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Today the California Chamber of Commerce, one of the most powerful lobbies in Sacramento, held a press conference bashing Prop 19, claiming employers would have to permit employees to smoke marijuana at work. But First Amendment lawyer and Prop 19 author James Wheaton says the Chamber is lying. Employees don’t have to let workers come to work drunk, and they wouldn’t have to let them come to work high. Furthermore, employers can already fire employees at will, as well as if they fail a drug test, and that will not change if Prop 19 passes. On page 3 and 4 of the Prop 19 text it states “This Act is not intended to affect the application of enforcement of the following state laws relating to public health and safety or protection of children and others: … nor any law prohibiting use of controlled substances in the workplace or by specific persons whose jobs involve public safety.”

CalChamber says employers would lose millions in federal contracts and grants because they would be unable to comply with federal laws outlawing marijuana use. Activists note that opponents of Prop 215 said the same thing about medical marijuana fourteen years ago, and it did not take place. California courts have upheld business owners’ right to fire anyone who tests positive for THC.

Jennifer Shaw, a labor litigator for the Chamber notes, “There’s actually very little in the proposition that addresses the workplace.”

Shaw says Prop 19 also allows employers to fire employees immediately if they see an “actual impairment,” but there is no definition of actual impairment and that could lead to lawsuits.

“It’s not a term of art in California law,” she says. “This is going to add to the plaintiff’s arsenal.”

The California Chamber of Commerce said they are already exasperated at the amount of protections employees have in California. Easily discriminating against recreational cannabis users is one of the few benefits of doing business in the state.

In an e-mailed statement, Wheaton elaborated:

“Nothing new here. Everything it says is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’ The memo barely even mentions the explicit carve-outs regarding dangerous activities and actual impairment. It simply runs with the ‘non-public place’ way beyond what the law in fact says. And it completely misses that the initiative makes no change to existing law regarding private property and what one can bring or do on it. When someone has a spin there’s no point in arguing. They simply lie as this memo does. I am surprised at how poor the work is, though.

“The law will continue to prohibit bringing cannabis anywhere the landowner, employer or anyone else prohibits it, just like today. And the law only protects people who do it lawfully, away from work and are not impaired. Why do you want to take action against things that don’t affect the workplace?”

DENVER — More than 2,000 medical marijuana businesses have applied for new state licenses, providing the first measure of the budding Colorado industry.

The 2,059 total applications brought in more than $7 million in fees, the Denver Post reported Tuesday.

When the Colorado Department of Revenue’s new medical marijuana division closed its doors at 11 p.m. Sunday — the last day to apply for a state dispensary license — license applicants included 717 dispensaries, 271 marijuana-products companies and 1,071 marijuana-growing operations, the Post reported.

The numbers are preliminary because they do not include applications postmarked by Sunday that were still trickling into state offices, the newspaper said.

Meanwhile, marijuana activists and state regulators debated how those applications will be evaluated at an emergency hearing Monday.

A new state law passed earlier this year created the licensing process. It requires people seeking to open a dispensary to have been residents of Colorado since Dec. 15 — or for two years if they moved here after that, the Post said.

Pot entrepreneurs and regulators argued over who needs to meet that residency standard under the law.

Matt Cook, the department’s senior director of enforcement, said he reads the two-year residency requirement as applying to everyone who works at a dispensary, not just owners but all employees.

“The one thing I can’t do with this process,” Cook said of the rule-making procedure to bring clarity to the new law, “I can’t change the law,” the Post reported.

Dispensary owners called Cook’s interpretation unfair, saying it prevents them from recruiting the best, most trustworthy employees.

Evan Anderson, who owns 14er Holistics in Boulder, said the rule forced him to fire a talented grower from California he had hired in January.

“He moved out here with the last couple hundred bucks he had,” Anderson said, the Post reported. The man now works as a landscaper.

“We should be seeking out those who are most skilled in their field,” Anderson said.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Anticipating California voters will back a November ballot measure to legalize casual marijuana use, officials in Oakland have approved two tax rates on pot sales in their city, already a hub of the state’s medicinal marijuana scene.

Oakland’s city council on Monday night approved the rates — a 5 percent gross receipts tax on licensed marijuana growers and on businesses selling marijuana for medical purposes, and a 10 percent rate on sales of marijuana used for recreational purposes.

California voters in 1996 approved a measure allowing marijuana use for medical purposes and would legalize its recreational use if they approve Proposition 19 in November.

The measure would allow marijuana possession for personal use and would authorize local governments to issue permits for pot production and sales and to tax it under state law. Selling marijuana would remain illegal under federal law.

While the vote by Oakland’s city council marks another step in the city toward bringing marijuana into the mainstream, pot dispensaries that have proliferated in the city near San Francisco are worried a 5 percent levy is too high and that neighboring Berkeley will undercut it with a lower rate.

“Why go to Oakland when you can go to Berkeley and get the same thing cheaper?” Dale Sky Clare, a spokeswoman for Proposition 19 and executive chancellor for Oaksterdam University, a cannabis industry training school with campuses in Oakland, elsewhere in California and Flint, Michigan, said on Tuesday.

“It’s important Oakland stay competitive with nearby markets. We’re not operating in a vacuum,” she said.

Federal authorities have not aggressively interfered with sales of medicinal marijuana sales in California.

The 200,000-member United Food and Commercial Workers, Western States Council, on Wednesday announced its support for Proposition 19, the initiative to legalize marijuana in California.

“The Western States Council is endorsing Proposition 19 based upon our previous support of the medical cannabis initiative, 1996’s Proposition 215,” George Landers, the council’s executive director, said in a statement. “We view Proposition 19 as an enhanced version of the previous proposition, that creates taxable revenue and produces jobs in agriculture, health care, retail and possibly textile. We further believe that the proposition will deprive narcotics traffickers of a significant source of criminal revenue.”

Ron Lind, international president of the union, and Dan Rush of its Local 5 also spoke out in favor of Proposition 19.

“The marriage of the cannabis-hemp industry and UFCW is a natural one,” said Rush. “We are an agriculture, food-processing and retail union, as is this industry.”

The council is the political arm of UFCW in several Western states. It comprises the UFCW local unions in the states it covers.

The cost of marijuana would drop as much as 80% and consumption would rise if Californians vote for Proposition 19, the legalization measure on the November ballot, researchers at Rand’s Drug Policy Research Center have concluded in a detailed analysis of the issue.

The Santa Monica-based, nonprofit research institute predicted the cost of marijuana, which runs between $300 and $450 per ounce, could plunge to about $38 by eliminating the expense of compensating suppliers for the challenges of operating in the black market.

The researchers were not certain how much that decline in price might spur use, but noted that one typical estimate is that a 10% drop in price increases use by about 3%. Other factors, such as the elimination of legal risks, could also increase usage between 5% and 50%.

The report noted that it was impossible to predict tax revenues from the initiative, which leaves that decision up to individual cities and counties. Based on a statewide $50 per ounce tax proposed in a legalization bill introduced by Sen. Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), the report said state tax revenues could range from $650 million to $1.49 billion.

“California voters and legislators face considerable uncertainty because it is very difficult to estimate how much more marijuana will be consumed in the state or how the change will affect tax revenues, criminal-justice costs and healthcare costs,” the study concludes. The 54-page report, with 14 pages of footnotes, is called “Altered State?” and was paid for by Rand.

The researchers noted that projections for marijuana use and tax revenues hinge on estimates of use, prices, how use changes with price, taxes imposed and evaded, and numerous other factors. The report is peppered with caveats about the assumptions researchers had to make.

To calculate the price drop, researchers looked at the cost of growing marijuana in a 1,500-square-foot house. The researchers concluded that the wages paid to employees who tend the crop would slip from as much as $25 per hour to no more than $10, just a little above what nursery laborers earn. They also suggested growers would have easier access to labor-saving automation, savings from growing on a larger scale and minimal risk of arrest and forfeiture.

If the per-ounce cost dropped to $38 and the Ammiano bill’s $50 per ounce excise tax passed, taxes would account for more than half the cost of the state’s marijuana, an observation likely to inflame marijuana idealists who see it as a natural weed that ought to be treated like an herb.

