The End is Near - Feds Coming in.

[canaguy27]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ar27ChFKqA&feature=fvst[/youtube]

Crackdown On Colorado’s Medical Pot Business On The Horizon


DENVER (CBS4) – Federal authorities are planning to crack down on the medical marijuana business in Colorado on a large scale for the first time.
Warning letters will be going out to dispensaries and grow facilities near schools, CBS4 investigator Rick Sallinger has learned. So far it’s not clear how soon that will happen.

Dispensaries that receive the letters will be given 45 days to shut down or move operations. If they don’t comply, they will be shut down by the U.S. attorney in Colorado.

The dispensaries who are set to be targeted are the ones that are located within 1,000 feet of schools. That measurement is being used because that distance already appears in federal law as a factor in drug crime sentencing.

The move comes after the Justice Department sent out a memo clarifying that marijuana has been and remains illegal under federal law despite what has taken place with state regulations. Colorado is one of 16 states where medical marijuana laws have been approved.

Many of the state’s dispensaries that are closer than 1,000 feet to a school have already been approved to be there under local laws. They usually have been grandfathered in.

That’s the case with the dispensary Rocky Mountain High at 3rd and University in Cherry Creek North. It’s located within of Bromwell Elementary School, but was grandfathered in under Denver municipal laws.

Bromwell Principal Jody Cohn told Sallinger she thinks a crackdown on the dispensary is “vital for the safety and the security of our students and our community.”

CBS4 found several other examples of dispensaries that are clearly within 1,000 feet of a school in Denver. One called Med Stop that was also approved by the city is diagonally across 8th Avenue from a school. A measurement by Sallinger showed is was only 161 feet away. Two dispensaries were also spotted right down the block from Morey Middle School.

Robert Corry, an attorney who represents dispensaries, said medical marijuana operations are now strictly regulated under Colorado state laws.

“The federal apparatus here has better things to do,” said Corry. “My reaction would be the federal government is essentially declaring war on the voters of our state (who) passed a Constitutional amendment.”

U.S. attorneys in California recently announced in a separate medical marijuana crackdown that they would be targeting landlords who rent retail space to dispensaries, as well as dispensary owners themselves.

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2011/12/14/crackdown-on-colorados-medical-pot-business-on-the-horizon/

 

[Phaivor]

fuzzy you there

 

[cannarado]

Didnt they say the same thing in CA? They havent done shit from what ive seen

 

[fuzzy]

pharmacies

Ok, this may be a stupid Q, but how many pharmacies are near schools?CVS, Walgreens?And, dont you have to be of certain age and have a med card to go in 1?Just Sayin! peace,fuzzy

 

[Phaivor]

Ok, this may be a stupid Q, but how many pharmacies are near schools?CVS, Walgreens?And, dont you have to be of certain age and have a med card to go in 1?Just Sayin! peace,fuzzy

As I im a new user, I may only send private messages to administrators. It said I may not send this message to the following recipient(s):
fuzzy

Hello fuzzy, i have chosen to add you as a friend because you also use the UnderCurrent like myself, the friends I have on this site are from Michigan or UnderCurrent users, the friends that are nether MI or UC users are the brains of this site. I only like to be friends with people that already have something in-caiman with me, now about Strikeitrich im sorry you had to meet that kind of person on here but i dont know him and hope he is gone for good. Thanks for the holiday greetings my new friend and have a wonderful Christmas & a happy New Year :passingjoint:

 

[fuzzy]

I see u P.Do u need more post before pming?Sorry bout that cannaguy,peace,fuzzy

 

[Phaivor]

I see u P.Do u need more post before pming?Sorry bout that cannaguy,peace,fuzzy

most likely i need more post, it says I im to new.

 

[Illmind]

here's how the letter from dept of justice read: we dont care what you people want our interests come first and big pharma is taking a hit with all these alternatives and while we're too lazy and incompetent to enforce the fed laws we will still send u threatening letters and everytime something negative happens involving a dispensary we will magnify it by 20x and put it on the news. sincerily yours, dept of justus

 

[true grit]

Hmm... seems like an attempt thats not reaching too far considering drug laws in the US and fear of children consuming. Now if the memo had said it was going after all sorts of shit for no reason that could be something.

