Economic Considerations: Colorado exceeds 5 million in recreational cannabis sales in one week

Here is an interesting documentary that explores the evolution of the coffee shop in Holland: (In 2005 I was lucky enough to spend three weeks in Amsterdam)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fIjWPh-86s

New York Leaders Reach Deal on Medical Marijuana

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and legislative leaders announced an agreement on Thursday for a pilot program to provide access to marijuana to sick New Yorkers, making the state one of the largest to embrace the drug’s use as medicine.

The announcement came after days of intense negotiations between the Legislature and Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, who had proffered a more restrictive system earlier this year that was roundly criticized as unworkable for thousands of potential patients.

The new agreement included a major demand of the Cuomo administration: that no smoking of the drug would be permitted, though a variety of other options — including edibles and tinctures — would be. Patients would also be allowed to inhale if the drug was vaporized, similar to e-cigarettes.

This is an article that argues the state run liquor stores should sell marijuana, because the sales model is already in place to sell restricted items, the tax collection is easier, and the revenue for the state is good:

State Store system perfect model for legalized pot

Personally I think the liquor stores should be in private hands...

Pot start-ups pitch to angel investors
there are 11 start-ups in total making their pitches, and they have put about $10 million to work in the 14 companies over just in the last 12 months, so really the first angel investors in this new industry.

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000286913

The last glorious day of the High Times Cannabis Cup

The ceremony was a low key affair, the most interesting points being the presentations of the High CBD Concentrate Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award. The former went to Plant Essentials and Cannabis Extracts, who won for an extraction of the high cannabinoid, low THC strain Charlotte’s Web. The plant is named after Charlotte Figi, the little girl whose epilepsy had nearly killed her before receiving medical cannabis. One of the members of PEACE arguing for other farmers to make cuts of their high CBD strains and share them among the community, so that the most patients possible could benefit.

Senator Sanes just passed more legislation to criminalize fake cannabis to incarcerate more people. Really Sam? When are you going to join the 21st century. Drug use is a victimless crime. Using drugs is a health issue. It should not be a crime. Put drug dealers out of a job and out of our prisons. The only people who should be in there are thieves, rapists, and murderers.
Look around Stx. Don't you see that we are desperate for industry? Marijuana will be legal one day. If we don't move now, we will be importing it from Seattle.
Can someone join me in removing this dinosaur from the senate?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAFu-Ihwyzg

A good debate with Montel Williams:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCWpZC0_0F4

Having not yet resided on STX, but seriously considering it, I find this thread interesting, although sometimes redundant. The arguments come from all directions--from a stab at the local conservative government's reactionary stance (Get with the times St. Croix!) to extolling the pot-ential economic benefits. Sometime back someone posted the suggestion that the backward not-with-the-times ambiance of St. Croix is part of its old-world charm--that some found slower pace, rutted roads and muddled infrastructure part of St. Croix's uniqueness. Moving into highrise, fast-paced modern times could alleviate many current problems, but create others. The creation of more jobs and a high employment rate in a bustling island economy may come at the cost of compromising the soul of your island. On the other hand, poverty sucks! I might be way off base, but I'd be wary of those who promote radical change without sufficient debate..

I lived for many years in a salty victorian town of 8000 in which the liberal element opposed all attempts to modernize ANYTHING. I went along with some of it, like keeping Walmart and Rite Aid out and preserving the Victorian architecture. We, the liberals, voted "NO" on a local bond measure to give the town's waterfront a "face lift' (new boardwalk, boutique shops, gourmet restaurants and other fru-fru). On other issues the same liberals advocated many new-fangled things like improved internet service, same Sex marriage, a police review oversight committee, and of course, legalizing Pot.
It's a balancing act trying to walk both sides of the fence. I think people should be free to smoke, but not free to blow it in my face. Same with politics, religion, sexual preference,
Having too many of laws on the books tends formalize and place a grid over our freedoms and in some ways restrict it. Laws that restrict our freedoms should be reserved for public safety issues and moderating behavior that the vast majority agrees is socially obnoxious.. You can't shoot people, you must stop at red lights, you may NOT play Wagner operas at full volume at 2:00 AM. etc. I suspect that if the laws prohibiting pot use were repealed, it would have little effect; it would not increase the number of users significantly. Making the sale legal would no doubt help some to improve the slumping economic conditions. Would bakeries under a new law be able to offer "special" brownies?