The report notes that Ammiano’s proposed tax is about 10 times the rate of state tobacco taxes. That high tax creates an incentive for tax evasion that is more financially rewarding than smuggling marijuana from Mexico to California and it could also encourage smokers to turn to the highest-potency marijuana to get more bang for their buck, the researchers concluded.

Researchers also looked at the estimates of the cost of enforcing marijuana laws in California, which ranged from $200 million to $1.9 billion, and put it at “probably less than $300 million.” They also conclude that it is not possible to determine whether increased use would lead to more drugged driving accidents and to more use of harder drugs, such as cocaine, saying the research is inconclusive.

Win or lose, the marijuana legalization measure on November’s ballot proves one thing: The pot industry has arrived in California politics.

Oakland’s most prominent purveyor of medical cannabis has almost single-handedly financed the Tax Cannabis 2010 campaign — a once-unthinkable occurrence. Election experts say it’s a sign that the pot industry has reached a rarefied political pinnacle: Pot can afford to buy its way into voter-approved legitimacy.

Just as PG&E spent $46.4 million to push Proposition 16 and Mercury Insurance spent $15.9 million to push Proposition 17 to further their own interests this spring, so too is Oaksterdam University in Oakland shelling out millions to invest in its own economic future.

And Oaksterdam’s owner, Richard Lee, could arguably make a mint if the measure passes.

Sure, the June primary’s two corporate-backed measures failed. This one might, too: Early polling shows voter support is soft at best.

But legalized or not, marijuana, long an underground, counterculture province, is taking its place in California’s political and business establishment alongside “The Man” — traditional corporate interests such as power utilities and insurance companies.

For his part, Lee agrees, though he doesn’t embrace being “The Man.”

“When we started the campaign, we did want to make this a legitimate political issue and I think we’ve succeeded already, win or lose,” he said.

He and his measure’s supporters have

done so by framing it not just as drug legalization but as an issue of civil rights, by claiming hypocrisy in the legality and rampant advertising of alcohol; of economics, by arguing that a booming, legal cannabis industry could create much-needed jobs; and of public policy, in that law enforcement costs would plummet while local governments could reap a windfall of new tax revenue.

But they’d not have had the forum to make these arguments in earnest had Lee not shelled $1.41 million of his own money to put the measure on November’s ballot.

“If you have enough money, you can qualify almost anything on the ballot,” said Bob Stern, president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles. That goes for marijuana just like any other industry.

“Clearly it’s going to be the most controversial and interesting measure on the ballot, it’ll be the measure most people will be talking about, so he’s clearly achieved that — it will be front and center in the debate,” Stern said. “I think it’ll increase voter turnout, both on the libertarian and the liberal sides.”

San Jose State political science professor Larry Gerston agreed.

“You see an opportunity and you take it,” Gerston said. “I can’t fault these people for being enterprising capitalists in a market that is virtually unregulated. They’re pretty smart.

“These guys will have lobbyists; they’re already building trade associations. It’s all part and parcel of a burgeoning industry.”

Some might say Lee stands to make a lot of money, more so if the measure passes. He has built a business infrastructure that includes a medical marijuana dispensary, a grow operation and a center that teaches others how to grow, all of which would put him at the forefront of recreational cannabis horticulture, sales and marketing as soon as it’s legal. Even if it doesn’t pass, the campaign is drawing attention to Oaksterdam University and its related businesses.

Lee said he doesn’t see it that way.

“It’s also a big risk, it’s putting a big target on me, not to mention all the money that’s being lost,” he said. “And I see it as making it possible to have more competition.”

Signs of the industry’s political mainstreaming abound. Oakland last year became the first U.S. city to tax medical cannabis proceeds — a tax masterminded by Lee.

“My goodness, that was a stroke of brilliance,” Gerston said, in terms of legitimizing and mainstreaming the industry.

Last month, workers at Oakland cannabis businesses including Lee’s joined the Retail, Statewide Agriculture, Food Processing and Community Patient Care Union, UFCW Local 5. Some now wonder whether union slate mailers this fall will urge a yes vote on the Tax Cannabis measure.

On the national scene, 14 states and the District of Columbia have adopted medical marijuana laws; bills are pending in other states, and voters in Arizona and South Dakota will see such ballot measures in November, as California and possibly Nevada vote on recreational legalization measures. And politicians on either side of the aisle — including Oakland mayoral candidate and former state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, a Democrat, and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a Republican — endorse Lee’s measure.

In fact, about a month after Perata’s endorsement, Lee’s S.K. Seymour LLC gave $10,000 to Perata’s committee for a tobacco-tax measure. Coincidence, or a classic you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours political moment?

Of the $1.41 million Lee put into his own measure, almost $990,000 went to Masterton & Wright, a Bolinas firm that gathers petition signatures for ballot measures.

But the campaign also is paying top-shelf pros such as spokesman Dan Newman, who also works for Democratic lieutenant governor nominee Gavin Newsom’s campaign and for the “Level the Playing Field” independent-expenditure committee waging war on Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman. Blue State Digital, a Washington, D.C.-based firm with past clients including the Obama for America presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the AFL-CIO, designed the measure’s Web site. And Chris Lehane, a renowned political communications strategist dubbed a “master of disaster” for his spin work in the Clinton White House and campaigns, is doing work for the campaign free of charge.

“It’s a serious campaign, it’s gone beyond working on the fringes,” said assistant professor Corey Cook, director of the University of San Francisco’s Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good.

It will be an uphill battle. Of three polls released last month, only the campaign’s own showed more than 50 percent support, and even then by only a small margin. Any California political observer would say that’s a tough place from which to start.

Lee said the campaign is using focus groups in order to target undecided voters and mobilize new voters, but he’s done paying the bills.

“My main part was getting the language written,” he said, “and then getting the petitions to get it on the ballot, and then to turn it over to the professionals to get it passed.”

Yet an e-mailed fundraising plea raised $50,000 in April, he said. “We hope to raise $10 million, $10 each from a million people,” Lee said, acknowledging that’s not much for a California ballot measure but arguing a little will go a long way on the issue. “Our numbers go way up when we explain the issues and the measure in depth.”

Cook agreed: “$10 million is nothing in California,” he said — especially given the rise in advertising rates likely to accompany record spending in 2010’s gubernatorial and senatorial elections. “But I would kind of be surprised, given a lot of other things going on in the state, if there’s a lot of money pumped in on the ‘no’ side.”

A “Public Safety First” coalition with members such as the California Police Chiefs Association, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the California Bus Association already is speaking out against Lee’s measure, yet none of these groups has deep pockets.

Meanwhile, Tax Cannabis 2010 is building people power: Its Facebook page is “liked” by more than 95,000 people. For context, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brown has about 26,000 and Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman has close to 28,000.

“Three times as many contributions and three times as many votes, and you’re in good shape,” Cook observed, noting Facebook support doesn’t necessarily translate to either. The committee won’t report its finances again until early August.

Yet Tax Cannabis 2010 might have advantages that last month’s corporate-funded measures lacked, Cook said.

PG&E and Mercury Insurance tried to educate the public for the first time about problems that, to many, seemed like no problem at all, while this measure addresses an issue that has been talked about for decades. “There’s an idea that its time has come,” Cook said.

“Part of it is the aging of the California electorate,” he added, noting a baby boomer generation now in its 50s and 60s that in many cases did and still does smoke marijuana. “That is the establishment now.”

And while efforts to legalize marijuana always could have been framed as a revenue-raising effort, there’s no better time to make that pitch than in the midst of a national recession and state fiscal crisis.

“This was a solution in search of a problem, but now there’s a problem that matches it,” Cook said, adding Lee and the measure’s supporters “would be crazy not to be taking advantage of the political opportunity that’s in front of them.”

A California physician is offering his medical-marijuana patients a liquefied version of the drug that he says won’t produce much of a buzz but does contain chemicals helpful in treating a variety of illnesses, the Washington Post reported June 1.

