I am interested in the Oregon market. I understand your located in WA and WA is different. But legislators for Measure 91 in Oregon obviously looked and will look at both WA and CO to model their regulation.

1. I am worried about one of my partners. He had a Felony Burglary arrest 7 years ago that resulted in a Petty Theft conviction. It wasn't a burglary, he took a 80$ shirt from Macy's. They charged him so he would plea to Theft and not plea from a Theft to something lesser.

Will this be a problem? Or would it have been a problem in WA. I am aware all parties receiving a % of the company will need to take a fingerprint background check.

I'm sure someone will say, "why would any investor support a thief". I'm not interested in that opinion, the funds are already there and he is very trustworthy, we were all children once.

2. Can you list some of the rediculous regulation requirements WA came out with. Or a link to them?

I believe petty theft is a misdemeanor so he may have been charged with a felony but that doesn't matter he plead down, he is not a felon...

Critter said:

I believe petty theft is a misdemeanor so he may have been charged with a felony but that doesn't matter he plead down, he is not a felon...

Click to expand...

Thank you for your response. I am aware of this. I was a paralegal for a DA years ago.

Here's what I am concerned about:

FBI fingerprint background checks provide the inquirer with arrests and convictions.

So when the Oregon Alcohol Board is reviewing this and they see FELONY BURGLARY arrest, I would assume in most cases they would at least consider this as a case for denial. I am aware both WA and OR state denys based on Manufactoring and Distributing convictions going back 5 years.

You cannot expunge or seal fbi records as you may with most states.

Hey, thanks for the kind words. I like to help for the sake of helping but it still means a lot to me when someone takes notice And once you can do the PM thing, feel free to hit me up. I'm an open book. Same for anyone else.

Your partner would be fine here. He has a misdemeanor conviction outside the window they consider. Here are the current rules on criminal convictions as they relate to ownership in WA state I-502 businesses:

http://app.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=314-55-040

As far as ridiculous regulations goes, a lot of the more ridiculous state-side stuff was dealt with before most people managed to get into business. An easy example would be the way they broke down licensing - according to the original draft of the legislation, you couldn't "process" (which included harvesting and bagging for sale) without a separate license. A bunch of people got permits for agricultural land (cuz, you know, agricultural activity,) but processing is considered an industrial activity so they had to drop that license and then got halfway into their crops before they realized they were allowed to chop the girls down but they weren't allowed to trim or bag them. They would have had to pay a bunch of extra taxes and a markup to have someone else do it for them as the law was written. That was pretty funny... Except we got a processing license because we wanted to actually trim and bag up our own shit and now that they fixed their stupid mistake, all it's good for to us is making bubble hash. Mostly wasted investment. Anyways.

Most of the nonsense comes from locals though. The state's really just taking the taxes and most of the licensing responsibilities falls on local jurisdictions... and they can do whatever they want. Our most recent issue was that after our plans were approved and we started construction, someone from county building and planning came and put a stop work order on our building Friday afternoon and then was out of the office until the next Thursday because he was in drunk driving classes. He ended up making us cement over our floor drains, his logic being that since our business was OBVIOUSLY going to fail and the ONLY thing the property owner would be able to do with the building afterward was to rent it out as an auto body shop, we had to have gas traps on all our floor drains. Somehow he'd only figured that out after we'd excavated, too. Gas traps, by the way, are horrible for grow ops. All the fine sediment from the potting media that washes out gets trapped and starts molding under your floorboards. Talk about dumbest engineer ever... but he got what we wanted and we had to say "yes sir!" Now we're doing something weird with digging trenches in concrete floors, grating over them, and running pumps to move all the water above ground and out of that bastard's jurisdiction. Sucks and is more expensive but it's not nearly what it would cost to install a bunch of mold factories.

So there's a couple tasty ones for ya. There have been dozens. If you wanna become an owner/operator, get used to the taste of shit sammiches. You're gonna eat a lot of em.

Thanks for your response.

Is there a website with a majority of those regulations listed?

How do they view co2 burners?

Yeah, the one I listed has it if you click back to WAC 314-55. That's the current full text of WA's marijuana law and I just linked you the excerpt that had to do with criminal convictions and ownership.

http://app.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=314-55

CO2 burners are one I've looked in to. We're using them. OSHA has a LOT of rules about those, so pay close attention to L&I laws in WA (we work under more restrictive worker safety laws than federal standards in this state) and OSHA regulations if interested in working in CO. WA Ag doesn't care, the city of Denver does care, and something like 75% of the legal pot businesses in CO are in Denver, basically meaning they're not kosher in CO.

Basically the regulations for this industry are all over the place. I have federal plumbing codes saved side by side on my laptop against Washington Industrial Safety and Health regulations (our version of OSHA) and mandatory disclosure forms to Ecology and the local Fire Department. You kinda have to start on the process to figure that out and then just move from one fire to the next as quickly and efficiently as you can.

Thanks again for your insight.

Whats your opinion on retaining an attorney for the licensing process vs doing it yourself?

A friend of mine who acquired a license in WA paid to have to done but advised me that I could do it myself with no complications.

The licensing process is the least of your troubles. Don't pay an attorney for that. Have them set up your corporation and get a UBI, have them check over the terms of your lease, and maybe have them check out your insurance package against the assets you have at risk. That's about it. The "licensing process," if the attorney is referring just to your contact with the LCB and Dept of Ag, is easy. That's 5% of your work. Most of what they're charging you for is playing middleman between you and the LCB, which is kinda bad at returning calls on schedule and jacks the attorney fees high. Spend their $250-300 an hour elsewhere and just make sure you find the right person who isn't going to claim he spent five hours when he really spent two. If you end up in Eastern Washington, feel free to PM me for a reference. We have a bomb attorney.

Of course, the benefit to having an attorney is any time you have a question, they can answer it if you pay them enough. That's an invaluable service. The problem is that "enough" is usually high enough of a bar that you want to figure it out on your own if you can. The things I just mentioned are ones you generally don't want to try figuring out on your own.