Didnt see any mention teh fact the Rep. Polis asked Holder last week about the Fed's stance on MMJ and CO enforcement, to which Holder replied with teh heavy regulation at the state level (unlike any other med state), that CO is on the low end of enforcement and not a priority to the Fed like Cali is.

 

[Illmind]

they act like kids couldn't get pot without mmj clubs err something. and when does parenting, and the fact that not everyone who smokes cannabis is gonna like it come to play? and the real truth is me myself, i'd rather my kid got mj from a club because they sell clean buds. laced mexican schwag and spice are better alternatives? kids are dieng off spice why? because they prob couldn't get real pot. now im not saying open dispensary in school zones just stating facts. n who r the ignorant ppl making a fuss about it? reagan zombies. those ppl think pot is sched 1. which is the 'will suck dick or rob my mother for these drugs' category.

 

[Texas Kid]

You can hardly say that what they did in Cali had no effect at all.. despensaries have closed down in mass in alot of cities and every one is under a much greater level of scrutiny in the last 90 days as well as owners and landlords being at odds all the laws in the land..pretty much anybody with some real money in the game is shakin in their boots, no one is relaxed at all.

This is also the first time you have seen the IRS invoke the 208c rule and disallow all business realated deductions for despensary owners and operators. This is goin to have a devestating effect on the entire industry as a whole but especially in Colorado where the state mandated the production busness model that has the highest most insane overhead any business could ever have.. If you can not right off your million dollar production facility with 20 employees, $20k a month in electricity, $10k a month in rent, $10k a month in attornies fees, no permit fees, no liscence fees, nothing at all, it is not a good legit business at all...mass exodus to follow.

I really like how the state used 500ft from a school as their measure of compliance but the federal guidlines are 1000ft and I can already hear the feds laughing histerically at all the "grand fathered in" talk..

I can think of quite a few that violate the school rule/ plus it applies to churches that offer day care or even after school programs..this will pretty much wipe out all the despensaries north of Boulder, best I can tell Garden City will be the last strong hold...the ones in Dacano seem to be OK for now but thats it in the north.

Tex

 

[Dorje]

i'd rather my kid got mj from a club because they sell clean buds. laced mexican schwag and spice are better alternatives?

Maybe someday this will be fact but right now it's a gamble that mmj in a dispensary is going to be cleaner than brick mexican. I've heard horror stories of disps using pesticides improperly...





Also... on topic... I believe in the concept of dispensaries, but unfortunately it isn't working well. Seems like we have a lot of sociopaths running them, and we would be better off without them around. So fuckit, I hope they all get shut down. It was an interesting experiment, but ultimately human nature fucks it all up.

 

[squiggly]

Hmm... seems like an attempt thats not reaching too far considering drug laws in the US and fear of children consuming. Now if the memo had said it was going after all sorts of shit for no reason that could be something.

Didnt see any mention teh fact the Rep. Polis asked Holder last week about the Fed's stance on MMJ and CO enforcement, to which Holder replied with teh heavy regulation at the state level (unlike any other med state), that CO is on the low end of enforcement and not a priority to the Fed like Cali is.

Having grown up age 9-20 as a drug dealer on the south side of Chicago (not proud of this whatsoever, quite ashamed actually) I can say that the laws which went into effect regarding 1000ft distance from school were garbage to begin with. The fear was that big scary drug dealers were preying on schoolchildren and trying to hook them on drugs.

The fact is that it always has been, and always will be, little Johnnie Doe from down the street who is selling drugs to the youth of America. I know because that was me. I'm also not just speaking from experience--there have been NUMEROUS studies done demonstrating that this is the case in many different countries. I grew up in cook county, the county in which the ratio of drug arrests:all arrests is the highest in the US--something like 65% if memory serves.

That said, having REALLY screwed my life up early on during this process (not legal trouble per se, more a loss of character/self-worth) I can say I wish that drugs were sold at the gas station when I was growing up. I do not know where money would've come from to pay the bills--my brother ushered me in to the business after already having been filling the family's needs for years (he, my mother, and I)--but then again, I probably shouldn't have been worried about that when I was 9.