Willets, Calif., physician William Courtney, M.D., said that marijuana with high levels of cannabidiol (CBD) seems to have the most medical potential; ironically, CBD levels seem to be lowest in marijuana strains of the plant that are highest in THC — the main psychoactive substance in marijuana.

“What has happened is, almost all strains available in America through the black market are THC concentrates,” said Ethan Russo, senior medical adviser to GW Pharmaceuticals, which is developing the marijuana-based pain medication Sativex. “The CBD in almost all cases has been bred out. The reason is cannabis in this country has been cultivated for its intoxicating effect.”

Medical-marijuana advocates want to see more research into CBD. “The bridge to legalization is medical marijuana,” said Addison DeMoura, one of the owners of the Steep Hill Medical Collective in Oakland. “I believe the bridge from medical marijuana to real science will be CBDs.”

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Undeterred by laws that have closed storefront dispensaries, medical marijuana sellers across the state are flourishing — by delivering pot directly to homes and offices.

Hundreds of these unregulated delivery businesses have sprung up in recent months — a sign of how quickly California’s fabled pot industry is moving from the shadows and into uncharted legal territory.

In Fresno, some dispensaries have moved to unincorporated areas since the city began forcing storefronts to close. Some of them deliver marijuana to Fresno residents, and the city attorney concedes the city has little authority to stop them.

Statewide, hundreds of “mobile dispensaries” advertise a wide range of strains and other products, such as brownies and cookies laced with THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. One service delivers organic vegetables along with medical marijuana, as part of a “farm-direct” service.

Some operate in multiple counties, including jurisdictions where storefront dispensaries are banned, or make local deliveries to drop-off points, such as Starbucks parking lots and gas stations. At least three ship to clients across the state using private prescription-drug couriers.

DENVER–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Greenway University, the industry’s leading medical marijuana business school in compliance and education, has received state approval from the Colorado Department of Higher Education – making it the first and only state licensed and regulated medical marijuana vocational school in the United States.

Greenway University is renowned for its compliance driven medical marijuana educational services in California, Colorado and New Jersey.

“This is truly a momentous day for the entire industry and further validates our forward-thinking messages of education, professionalism and industry-leading programs,” Gus Escamilla, Greenway University founder and CEO said. “We are so incredibly thankful to the state of Colorado for embracing our message and allowing us to set the standard for a higher level of professional education for the entire medical marijuana industry.”

To become the nation’s leading driver of education in the medical marijuana industry, the organization covers nearly every aspect of the business ranging from genetic strain development, insurance services to merchant solutions that ensure compliance and the highest quality of operational standards.

Greenway University has a fundamental commitment to legitimize the medical marijuana industry through professionalism, technology and educational innovation. “We intend to offer advanced courses in every aspect of the industry from our industry-leading certification programs to our advanced scientific research and development for new genetic strain characteristics for patient uses,” Escamilla added.

Additionally, Greenway University is working on offering financial aid / student loans as well as internships and job placement assistance.

Greenway University is approved and regulated by the State of Colorado Division of Private Occupational Schools Board.

About Greenway University Greenway University, licensed and regulated by the Colorado Department of Higher Education, is the industry’s leading multi-spectrum medical marijuana business that is committed to the highest standards in education, technology, cultivation, distribution and compliance. From its MBA and industry-leading advanced certification programs to its turnkey, point-of-sale system which tracks medicine from seed to sale, to its in-house botanist and geneticist, Greenway University is paving the way for ethics, safety and business acumen in the medical marijuana industry. Based in Denver, Colorado, Greenway University has campuses in Colorado and California. More information can be found at www.greenwayuniversity.com.

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In what cannabis fans were calling a high-water mark for their movement to legitimize the drug, about 100 employees of medical marijuana-related businesses in Oakland were welcomed to the ranks of unionized workers on Friday after voting to join the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 5.

The move — which union officials said was the first time medical marijuana employees had been so represented — was hailed by the local’s leadership, who called their new members ‘great workers.”

“This is a natural for us,” said Ron Lind, the president of Local 5, whose 26,000 other members work primarily in groceries and the meat industry. “Our union’s primary jurisdiction is retail.”

The move was also welcomed by Richard Lee, the founder of Oaksterdam University, the medical marijuana trade school whose Oakland campus employs some 60 newly unionized members in its dispensary, gift shop and nursery. (For plants, not children.) Mr. Lee that said his employees were already offered health benefits and paid vacation, but that the union imprimatur was an important milestone in the battle to bring marijuana more into the mainstream.

“It’s one more step towards ending federal restrictions,” said Mr. Lee, a leading proponent of a November ballot measure which would legalize, regulate and tax the drug in California. Marijuana, legal for medical use in California and more than a dozen other states, is still prohibited by federal law.

Officials in Oakland, which has an unemployment rate of more than 17 percent, also cheered the move — and the movement — as a potential boon for the city.

For the workers themselves, however, their new status as union members was somewhat of a personal triumph.

“Now I can go home to my parents and they can see it’s a good thing and a normal thing,” said Cassie Leone, a tattooed 24-year-old who works at a local marijuana dispensary. It made her feel like a “hardworking human being,” she said. “Which is what I am.”

In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215, which made it legal for people with a doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana for medical purposes. Because the act did not say how patients could obtain marijuana other than to grow it themselves, in 2003, the legislature passed the Medical Marijuana Program Act, which authorized patients and caregivers to cultivate and distribute marijuana as collectives or cooperatives, but not for profit. Unfortunately, some organizers operated just like private for-profit businesses. These operations have given a bad name to the patients and caregivers who wish to operate within the law.

But even after sixteen years, the law is still vague on some points and many issues are being fought out in the courts. Given that, there are some basic guidelines to follow for setting up a medical marijuana organization like a dispensary, delivery service, or growing facility consistent with the law.

Dispensing, possessing, and cultivating medical marijuana is still prohibited under federal law. Therefore, federal law enforcement officials may still prosecute you, even though you are in compliance with California and local law. On a recent visit to Oakland, US Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Obama administration would leave medical marijuana suppliers alone if they were complying with state law. Of course, this is no guarantee. It is, however, a good reason to do your best to comply with state law. Here is how to do that.

Become a qualified patient or caregiver. All members of medical marijuana collectives or cooperatives must be qualified patients or the primary caregiver of a qualified patient in the collective or cooperative. To be a qualified patient, you need a doctor’s recommendation. A “primary caregiver” is defined as “the individual designated by the [patient] who has consistently assumed responsibility for the housing, health, or safety of that person.” A primary caregiver is not just your pot dealer.

Become a not-for-profit cooperative or a collective. The law is not clear on what type of organization qualifies as a medical marijuana cooperative or collective. Most patient groups choose to organize themselves under the California consumer cooperative statute or the California nonprofit mutual benefit corporation statute. State law says that marijuana shall not be cultivated or distributed for profit. This is somewhat vague, but probably means that there should be no outside investors who make a dividend and no one should be compensated at outrageously high levels.
However, technically, the entity itself can’t cultivate marijuana. Only patients and their caregivers are exempt from prosecution for cultivation — the entity that they form is NOT. Therefore, individual members of the cooperative may cultivate marijuana and the cooperative may facilitate transactions between the members so that those who can’t cultivate marijuana themselves can receive marijuana from those members that can. In practical terms, this means that the cooperative should not hire employees or contractors who are not members of the cooperative to cultivate marijuana.

Find a location. This is probably the most complicated part. Every local government treats medical marijuana cooperatives and collectives differently. While local governments cannot regulate what patients and their caregivers do in the privacy of their own home with a limited number of plants as long as it does not cause a nuisance, setting up a larger facility will require compliance with local business licensing and zoning laws.

Although it is still being disputed, recent cases have been granting cities and counties the right to prohibit dispensaries and similar operations altogether, and most in the East Bay have either banned dispensaries or limited them in number. Until this issue is settled, you should check to see if the city in which you want to locate has a ban or moratorium in place. For instance, ordinances regulating dispensaries may not apply to delivery services.

