[shaggyballs]

What do we know so far?

Caregivers are on a fast track to be eliminated.
Individual home growing is being eliminated or not included in the new laws.
Soon you will be forced to buy inferior dispensary cannabis for $20 a gram or go to jail, this is already happening in some states.

Lies and more lies are coming to the surface everyday.
This is why I state vote no to legalize cannabis or else. Read more here
People do not like when I say this but tough shit for them, let the truth be heard.

Did you know US Government Has Been Funding This Israeli Cannabis Researcher For 50 Years.
While the feds were throwing people in cages for weed possession in its escalation of the war on drugs - based on false pretenses, racism and suppression of the antiwar movement - another part of the government was funding medical cannabis research the entire time.
Israel is dubbed the United States’ “unofficial offshore medical marijuana research center,” with U.S.-based companies setting up research and clinical trials in Israel because “it’s essentially impossible to do it in the U.S.”
Source here

Rigged Game - Inequality On The Rise In Legal Pot Industry
Bill Piper, Senior Director of National Affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance stated “I’m very worried that we’re going to end up in a situation where there’s one market for white people and another market for people of color.”
But Ian Eisenberg as a white man with preexisting wealth, he is also uniquely situated to benefit from the tightly restrictive structure of Washington’s cannabis market. Eisenberg has not been shy about his aggressive pursuit of success in the cannabis industry and use of money and regulatory savvy to achieve it. He didn’t earn the “Brash King of Pot” title for nothing.
Further, he is open about the fact that he was not one of the original winners of the state’s licensing lottery, instead buying a controlling interest in another business that did win. Eisenberg has gone to great lengths to compete with rivals, even once opening an arcade in hopes of invalidating a competitor’s license. Though many call his business practices into question on ethical grounds, he operates within the letter of the law.
And that, perhaps, best illustrates where the problem lies.
Ollie Garrett states “If you only have 10 licenses,” he said, “the people with the best lobbyists and the most money are going to get those.” licenses are so coveted, wealthy investors were willing to buy them for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“There’s a sense that if we don’t deal with this situation now, it could be too late two, five, ten years from now,” said Piper. “This is an opportunity to change it before it happens, and there’s not too many opportunities to affect how an industry progresses.”
Hughes, reflecting on Washington’s situation, put it a little more directly: “It’s almost like it’s too late.”

California
Chrystal Ortiz-Beck says many growers in Humboldt County feel like “Budweiser and Coors and Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol and Big Ag are going to come in and wipe us off the map.”
“I’m not for the prostitution of the plant,” Chrystal says, “I’m not for the commercialization of the plant.”
I ask Chrystal if she plans to vote to legalize. She pauses a moment before answering. “I would say no,” she says, because of how it could impact small growers.

Michigan
Licensed dispensaries can only take marijuana delivered to them in an armored truck.
Yes, I said armored truck. They are required to transport every gram. Under the Michigan medical Marihuana Act, you and I can carry up to 15 ounces in our car trunk, safely, with zero concern and under sanction of law, provided you are fully carded. Under the new Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act, carrying even 1.5 grams of cannabis out of a grow house is a felony.
Shag says " 1.5 grams you go to jail for a felony, now that is just F##ked up royalty!"

The Lansing players who got the secure transport part of the bill inserted into HB 4209 are the smartest men in the game. Others make profit only once: a grower sells to a processor who sells to a dispensary, each making money only on the sale. The secure transport industry makes money taking cannabis from garden to oilman, then again to a medible manufacturer, then to a dispensary. Potentially three times or more the transport industry could be paid hauling around marijuana products- oops, I mean, three times the patient has to pony up extra cost to pay the transport industry to haul around what we normally carry in our car trunks. Thank you very much, MCDA, for advocating passage of a bill that creates advantage for millionaires and pain for sick people. All that extra expense is going to hurt patients. Hope the ill and injured forgive you when they are shopping in your dispensaries. I bet they will NOT.

Soooo, each armored car is tracked as it makes its way around town? Who monitors all those signals? Then, every marijuana buy is entered into a computer? Each patient could make multiple purchases of different items. That makes for potentially dozens- hundreds- of data entries each day, for every center. That is thousands of data entries each and every day. Only a big government program can handle this amount of date adequately.

But it gets bigger and more cumbersome than that.

Growers have to track all marijuana plants, batches of dried cannabis, waste, transfers, sales, returns and more- all using unique transaction IDs. Sounds like a huge system with plenty of opportunities for failure? You bet! Thanks, Republicans, the party of small government. It was Rep. Kesto who introduced the seed-to-sale tracking bill and invited all this extra government reporting. More costs occur in the administration of the program.

At the end of the day, the bill for all of this is carried on the price of the end product, and that price comes out of the pocket of people deemed to be among the most ill in the entire state. Thank you, Senator Rick Jones, for turning a functional marijuana system into a thing people will bail out of. The very uncomfortable new world of medical marijuana in Michigan is a lot meaner now. It is not a welcome change.

jesusofCAnnabis states "sounds like the State is getting ready to hand off the MMJ worries to big business."