What I do know is that I would've taken another route--not by choice but by force. The little guy has no chance of out-selling Marlboro marijuana. I was the little guy, and I wish I hadn't had a chance--I might've found my calling in chemistry earlier, and I certainly would've graduated by now. Despite selling my first bag of coke at 12, and completing my first large purchase around 13--it was still 3 years before I was able to easily access alcohol and cigarettes. Even then I only did so from people who had broken the law and provided me with those things (presumably bar codes/security footage could've been used to identify said parties had I been caught). All you need to obtain illegal drugs in the US is to know someone who will give them to you--and that is a huge problem.

I take the position that all drugs should be legalized. Punishments for crimes committed under the influence of drugs should be greatly increased in severity to partially offset negative effects (of which there are sure to be many).

Many pro-MJ activists are misled and want MJ to be legal because they like it and find that it is harmless. That may well be true, but the argument is born out of desire rather than reason in most cases I've encountered.

Those who would see it legalized for medical purposes are on track, as there has been well-documented evidence of medical benefit. This argument uses sound reasoning and I'm glad to see all the progress that's been made (despite setbacks like these).

From my perspective the problem is two-fold:

First, the government has enacted/upheld laws banning drugs to protect us from ourselves. The idea is that, without these laws, we would be unable to as a society resist their sweeping negative impacts. From my perspective it is not the government's place to make such a decisions, for fear of what sweeping effects such methodologies might bring forth. For instance: creating a society where it's possible for 9 year old to be told by his brother that selling drugs is the best thing to do for his family (I take full responsibility for my own actions, this is merely conjecture)--or creating a black market wherein drug violence and gangs emerge putting the every day citizen at risk.

Why should joe schmoe have to deal with the world that creates when he didn't need protection from himself, when HE would've made the decision to be drug free. How do we know the problem of junkies buying heroin at a gas station and robbing a house high wouldn't be better than that? I believe the government's business is solely to create fixes to problems which do not create similar problems (that's my opinion). Creating *new* problems is okay, but why create crime to avoid crime?

Second, the government has decided to attack the supply side of this black market. This partially drives the problems above--and it is also very stupid. Any idiot taking an economics 101 class could tell you why. A more advanced economist would tell you that, with inelastic demand (which drugs boast), interdicting supply actually increases the value of remaining supply exponentially.

I.E. you stop the Medayeen and you get the Zetas. You put John in jail and you make Jane rich (Javier takes Jane's old place). For the tiny amount which has been spent on demand reduction in the US, there has actually been a surprisingly positive result. The ratio of demand side spending to supply side is 1000000000:1 in this country. I literally have boxes of research on why this is bad in my closet, but it's so fucking dumb that I actually want to never explain any of it and literally type the word "stupid" hundreds of times in place of an explanation.

If you made an interactive flash of supply/demand mechanics, a kindergartener could figure this out in less than one minute--and I'm being really honest. (Shifting which line makes the number go to zero?) That is on the basic side, and the situation actually gets MUCH MUCH worse as it becomes more advanced.

Just to wrap up, some people might say it was my mother who failed me. To that I would say--my mother is a great lady and worked hard (as a high school math teacher, and a damn good one) to pay her bills. Ends did not meet, and she was too oblivious and naive to the world of drugs to figure out what my brother (and then I) was doing til much later in the game.

I do not feel so strongly about all of this because of what happened to me, nor for the things I've done which I wish I could take back. I care because I do not want this path to be open for my, or any of your, children in the future.

You know what the sad part is. All the people they're supposed to be protecting from themselves are doing the drugs anyway. The junkie still robs that house then ODs on the profits, we all still smoke weed, and liquor is a staple of the economy....err, i forgot--they brought that one back already.

 

[kolah]

and weed prices continue to drop here in CO.