Other cities simply do not have a zoning process for medical marijuana organizations and will not issue business permits without that zoning clearance. However, you need a business permit to legally operate a commercial-type facility or activity. Some collectives have chosen to open without zoning clearance or a business permit, but cities have civilly prosecuted dispensaries without permits or zoning clearance as public nuisances.

The definitions of various types of medical marijuana organizations varies from city to city. In Oakland, for instance, a dispensary is any collective or cooperative with four or more patients or caregivers who facilitate or assist in the lawful production, acquisition, or distribution of medical cannabis.

Your best bet is to open in a city that explicitly allows it and find out what the requirements are to do so. In many cities getting a permit to operate a medical marijuana facility is a highly competitive process due to the limited number of permits allowed.

Operate by the books: Once you’ve formed your collective and are operating legally under local law, there are lots of practices you can adopt to minimize the risk of attention from federal, state, and local regulators.

Obtain a state seller’s permit and pay sales tax.

Create a system to ensure that all members have a current valid doctor’s recommendation.

Only do business with members.

Have security precautions in place to prevent theft, loitering, and other nuisances.

Find an accountant who understands medical marijuana dispensaries.

It is important to pay attention to all the details. Remember, the government got Al Capone for income-tax evasion — not bootlegging.

Marijuana also known as Cannabis has taken a dramatic cost reduction.  The cost has gone from $3000 dollars per pound down to $2000 per pound according to interviews with medical marijuana growers and dealers.

California Economics

Cultivation of marijuana has become an economic need for many northern California counties.  The many raids that have taken place by drug agents have contributed in keeping the street sales of marijuana high.  Now, times are changing.  Legal medical marijuana under California’s medical marijuana laws, has pushed the need for more competition.  This may explain the decrease of the price per pound.

Supply & Demand

In the 1980’s the price per pound of Marijuana was as high as $5000 per pound.  Now with the quality of marijuana going up, customers are requesting quality strains of marijuana.  Thus the price of outdoor marijuana seems to be falling.  Hydroponic marijuana seems to be the preferred choice of marijuana.  Since hydroponic marijuana provides  better quality strains of marijuana, this type of growing marijuana seems to be boosting the price of marijuana.

Growers and Medical Marijuana Dealers Demand Quality

In interviewing the marijuana growers and medical marijuana dealers, the demand for quality marijuana has become apparent.  Both have taken the approach to supply better quality strains of marijuana.  The logic to this is to ensure the marijuana prices maintain a stable price range, while still trying to meet the supply and demand of the public.

In order for medical marijuana to be successful the demand and price of marijuana must maintain an economic balance.  In California the vote to use Marijuana publicly is on the ballot.  The price of marijuana will be dictated by the measures and accountability of the future.

In the 60s hippies fled to the backwoods of northern California to grow pot. There they have been joined by growers of ‘medical marijuana’ – available with a doctor’s recommendation – as well as by Mexican drug cartels. With cannabis now its largest cash crop, the state will soon vote on whether to legalise it fully – and even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is thinking the enormous tax revenues might just solve his budget deficit…

‘When I see that, it’s like looking at a shed full of cows. I see a whole lot of work,” says Jim Hill, opening the little gate into his humid greenhouse in which a forest of marijuana grows, and from which a pungent, heady scent exudes at gale force. Not work as in hard labour, emphasises Hill – though there is a bit of that – but expertise growing some of the most potent weed on the planet.

Nearby there are vineyards and horses graze the sun-stroked farmland, but this verdant hillside near the town of Potter Valley in northern California lies in an area called the Emerald Triangle: three counties bordered by mountains to the east and the Pacific to the west that connect the lyrical terrain north of San Francisco with the wilderness of the Oregon state line. This breathtakingly beautiful corner of earth is the marijuana capital of the western hemisphere thanks to three conspiring factors: its perfect climate; the pervading culture; and topography – this is a maze of mountain dirt roads, locked access gates, isolated villages, secluded slopes and wooded glades, far from prying eyes.

Jim Hill, however, is a respectable figure – neither old stoner nor criminal – and he is not afraid to show off his working practices. “You’re just going to have to smell of weed for the rest of the week,” he jokes as we clamber through his greenhouse. “Squeeze this,” he enthuses, “take a sniff, feel the nice, rich oily texture…”

Ninety-eight per cent of growers would not think this sight possible in late April, he says, indicating the succulent, ripe buds oozing heavy on the branch. “You’re looking at icebergs in July.” Hill has worked out what to plant when: he talks about daylight hours at this latitude, “plant efficiency” and above all cross-pollination. And no wonder: his other business and passion is as a breeder of greyhounds. He shows me a video of one of his dogs streaking from penultimate place in a big race in Phoenix to win.

“Now, we develop and cross-breed different strands of marijuana,” he beams. He talks about indica and sativa plants, about kush and his own speciality, scarecrow. “Just look at those purple leaves,” he says. “You should see the messages of gratitude I get from my patients for this.”

Not every law enforcement officer here in Mendocino County would agree – for the law here is labyrinthine – but Hill is operating legally. In 1996, following the comfortable success of a referendum on what was called Proposition 215, California passed its Compassionate Use Act, which allows patients with a doctor’s “recommendation” (it is not a prescription) to cultivate and possess marijuana for personal use.

The act was subsequently expanded to help create a network of collectivised dispensaries. At first a handful appeared, now there are thousands, some small and dingy, others de luxe. In the city of Oakland, there is an entire neighbourhood called “Oaksterdam”, which boasts a college for the study of cannabis growing as well as a range of dispensaries (one, called Blue Sky, offers arguably the world’s biggest selection of different strains).

Jim Hill started growing marijuana because of its medicinal properties – his wife, Trelanie, suffered from a serotonin imbalance and he believed it could help her. Now his crop is destined for dispensaries in San Diego and Los Angeles. “It was the attitude of the government, hassling me, that turned me into an advocate.”

Even here, cannabis cannot be grown for profit or sold, so what keeps Hill’s greenhouse legal is that the marijuana itself is owned “not by me but the collective” – the First Choice Collective, it is called. Its 1,200 members will have been “recommended” marijuana by a doctor. To be legal, subsequent transactions take place within a closed loop. “All I sell,” says Hill, “are my services.” According to the law, the collective and its members “remunerate” Hill – he is not paid commercially. But he makes a tidy living.

If only the same could be said of the Californian economy. It may be the eighth largest in the world, but the state government has issued IOUs and unemployment is at its highest for 70 years. In his final budget in January, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed what he called “draconian” spending cuts aimed at fixing a $19.9bn (£13bn) budget deficit. He has said previously he would welcome a public debate on proposals to legalise and tax marijuana to help plug that hole.

Tax revenues from medical marijuana (amounting to roughly $200m) barely scratch the surface of what might be raised, given that marijuana is now by far the largest cash crop in what used to be known as the Orange State. It is this that has made an unlikely bedfellow of the actor who played the Terminator and those who might feel themselves closer in spirit to Dennis Hopper’s character in Easy Rider.

In November – now that a referendum “initiative” has attracted sufficient signatures – there will be a state ballot on whether California should fully legalise marijuana. This will bring an industry worth an estimated $10bn in Mendocino County alone into the mainstream economy. “The state of California is in a very, very precipitous economic plight,” Democratic state assemblyman Tom Ammiano, who introduced the legislation, said recently. “It’s in the toilet… With any revenue ideas, people say you have to think outside the box, you have to be creative.”

It is in this context that someone who embodies the spirit of Californian entrepreneurship can hope to prosper. Jim Hill is rightly proud of his expertise – “No one else is growing this stuff to the level we are here. I’m tellin’ ya, we’re good at this” – and growers in Mendocino County talk about the eventual “appellation” of marijuana (a system akin to that used in France and elsewhere to identify the best wines). Benign he might be, but Hill can see the potential. “What California does, the world tries to follow 20 years later,” he says. “That’s just the way it is. The seeds of alternative culture and digital technology were here and now it’s marijuana.”

But Hill represents only one side of this story. In the counties of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity, different forces are involved, some that represent another strain of California’s founding optimism, and others much darker.