Sen. Nelson again pushes medical pot referendum

Sen. Terrence Nelson once again is pushing for a ballot referendum involving marijuana, this time to get voters' opinions about legalizing medical marijuana in the territory.

The bill will be heard in the Senate Rules and Judiciary Committee at 9 a.m. Thursday on St. Croix.

i have mixed feelings about this. i understand the revenue that could be collected and is much needed for the island, but i am just not sure about the legalization of yet another substance that alters your perception
i go back and forth every time i think about it

Do you think alcohol should be illegal too, then? If not for anything else, legalize marijuana (and all drugs, IMO) to remove the black market that is causing a lot of the violence around the World.

i just dont know, alcohol causes so much damage, not just physical. i know financially it is great and it of course cut down on the majority of illegal alcohol operations -bootlegging is how joe kennedy made his money, in the keys lots of people started legit businesses with illegal drug money.
i flip flop so much on this issue. if you ask addicts what drug they started with, it is usually pot/alcohol. is that good-no

i flip flop so much on this issue. if you ask addicts what drug they started with, it is usually pot/alcohol. is that good-no

Correlation does not imply causation. Addiction is going to happen no matter what the medium, and addiction is not limited to drugs, either. People are addicted to all sorts of things.

So you think it is better to punish an addict than try to rehabilitate?

And right on time an editorial from the New York Times about legalizing marijuana:

Repeal Prohibition, Again

It took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished. It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol.

The federal government should repeal the ban on marijuana.

We reached that conclusion after a great deal of discussion among the members of The Times’s Editorial Board, inspired by a rapidly growing movement among the states to reform marijuana laws.

There are no perfect answers to people’s legitimate concerns about marijuana use. But neither are there such answers about tobacco or alcohol, and we believe that on every level — health effects, the impact on society and law-and-order issues — the balance falls squarely on the side of national legalization. That will put decisions on whether to allow recreational or medicinal production and use where it belongs — at the state level.
We considered whether it would be best for Washington to hold back while the states continued experimenting with legalizing medicinal uses of marijuana, reducing penalties, or even simply legalizing all use. Nearly three-quarters of the states have done one of these.

But that would leave their citizens vulnerable to the whims of whoever happens to be in the White House and chooses to enforce or not enforce the federal law.

The social costs of the marijuana laws are vast. There were 658,000 arrests for marijuana possession in 2012, according to F.B.I. figures, compared with 256,000 for cocaine, heroin and their derivatives. Even worse, the result is racist, falling disproportionately on young black men, ruining their lives and creating new generations of career criminals.

There is honest debate among scientists about the health effects of marijuana, but we believe that the evidence is overwhelming that addiction and dependence are relatively minor problems, especially compared with alcohol and tobacco. Moderate use of marijuana does not appear to pose a risk for otherwise healthy adults. Claims that marijuana is a gateway to more dangerous drugs are as fanciful as the “Reefer Madness” images of murder, rape and suicide.

There are legitimate concerns about marijuana on the development of adolescent brains. For that reason, we advocate the prohibition of sales to people under 21.
Creating systems for regulating manufacture, sale and marketing will be complex. But those problems are solvable, and would have long been dealt with had we as a nation not clung to the decision to make marijuana production and use a federal crime.

In coming days, we will publish articles by members of the Editorial Board and supplementary material that will examine these questions. We invite readers to offer their ideas, and we will report back on their responses, pro and con.

We recognize that this Congress is as unlikely to take action on marijuana as it has been on other big issues. But it is long past time to repeal this version of Prohibition.

And here is a continuation of that editorial to an article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/opinion/sunday/high-time-let-states-decide-on-marijuana.html?opinion-series

1970, at the height of his white-hot war on crime, President Richard Nixon demanded that Congress pass the Controlled Substances Act to crack down on drug abuse. During the debate, Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut held up a package wrapped in light-green paper that he said contained $3,000 worth of marijuana. This substance, he said, caused such “dreadful hallucinations” in an Army sergeant in Vietnam that he called down a mortar strike on his own troops. A few minutes later, the Senate unanimously passed the bill

It will become more and more clear, as time goes on, that this is an unstoppable avalanche movement.

Once the reader disconnects their preconceived notions of Cannabis, it's use, and the effects it has on humans and reads current studies the topic becomes exasperatingly simplistic.