 

[Illmind]

places i know well violence will be sky high if drugs were legalized i know this for a fact. methadon is legal h. love when someone tweaking on 120 mgs of methadon and xans is telling me they clean. that aint half as funny as the dope fiends that try telling u they been clean when they jus copt from u day before and now lol. they like 'o that wasn't for me' lol thatll b the day, a fiend goes n cops for someone else free.. <not happenin... denial is a maw fucka.

 

[JeromeGarcia]

...

This is also the first time you have seen the IRS invoke the 208c rule and disallow all business realated deductions for despensary owners and operators. This is goin to have a devestating effect on the entire industry as a whole but especially in Colorado where the state mandated the production busness model that has the highest most insane overhead any business could ever have..
Tex

Wrong. Colorado dispensaries are very aware and comply with the 280(e) tax code. This is apparently because the industry lawyers were adamant that dispensaries follow this rule. And it is one of the many reasons why so many are barely turning a profit.

 

[squiggly]

places i know well violence will be sky high if drugs were legalized i know this for a fact. methadon is legal h. love when someone tweaking on 120 mgs of methadon and xans is telling me they clean. that aint half as funny as the dope fiends that try telling u they been clean when they jus copt from u day before and now lol. they like 'o that wasn't for me' lol thatll b the day, a fiend goes n cops for someone else free.. <not happenin... denial is a maw fucka.

You can't know that for a fact--you haven't been everywhere. As for my neighborhood, violence would plummet and gangs would likely evaporate compared to their former selves. Almost all the violence and killing when I grew up was over turf, that's why I stayed off the street.

Most evidence that ever has been found suggests that petty crime rates will go up and violent crime rates go down--however that is only in the immediate effect. Studies go on further to suggest that petty crime rate will then fall back to normal levels (this stayed true even in Amsterdam where people from neighboring countries would come in and act complete fools).

Furthermore, my bet is that 25 years later drug addiction rates would drop DRASTICALLY. You make the stuff cool by making it illegal, this idea has been put forth and supported time and again. Rules are meant to be broken and all that.

Also, the idea isn't that you just make it legal and drop the issue. You make it legal and regulate it (perhaps even ration it), and you spend the huge amounts of wasted money spent on interdiction (which when you think about it goes right into drug cartels pockets if you consider the economic implications) on demand reduction. Needle exchanges, with recruitment centers for free rehabs located on site. Subsidize things that work, don't throw money at an immovable wall. We all know pot is ineradicable--that by itself begs our government to DO SOMETHING ELSE. It's not working, we've all known it since...well since Nixon a few months after enacting the controlled substance act formed a commission to determine its efficacy and the commission unanimously agreed the policy should be immediately repealed. While the results/proceedings are available in the library of congress, the commission was dismantled by nixon just after this position was shared with him and the results were never broadcast.

 

[motherlode]

Didnt they say the same thing in CA? They havent done shit from what ive seen

you havent been paying very good attention then - clubs closing down left and right

 

[JeromeGarcia]

...

That said, having REALLY screwed my life up early on during this process (not legal trouble per se, more a loss of character/self-worth) I can say I wish that drugs were sold at the gas station when I was growing up. I do not know where money would've come from to pay the bills--my brother ushered me in to the business after already having been filling the family's needs for years (he, my mother, and I)--but then again, I probably shouldn't have been worried about that when I was 9.

I'm calling BS. :)

Your post was VERY grammatically correct, and, to me, showed high intelligence and college level composition skills.

If that post was written on anything else, I would have been hard pressed to believe you lived such a hard young life.

Keep on doing whatever it is that is motivating you to overcome, and achieve such intelligence and class.

 

[Illmind]

yea if u were a scumbag like myself i dont believe your english lit skills would surpass the editor of the chicago paper. after a first grader proofreads my shit they say 'nigga iz u serious'? and u write fukin novels for replys lol. i'm exp u a book nerd. where i'm at experience wins out all day. i was a little disapointed your stats werent in the form of a graph. u make a good hypothetical arguement but i kno my surroundings. n drug dealers arent gonna just say it was good while it lasted time to go work for 300$ a week when u used to make that in 30 min. its a viscious cycle imo parents being more active in kids life would help most. all the fukups i ran with came from fukd up familys with the exception to prove the rule.