There is no mystery as to how northern California has become the Napa Valley of marijuana while other products “made in the USA” wither on the vines of deindustrialisation and recession. During the 60s, San Francisco was famously the capital of an experimental drug culture, when cannabis and LSD were ingredients in an earnest imaginative adventure. At the time of the Summer of Love in 1967, marijuana arrived largely from Asia, with some produced locally by motorcycle gangs, including the Hells Angels, in what is now the Emerald Triangle.

In the years that followed, as the dream turned sour around Haight-Ashbury, an exodus began of hippies and disillusioned Vietnam vets. They moved north to settle what became known as “the Lost Coast”. From the mid-70s onwards, these communities became established – I remember touring them – with their vintage Volkswagen buses, coloured banners and totem poles on the land. And of course, in this climatically benign and secluded wilderness, they planted what they needed and liked to smoke.

But for a second time, they were pursued. Seekers of the new dawn were soon joined by farmers with an eye for business, by motorbike gangs affiliated to criminal distribution channels in the big cities and, latterly, by Mexican narco-cartels. Now they face new arrivals: agribusiness, big pharmaceutical companies and possibly tobacco giants. (The RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company, which makes Camel cigarettes, dismisses as “rumours and speculation” reports that it is about to buy up tranches of land.)

People of the counterculture – there are still many here, growing a little marijuana legally and perhaps practising herbal medicine professionally – as well as savvy growers like Jim Hill, now find themselves cultivating their crops alongside farmers who would never touch the stuff themselves. Criminal syndicates that grow their crops in buried freight containers, for example, and others who hire armed guards to oversee their “trimming” operations.

Tensions take root: between legal and illegal growers; between those who grow their cannabis naturally and outdoors and those who mass-cultivate under lights; between those who grow organically, with an emphasis on quality, and those who use fertilisers or cause diesel spillage from their hydroponic hothouses, with an emphasis on quantity. Plus, of course, between big interests at opposite ends of the spectrum: vicious cartels and syndicates making best use of an illegal market while it lasts, and the big tobacco and pharma companies salivating at the thought of legalisation.

Local and state authorities are sorely tempted to see some of the marijuana money through regulation and taxation. But for the same reason, opponents of cannabis are extremely wary, and California’s marijuana laws are endlessly being jostled over and amended at county level, and can even be contradicted outright at federal level, so that the spirit and letter of law combine into a kaleidoscope of plant limits and rules on transportation and remuneration.

Jim Hill is forever getting caught between the layers of the law. Mendocino County passed a “Measure G” allowing growers to cultivate up to 25 plants per parcel of land, but that was cut back by a “Measure B”. Hill grows substantially more than 25, insisting that “county law can’t pre-empt state law – which sets no limit”. Meanwhile, agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrived at Hill’s farm one morning last October to enforce national law. “They were very nice guys. They said ‘we’ve come to cut down all your plants,’” recalls Hill. The federal charges were dismissed – making fewer headlines in the local press than when they were levelled.

Hill is no hippy – he wears a smart yellow golf shirt – but he is a supporter of legalisation who takes a surprising line on the role of the cartels and criminal gangs up in mountains. To his mind, cannabis is a battleground on which you cannot always choose your allies. “It’s like paedophile priests in the Catholic church,” he says. “I don’t accept it when the church says, ‘oh, they’re not good Christians’, because the church knows it’s going to have to count their votes against the atheists one day. And that’s how it is for us with the Mexican cartels. The cartels are breaking the system, and it’s a system that’s got to be broken.”

Marvin Levin of the Mendocino Farmers Collective, which grows high-quality organic marijuana, takes a different position, wanting “nothing to do with people whose interests and ties are in selling this stuff for profit, and not growing it right, whether they’re the men with guns in the woods, or pharmaceutical companies or big tobacco. We’re nothing to do with people growing for Goldman Sachs with 100 grow lights, or the mafia.”

The politics and economy of the Emerald Triangle come inevitably to be dominated by its most famous, ubiquitous and potentially lucrative product. When you wake up in the county seat of Ukiah (“haiku” spelt backwards, as locals point out), the scent of marijuana hangs heavy on the dewy mist that rolls off the mountains. Among the morning newspapers is the latest edition of West Coast Leaf, “the cannabis newspaper of record”, with pictures of men in suits poring over plants and pages of adverts for marijuana-specialist lawyers, “medical cannabis valuations”, “the pre-rolled MediCone cannabis delivery system”, and Organicann, “the best medibles [marijuana edibles] on the planet. Whether it’s savoury pot pies, robust infused tea or delectable cookies.”

Mendocino is the county for which Dan Hamburg is campaigning to be supervisor – a role akin to county council chairman – with a fair chance of success. His wife, Carrie, joins our discussion. It was her experience of cancer, which pot “made just about bearable”, that persuaded Hamburg to position himself behind the cause of medical marijuana.

Hamburg lives on a hillside, past solar panels that power his wooden house, with a thumbed encyclopedia on a lectern in the hallway. He was, from 1992 to 1994, congressman for northern California on Capitol Hill. In the past, his political enemies have endeavoured to use his Californian good looks and intelligent, easy manner against him – as well as his history of campaigning for the decriminalisation of marijuana – but it rarely worked.

“People ask me, ‘Are you the growers’ candidate?’” he says. “I reply, ‘It depends which growers.’ I’d like to think I was a candidate for small, legal, medical growers, but not a big indoor growers’ candidate. I think marijuana should be grown organically and in the sun, not under grow-lights.” An environmental consultant by profession, he says, “I’m against the noise and diesel spills that indoor growing involves. I’m extremely wary of big tobacco taking over the growing of marijuana because the quality would go down. We’ve heard of tobacco companies preparing to buy land near here, and I sure am not their candidate.”

Among Hamburg’s opponents, he says, are interests not involved in marijuana growing. “Their problem? That the marijuana crop is so successful, it’s driving up wages. People can’t pay their labourers the minimum pay, when the pot trimmers are earning upwards of $20 an hour.”

Hamburg intends to drive a wedge “between legalisation and decriminalisation. I favour the latter. No, I don’t think schoolchildren should smoke it. What we are aiming for is people to be able to grow marijuana, take it to a place where it can be tested for quality, and for the consumer and the grower to benefit.”

This is a position that finds sympathy with another important member of the local community. Bert Mosier arrived to become president of the Greater Ukiah Chamber of Commerce from Kansas, where he had been an economic development officer at county level. We meet in America’s first organic brewpub. “This is a county where the economy was built on lumber, which went into decline, to be replaced by fishing, which has also declined,” he explains. “In that situation, marijuana is the big dead fish in the middle of the room – everyone talks about it, but people are afraid to get out of the comfort zone. It’s impossible to calculate how much it’s worth, or the exact impact of an underground economy. But I’ve heard estimates of $10.6bn.” He emphasises the importance of the marijuana economy to the local economy as a whole. “Businesses have told me that the marijuana crop is the difference between staying open and going bankrupt – no, not just the smoke shops and tie-dye: these are restaurants and stores.

“All I’m saying is that I want this county to succeed and I’ll join the conversation, and remain in the middle,” he continues. “Though of course, those opposed to pot say that to join the conversation in the middle is not neutral at all, but an endorsement.”

Marijuana country, and marijuana culture, are not lands of milk and honey. For some they may be paradise, but there is a price to pay for paradise. One day, that price may be the arrival of executives from Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds and British American Tobacco; from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Roche. But for now, the price is paid in crime – big crime, and the petty crime it causes. Each morning around 7am, a group of itinerants with matted hair, in ragged clothes, clutching their belongings, gathers outside Walmart in Ukiah. One particular group has come from St Louis, Missouri, to wait for trucks that arrive and take them up to work as trimmers on the bigger marijuana farms. In the evening, they hang around encamped by the river, littering the banks and smoking their payment in kind.