Also doctors who certify patient recommendations are now being called into court to testify, but now the judge with no medical background can over rule a doctors decision.
Shag says "This implies the judge with no medical training decides if the patient gets their much needed medicine not a doctor, what the hell is that shit!"
There probably won't be any homegrown medical either in a few years. The state for sure wants to get rid of the caregiver system and home grows.

Cop will now get their cut of Cannabis profits...WTF!
Senator Jones also saw fit to give law enforcement up to 15% of the excise tax collected on medical cannabis sales! It pays to have friends in high places, especially if you’re a cop! But even that’s wasn’t good enough for some cops. Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard and a few of his peers in other jurisdictions wanted more and are threatening to ask the Governor to veto the bills!

Treetroit City states "Once the state is setup with dispensaries there will be no "need" for home growing."

morgandecaptain states "My guess is that marijuana penalties for breaking the new rules in this new system will be more harsh than before the MMMA was even voted in. The biggest sin of all will be cutting into corporate profits and the graft that the politicians enjoy. I've been saying this was coming for years and most people thought I was nuts."

Shag says "Everyone called me a traitor to the cause also, I would like those people to start eating crow ASAP."

Originally Posted by TheMan13

The play here is clear and that is regulatory capture. Sadly this game has become the life blood of every modern politician and lobbyist, The People be damned. It is also the problem within our Justice System which through equivocation of self interest has rendered MMMA and it's protections an absurdity replaced by (underfunded and lost) case law (aka common law).

Regulatory capture is a form of government failure that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. When regulatory capture occurs the interests of firms or political groups are prioritised over the interests of the public, leading to a net loss to society as a whole. Government agencies suffering regulatory capture are called "captured agencies".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

As this subversion tactic is literally a form of warfare, albeit conducted by cowardly elitists via cash and influence, it is still war. I've used the term "lawfare" over the years to describe this situation. Sadly no ballot will right this ship, as that is simply another subversion ruled by propaganda and ignorance. IMHO the only way The People will ever wrestle back their governments corrupted (captured) use of force will be with a righteous use of force, be it revolution or civil war. With 20 trillion dollars of debt currently strapped (taxed) to the backs of our future generations playing these games what choice will our children have?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion

Support politically active Cannabis AKA Seed PAC

To read more about the new laws, click here.

[Jellyfish]

bump

[soil margin]

Alcohol has HUGE amounts of industry regulation. Big time producers and distributors DOMINATE the market, but despite that domination, there are new craft breweries opening up every week in socal. Completely organic small businesses with no support just pop out of thin air and compete with big business, and guess what, it works out just fine. Mom and pop beer brands come out all the time, some succeed, some fail, just like with any other business.

So why are people so afraid of a little competition when it comes to cannabis? Because they got used to a protectionist monopoly and they know in their hearts they don't have the will and the determination to stand on an even playing field against fair open market competition. They know there are other people out there who are smarter and harder working than them, and they know their route to easy cash is quickly disappearing.

[shaggyballs]

Originally Posted by soil margin

So why are people so afraid of a little competition when it comes to cannabis?

Please take a good look at the facts, are people in WA. given a chance to compete fairly or even just keep what they once had?

Me:
Not afraid of competition, I am afraid of elimination!
That is the reality of the current situation, elimination not competition.
Fair competition is a great thing!
Low prices, no black market and more.
Some are not given such luxury.
The writing is on the wall bro, just take a moment out from the grind and have a read.

Oh, and respectfully is that all you took away from reading this post?
Please if you have the time, take it all in and even ponder it a bit.


Peace
Shag

[Jellyfish]

bump

[_tessarecting]

Soil margins just a troll, good post

[PDX Dopesmoker]

Oregon seems to be going the way of odious, unnecessary over-regultion as well. Our current recreational regulatory system, designated to go into effect on Jan 1, 2017 and costing roughly $100,000,000, is organized to comply with "The Cole Memo", which expires about 3 weeks later on Inauguration Day. For $5,000,000/day it better be hell of a good party.

[MJPassion]

Cituzens of States voting should ask for nothing short of a Constitutionally protected rights for individual growers. Anything less is going to be smeared in the voters faces.

What I find funny is the folks asking to be ruled over are getting exactly what they're asking for, then bitching about it or not caring about the remaining folks left out because.... well... I've got what I want so fuck yall!

FREEDOM FOR ALL!!

[Kozmo]

Freedom like tomatoes!

[FireIn.TheSky]

You had me up until the part about racial inequality in the cannabis industry.

I hate every time this gets brought up, you cannot force people of a specific color to be into something that they maybe are not interested in being a part of. Perhaps people of color are more into smoking weed than growing weed.

Thats like saying there is a gender inequality in the dress industry because mainly women like to wear dresses.