Prohibition does not work, it creates scarcity, which creates high profit, which creates black markets which funds crime, and other nefarious activities.

Why do we keep doing this to our selves?

eventually this will be looked back on as we look back on the prohibition of alcohol...

But, there IS a highly beneficial outcome for the early adopters; we could be one of those still.

Sen. Nelson's attempt at medical Cannabis is a cute "stepping stone" approach; but its going to be to-little to-late... sadly mostly due to the generational gap, heavily ingrained group thinking patterns (that the plant is in anyway bad.. ANY way) and those aspects that this movement has to overcome are very very prevalent here in the USVI.

it would be a big boon to the economy, a much needed boon for sure. and you are right in the addiction

United States Sentencing Commission Votes to Retroactively Apply Drug Sentencing Reductions to Tens of Thousands of People

In just the past two months, the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to block the Drug Enforcement Administration from spending federal funds to undermine state medical marijuana laws and state hemp cultivation laws, and voted on Wednesday to allow banking institutions to accept deposits from marijuana stores and dispensaries in states that regulate marijuana. On Monday, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy that expressed strong opposition to a House Republican amendment by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) directed at blocking implementation of a recent law the District of Columbia passed replacing jail time for possessing small amounts of marijuana for personal use with a small fine. The statement calls marijuana reform a "states' rights" issue, a groundbreaking policy position for the White House to take.

"It makes little sense, of course, to reform harsh sentencing laws proactively but not retroactively," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "But that's what politicians do when they're scared of allowing people out of prison early. The Sentencing Commission really had no choice but to rectify the moral absurdity of keeping people locked up based on sentences that are no longer the law. What they did today was right and just."

so here is a question, should ALL drugs be made legal including crack, meth etc....

so here is a question, should ALL drugs be made legal including crack, meth etc....

absolutely yes.

AND, we should take about 1/20th of the current DEA budget and focus on treating people with addiction problems and educating the public. (while moving all current DEA agents to boarder patrol, or the unemployment line).

when Singapore made all drugs legal, drug use went down; and gangs/organized crime looses it's main source of revenue (thus drastically reducing the attractiveness of these groups to poor young kids looking for a way out of hardship).

Drugs are not the issue, people are the issue; some people suffer from addiction, most do not.

At this point I think it's just time we admit the prohibition experiment did not work (as it never does) and we need to change course.

Senator Sanes just passed more legislation to criminalize fake cannabis to incarcerate more people. Really Sam? When are you going to join the 21st century. Drug use is a victimless crime. Using drugs is a health issue. It should not be a crime. Put drug dealers out of a job and out of our prisons. The only people who should be in there are thieves, rapists, and murderers.
Look around Stx. Don't you see that we are desperate for industry? Marijuana will be legal one day. If we don't move now, we will be importing it from Seattle.
Can someone join me in removing this dinosaur from the senate?

Sen Sanes is very supportive of our rescue effort and is working with us on a few other items, perhaps I can work on this topic with him; but it really depends on him and his mentality on the issue (normally I would say his constituents first, but I'm not sure if that's how the game goes down here.. I haven't jumped very far into the VI political arena).

interesting take on legalized drugs. the singapore this was even more so.

I agree with Liquid. Prohibition was proven not to work with alcohol, why should it work for anything else?

Well guys, it is time to vote, the referendum is going to be on the ballet if the Gov. allows it:

Medical marijuana referendum clears Senate

ST. THOMAS - The 30th Legislature passed a number of bills at Monday's session, including a measure to ask voters how they feel about legalizing medical marijuana in the territory.

The measure, if signed by Gov. John deJongh Jr., will place a non-binding referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot.

The ballot question would be: "Should the Legislature consider legislation that allows for the licensing and regulation of medicinal marijuana patients, care-givers, cultivators and distribution centers?"

Voters would be able to check "yes" or "no" to answer the question.

The measure, if signed by Gov. John deJongh Jr., will place a non-binding referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot.

The ballot question would be: "Should the Legislature consider legislation that allows for the licensing and regulation of medicinal marijuana patients, care-givers, cultivators and distribution centers?"

Voters would be able to check "yes" or "no" to answer the question.

Wow, a non binding resolution; well it's a baby step in the right direction I suppose.

A definitive de-construction of the war against marijuana:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvFRDImJ4QI

I should have thought to post this earlier.