They don’t like to talk much about where they are going and have been: a boy called Skip does say that they sometimes work on farms “in the forest” under armed guard. These are “a ways up, in the mountains,” he says, along winding dirt roads in thick woodland and deep valleys over which Drug Enforcement Administration helicopters fly, and into which patrols sometimes venture to make arrests. These are marijuana farms that do not entertain reporters, the kinds of growers who keep their distance from Dan Hamburg and Bert Mosier, and vice versa.

According to California’s Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, organised crime has moved into the marijuana business in the north of the state in different guises. The most recent arrivals are gangs affiliated to the Mexican Sinaloa and Arellano-Felix cartels, who send illegal migrant workers into remote and unguarded slopes and canyons on public parkland to cultivate marijuana. On almost “every raid” into such places, “we find weapons”, says the bureau’s spokeswoman, Michelle Gregory. Since California’s economic crisis has forced cuts in the park service, covert planting has become easier off hiking trials through the state’s 31 million acres of public wilderness. Much of the cartels’ activity, says a law enforcement source, involves hijacking other people’s marijuana, or armed invasion of the homes of growers who are then reluctant to call in the police.

Other criminal syndicates are hangovers from the original dope-growers in the region, the Hells Angels, who – having serviced the Bay Area in the 60s – never went away. But they did change, and adapt; they streamlined, says a DEA source, developing their cultivation methods “to grow dope that’s strong but growable in bulk” and establishing criminal distribution networks throughout urban gangland.

Tom Allman is sheriff of Mendocino County, and has served 28 years in law enforcement. We meet at his office at 7am, between appointments, and he tells a funny story about a British military guest he hosted at an event held by the National Rifle Association (“If it wasn’t for the British, we’d never have needed a Second Amendment!”). Allman also draws a line between who is growing what in Mendocino County. “The problem,” he says, “is not old hippies. Marijuana has always been part of life around here, and they’re harmless. But we’ve also got the Mexicans, the Russians and Bulgarians – with guns. They’re organised, plus people from Italy, England, Germany get in on this. They come, stay a year, and move to a different county. Where there are drugs, there is crime. That’s the problem.”

He recalls how “one time we busted a guy – you know those freight containers that trucks pull around? Well, this guy had eight of ‘em buried underground and arranged like this around an underground water supply.” Allman draws a pattern like the petals of flower. “He had 8,000 plants. This kind of thing is happening all over – big hydroponic operations in a county of only 90,000 people… In 2009, we destroyed 541,000 plants, which means there are about 5 million illegal plants we do not get, using 4 to 5 million gallons of water a day,” he adds. “Try telling that to the environmentalists.”

Allman is also concerned about the “tourism” that might follow legalisation in November. “If that thing passes, it’ll be like America got tilted to one side and every degenerate in the country not bolted down is going to drift here.” He makes the point that marijuana in Mendocino County can sell for as little as $1,500 a pound. “In Georgia, it’s $4,200 a pound. Think about it.”

The previous morning, at my motel, a wild couple were loading up their car which had Tennessee plates, the scent hanging heavy over the parking lot. The man’s ranting was for all to hear. “Yeah, there was blood all over the floor, but I got some shit from out of my head!” These presumably are the sort of tourists of whom Allman is wary.

For someone like Allman, the situation as it stands at the moment, with the law constantly subject to revision, can be frustrating. “I have officers who are leaving the police, saying they just can’t be cops any more, having to walk out of houses leaving all those plants,” he says. “Even I get a little tired of being sued and having people come in here with court orders and I have to give them back their marijuana. I’ve never yet had to give back to anyone in a wheelchair, but I’ve often had to give plants back to some kid of college age.”

He goes to his computer and pulls up the website potdoc.com, noting its ethos with disdain. “You go to a doctor who asks if you have $200 in your pocket and from then on, you’re self-medicating, for whatever ailment you say you got.”

Later on the same day, Sheriff Allman joins 200 others from the county, most of them marijuana growers, who pack themselves into the venue of Ukiah’s Saturday Afternoon Club from lunchtime until way past dark. These growers have set aside their shovels – even on the first sunny Saturday in months, badly needed to prepare for the growing season – to drive for hours from places with names like Spyrock and Whale Gulch. Cannabis workers, medical marijuana patients and “cannabusiness” owners mingle, too, with government officials, political candidates and representatives of business.

This novel event is organised by the Mendocino Medical Marijuana Advisory Board and the Cannabis Law Institute, and has been convened to discuss what happens if California votes to legalise marijuana. And here they are in one place: these Vietnam-era pioneers of pot returned from the war, who headed for the hills to create the finest cannabis strains in the world and who today face a new enemy in the crosshairs of agribusiness, big pharma, big tobacco and the possibility of marijuana monoculture following legalisation.

At one table, beefy guys with buzz-cuts and folded arms exude the wariness of life under the radar: in hushed tones, ex-loggers-turned-ganja-farmers talk about shakedowns and sawn-off padlocks. One asks those at his table to respond to a question from a workshop survey: “What assets do we bring to this industry?” “Seizable ones,” responds another man, his voice rife with sarcasm. There is laughter, but no one smiles. “This county is third in the nation for seized assets,” says a third man.

“I have relatives who buy cannabis in LA,” says another, “but the strains are depleted. It looks and smells like the real thing, but it’s so bad the dispensaries are issuing refunds!”

“If I shared my seeds with you,” someone challenges, “how do I know you’re not gonna sell out to Monsanto?”

Two people in the audience have especially interesting things to say. The first is Dan Rush, special operations director for UFCW5, the north California branch of America’s third largest trade union, United Food and Commercial Workers. “Schools are closing. Police officers are being laid off. If government opposes legalisation, they’ve lost their minds,” says Rush. He claims that his union represents 1,200 cannabis workers in the Bay area.

Sheriff Allman chats informally to people he knows. He then appears, speaking to camera, in a film shown to the meeting, in which he insists: “I’m not saying that marijuana is this innocent little herb that doesn’t affect people, but it doesn’t have the serious impact on society that other serious problems do. I’m spending 30 per cent of my time on marijuana. There’s other things I need to be doing.” The audience, which has found itself watching Allman watching himself on screen, breaks into unabashed applause. “We’ll hold him to his views,” whispers one man, adding that he already respects the sheriff for once extracting a woman from a burning car with his bare hands.

Eight long hours later, Dan Rush from the union helps fold away the chairs and a man with a mop of silver-grey hair loads a last item into his truck – a painting of the earth with the slogan: “Respect the land for future generations. Organic outdoor.” Then he climbs aboard and drives back up Highway 101 – to a place he runs called Area 101.

The road north from Ukiah cuts through a breathtaking landscape of mountain meadows coloured luminous green by heavy rain this year. In the town of Willits (“Gateway to the Redwoods”), Roxie’s Rock Shop advertises a tool called a Mendo Mulcher, which grinds marijuana buds into a fluffy, smokeable form – reportedly designed by a Nasa engineer. Stands of oak trees give way to conifers and wilder country, where the local newspaper is the Anderson Valley Advertiser, which, with its blocks of close print, looks as it might have done in 1900. The slogan on the masthead promises it’s been “Fanning the flames of discontent”, and articles about President Obama’s foreign policy sit besides tales of local cannabis growers’ brushes with the law.

Just past the farm where Wavy Gravy – compere of the Woodstock Festival in 1969 – holds an annual Earth Dance event, outbuildings with alien spaceships, a moonrise and Buddhist deities painted in fluorescent colours announce you’ve reached Area 101. The name is a play on the number of the route we’ve driven and on Area 51, the counterculture name for an airforce base in Nevada where aliens are supposedly developing aviation technology. Area 101, conversely, is a place “dedicated to personal growth and spiritual enlightenment”, as the business card says. This venue for music and happenings is run by Tim Blake, the man with the silver-grey hair, who also co-owns a nearby farm that grows what is agreed on the grapevine in Mendocino to be “the best cannabis in the world”. The intention is to turn the farm into a licensed dispensary for marijuana, too.

Blake has a Virgin of Guadalupe tattooed on his upper arm and the same figure cut with stained glass in the window, “which means the Mexicans leave me alone,” he claims. Blake’s enthusiasm for what he does has been boundless since he first came to northern California from the coast at Santa Cruz in the 60s, and it is informative to hear his account of history since then.

“The trailer we were pulling forward in the 60s got disconnected in the 70s. Big dealers moved in and derailed the psychedelic movement. Weed was grown under lights, cocaine was $10 an ounce. People were losing their minds, crack on the streets, speed everywhere, and the 80s and 90s were a mess.

“But then the energy started coming back. We’ve gone back to fetch the trailer. God put us right here, just north of the fault line system, just south of the volcano chain, where the pasture’s good and the air stays clean. Where the marijuana is our saviour and nourishment. We believe it can change things, change the system, as well as being a safe place to change your headspace.

“I’m talking about the good stuff,” he adds. “It’s got to be the good stuff.”

A woman called Pam arrives. Her face is beautiful, but weary and lined with tribulation. With her is her niece, Lisa, aged 18. Pam’s son has committed suicide and so has her nephew, Lisa’s brother. “I used to pass this place every day, driving between here and Reno, Nevada,” says Pam, “but I never came in, never needed to. Now I’ve found it.” Tim Blake chants a mantra, by way of demonstration, not meditation. Then out comes a bong, which Pam puffs before weeping and starting to feel better.

Marvin Levin of the Mendocino Farmers Collective is from Los Angeles and “too young to remember what it was like first time around.” But he manages the farm here now, and he has a point to make. “We’re not just using cannabis for smoking, we’re using it in a dozen different medical ways and as a dietary supplement. For this, we need to grow it right. If you want to grow as much as you can as fast as you can, you’ll grow something entirely different, pumped full of fertilisers.”

For those at Area 101, who represent a set of Californian values that find expression in the language of hippiedom, the prospect of marijuana being legalised in November’s state ballot seems welcome. None the less, to meet the denizens of Area 101 is to worry that their aspirations and message will be lost if pharmaceutical and tobacco companies arrive – that they will get squeezed out of the picture by Governor Schwarzenegger’s embrace of what once was the counterculture.

It is with a note of optimism you hope isn’t misplaced that Marvin Levin says: “We work in a non-profit closed loop, so we can ask people for feedback, and cultivate accordingly. We’re not like the bikers or men with guns up in the woods. We’re trying to do this for a better world, yes – but also for the neighbourhood.”

As we say our goodbyes, I see a lovely old sign from the days before Area 101 on the wall, reading “Country Store and Deli”.

“We’ve left it there,” says Levin, “because that’s what we’re going to be. Why take down something you’re going to need again some day? That’s what we are: the Lost Coast Country Store and Deli!”

A handful of uses in the bill — such as pain suffered by people with HIV and cancer — are supported by some solid scientific evidence. But none meet the standards, such as multiple large, well-designed clinical trials, required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in approving new drugs.

“What defines a medicine? And how do we bring medicines to market?” said Dr. Eric A. Voth, chairman of the Institute on Global Drug Policy. “And we do not bring them through the legislative vote process and say: ‘Here, we deem this as medicine.’”

And yet the momentum across the U.S. leans toward legalizing medical marijuana, with bills being weighed from Pennsylvania to Ohio. On Tuesday, the District of Columbia Council passed a measure that legalizes medical cannabis. Advocates also are championing a change in federal law.

In the world of medicine, there’s nothing quite like pot. It’s a medicine sold with names like Haze ($160 an ounce at one California dispensary) and Grand Daddy Purple ($300 an ounce), and descriptions like “get lifted and be happy”; a stigmatized plant with therapeutic promise that few want to study because it remains illegal on the federal level and a drug that raises concerns because it often is smoked.

“We need more science and we need to treat it like a medicine,” said Allan Young, a professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia who is conducting a trial examining the effect of chemicals in marijuana on bipolar disorder.

Advocates say they are only trying to decriminalize use of the plant by sick people who have failed to gain relief from pharmaceutical drugs. Under the Illinois bill, patients with permission from the state and a physician would be able to possess 2 ounces of dried marijuana or grow a small number of plants.

“These sick people are looking for compassion,” said Dan Linn, executive director of the Illinois Cannabis Patients Association. “And if treatment includes cannabis, in Illinois, should we consider these people criminals?”

Illinois Rep. Lou Lang, a sponsor of the Illinois bill, said: “We have to think of this as a product, not a drug. Not as a menace. Nobody has ever died from an overdose of marijuana.”

But there is reason to worry that marijuana could actually prove harmful for patients with some of the conditions it is supposed to treat.

Take glaucoma, a disease listed in the Illinois bill and often cited by advocates because marijuana can lower the pressure inside the eye. Increased eye pressure is a common feature of glaucoma, and can lead to damage of the optic nerve and blindness.

“They think that even if this unconventional therapy doesn’t work that it can’t possibly hurt their disease,” said Dr. James Tsai, chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at Yale University School of Medicine and chairman of the medical advisory board at The Glaucoma Foundation. “However, studies suggest that it might be, in fact, damaging to do so.”

Marijuana only lowers pressure for several hours, requiring patients to continuously medicate day and night, glaucoma experts said. Failing to do so can lead to a rebound spike in eye pressure, which can be damaging. Marijuana also can lower blood pressure, which can damage the optic nerve.

In February, the Journal of Glaucoma ran an editorial warning against using pot to treat glaucoma.

Epilepsy is another disease commonly cited by advocates as treatable because marijuana is suspected to have anti-seizure properties. But ask epilepsy experts and they will tell another story.

“Statistically, there is no evidence that it is effective when used as a therapeutic agent and, besides, it has more side effects than other anti-seizure medications available,” said neurologist Dr. Stephan Schuele, medical director of the Northwestern University Comprehensive Epilepsy Center.

There are serious concerns, said neurologist Dr. Alan Ettinger, epilepsy director of Neurological Surgery in Rockville Center, N.Y., and a member of the executive board of the national Epilepsy Foundation. First, he said, withdrawal among chronic users with epilepsy can cause severe exacerbations of the seizures.

And, he said, some individuals with epilepsy are struggling with depression, sleepiness and cognitive difficulties to begin with. Marijuana can compound these problems, he said.

Like glaucoma and epilepsy, research is mixed when it comes to another commonly cited medical use of marijuana — spasticity in people with multiple sclerosis, according to experts in the field.

One trial in Europe found that objective measures showed cannabis did not affect spasticity, even though patients thought it did, said neurologist Dr. Carlo Pozzilli, director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center in Rome, who has conducted research on cannabis and multiple sclerosis. It did, however, affect pain.

“This is the gap between what the patients say and what the doctor sees in terms of objectivity,” Pozzilli said. “This is the big problem of cannabis as a therapeutic.”

Advocates say marijuana can be a safe and effective alternative to FDA-approved pharmaceuticals, which can come with their own addiction problems and side effects. Mike Graham, a 47-year-old former restaurant manager from Manteno, Ill., said his degenerative disc disease left him bedridden with horrible nerve pain. “It is like getting hit by a baseball bat every time my heart beats,” he said. “Boom. Boom. Boom. It doesn’t stop.”

The painkillers he was taking, including a morphine pump, failed to manage the pain but caused nausea and vomiting, he said. A hospice nurse suggested he try pot. He said it worked. Now he takes several puffs every three hours. “There is no euphoric feeling, but I can have a semblance of a life,” said Graham, co-director of the Illinois chapter of Americans for Safe Access.

His story echoes that of the Rev. Wayne Dagit, a Michigan minister who runs a cannabis smokers club in Williamston, Mich., and is pushing for the Illinois bill.

Dagit said he awakens some mornings in so much pain that he can barely move. He has been prescribed oxycodone, a strong painkiller that can become addictive and takes 30 minutes to take effect. “But,” he said, “if I can scoot up to the edge of the bed and do one hit (of marijuana), I wait four minutes and it is a euphoric effect and that is all I need.”

Researchers long have been intrigued by marijuana’s possibilities. Could cannabinoids, which affect areas of the brain that control movement, help people with multiple sclerosis control spasticity? Could the chemicals, which affect areas of the brain associated with stress, help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine released a report citing the promise of cannabinoids, recommending short-term use of marijuana for debilitating conditions like intractable pain or vomiting if, among other conditions, all other treatments have failed.

The report mostly calls for more research on uses of cannabis. But since that report, relatively little work has been done. Marijuana’s status as an illegal drug, not just in the United States but across much of the world, has stymied researchers.

Marijuana, especially smoked marijuana, as a target of research faces serious obstacles, said internist Dr. Eric Larson, a co-author of the 1999 Institute of Medicine report. “It is an orphan drug, there is no U.S. company that is going to promote it and then there’s the stigma,” he said.

Larson said the social advocacy groups — pro and con — also make marijuana an unpopular choice for researchers. “Many traditional scientists will say, ‘I don’t want to have to deal with this sort of wild advocacy group where my science runs the risk of being expropriated for an agenda that isn’t about discovery but rather about advocating a point of view.’”

A U.S. judge has ruled two California cities can ban medical marijuana dispensaries, despite a challenge by the disabled.

The Newport Beach (Calif.) Daily Pilot reported the judge ruled the federal Americans with Disabilities Act does not protect the dispensing of marijuana to the disabled in Costa Mesa and Lake Forest.

The newspaper said Marla James, Wayne Washington, James Armantrout and Charles Daniel DeJong had filed a federal lawsuit under the ADA saying the two cities were violating their access to public services.

With medicinal marijuana legal in California and 13 other states, some wonder whether a recent recommendation by the state pharmacy board will mean that Iowa will be next.Iowa lawmakers could bring up the idea in the next legislative session.NewsChannel 8’s Emily Price and photojournalist Jesse Landolt went to California to see what it’s like in a state that lets people walk a street and legally pick up some pot for their medicine cabinets.

In Venice Beach, the buildings are almost as colorful as the people.”Get legal today,” said Jordan Kurtz-Hannah, who encourages beachgoers to visit his employer, Canna Safe. It’s one of several clinics in Venice Beach that lets people in pain visit a doctor for a recommendation to acquire medicinal marijuana.”I pled my case and told them how I really need it,” Kurtz-Hannah said.He said he’s been using marijuana since he was 16.”I skateboard a lot and I hurt my ankle and I never went to the doctor to get it checked out and it bumps a lot,” he said. “So chronic pain, there you go.”

Most people associate medicinal marijuana with people suffering from cancer, multiple sclerosis or chronic migraines, not an ankle injury.Price wanted to find out whether a pregnant reporter from Iowa could also get a recommendation for marijuana.A woman working the counter at the 420 Doctor’s Office checked with the doctor about her back pain. The clinic said she was too far along in her pregnancy, but would have written a recommendation to treat nausea a few weeks earlier.In just the first few months of the year, nearly 8,000 people in California did get prescriptions for medicinal marijuana. Many of the customers went to The Farmacy, one of 1,000 dispensaries in Los Angeles alone that have opened since the state legalized medicinal marijuana in 1996.General manager Bill Leahy said his facility offers 48 kinds of cannabis, each offering a different treatment for different types of pain.He said The Farmacy may not feel like a real pharmacy, but it tries to operate like one.”We have two chemists and two pharmacists with us,” Leahy said.Californians must present their medicinal marijuana identification card when they walk in. The card gets scanned into a computer that does background checks. One past the gate, the pot possibilities are endless.One gram costs anywhere between $25 and $75. For most people, that dose lasts just one day. If that price is too steep, another option is edible cannabis.”These are our gelatos where we made ice creams that were enhanced,” Leahy said.It’s has also been added to butter, brownies, olive oil and juice.”The stigma of the negative needs to be taken away,” Leahy said. “It is truly a miracle plant.”

A motor home converted into a mobile rolling medical marijuana dispensary has become the target of police in Southern California.

A couple has been on the road with their  Collective for approximately seven months, serving about 500 members from Southern California.

The couple was cited this month by police officers for possessing drug paraphernalia and operating a medical marijuana dispensary on wheels.

The couple indicated they are a nonprofit organization serving medical marijuana patients. Police say it’s a for-profit operation.  Obviously this will be causing a debatable argument in court.

The couple indicated they will contest the citations and challenge zoning laws that ban dispensaries.

This may be new case law since local ordinances laws pertaining to medical marijuana distribution have only been written for dispensaries  that are located within city ordinances.

The question is police officers making the assumption that possessing drug paraphernalia in connection with medical marijuana dispensaries?  If I recall correctly Medical Marijuana has been legal in California since 1996.

The city of Norco currently bans dispensaries, but this becomes contradictory if the dispensary in question was licensed in a different city and the motor home was traveling to Norco to make a delivery.

The State of California and the Federal government are currently regulating the medical marijuana industry by making spontaneous decisions that are causing conflict and confusion within local governments.  The issue of Medical Marijuana was approved by voters of the state of California to be approved.  The issue is that their maybe the need to create a state run government department to regulate and enforce the industry itself.

US President Barack Obama’s  administration will not pursue to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers, as long as they follow state laws, under new policy guidelines sent to federal prosecutors Monday.

The Justice Department described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

California is unique among those for the presence of dispensaries — businesses that sell marijuana and even advertise their services.

Attorney General Eric Holder said in March that he wanted federal law enforcement officials to pursue those who violate both federal and state law, but it has not been clear how that goal would be put into practice.

A 3-page memo spelling out the policy is expected to be sent Monday to federal prosecutors in the 14 states, and also to top officials at the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The memo, the officials said, emphasizes that prosecutors have wide discretion in choosing which cases to pursue, and says it is not a good use of federal manpower to prosecute those who are without a doubt in compliance with state law.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the legal guidance before it is issued.

At the same time, the officials said, the government will still prosecute those who use medical marijuana as a cover for other illegal activity. The memo particularly warns that some suspects may hide old-fashioned drug dealing or other crimes behind a medical marijuana business.

In particular, the memo urges prosecutors to pursue marijuana cases which involve violence, the illegal use of firearms, selling pot to minors, money laundering or other crimes.

And while the policy memo describes a change in priorities away from prosecuting medical marijuana cases, it does not rule out the possibility that the federal government could still prosecute someone whose activities are allowed under state law.

The memo, officials said, is designed to give a sense of prosecutorial priorities to U.S. Attorneys in the states that allow medical marijuana. It notes that pot sales in the United States are the largest source of money for violent Mexican drug cartels, but adds that federal law enforcement agencies have limited resources.

Medical marijuana advocates have been anxious to see exactly how the administration would implement candidate Barack Obama’s repeated promises to change the policy in situations in which state laws allow the use of medical marijuana.

Shortly after Obama took office, DEA agents raided four dispensaries in Los Angeles, prompting confusion about the government’s plans.

Most Americans’ support medical uses of marijuana this does not extend to their embracing of initiatives to legalize the drug outright, according to an April 7-12 Associated Press-CNBC poll.

The AP reported April 20 that in the telephone poll of 1,000 adults nationally, only 33 percent of respondents favored marijuana legalization, along the lines of what California voters will consider this November, while 55 percent opposed it. By contrast, 60 percent of respondents supported use of medical marijuana, which is now allowed in 13 states. In addition, 74 percent said they believe the drug yields medical benefits for some individuals.

On the legalization question, only the age group under 30 gave majority support to the idea (54 percent). Also, only 14 percent of all opponents to legalization said they would support the idea if states opted to tax marijuana. The revenue generation argument has been a popular strategy employed by pro-legalization groups in cash-strapped states.

Many opponents of legalization in the poll cited concerns that legalization would lead to more widespread abuse of the drug. “I think it would be chaos if it was legalized,” said Shirley Williams, a retired Illinois teacher. “People would get in trouble and use marijuana as an excuse.”

If you want to know what the best medical marijuana plant is out there, a Eugene group hopes to find out by testing up to 20 plants.

The Vote Power Foundation is holding it’s first Cannabis Cups and Strain Evaluation. If you’ve got a medical marijuana card, you can be one of the 20 judges they’re looking for.

Members say they are aware that not everyone is a fan, but they say events like this are happening all over because people know how important these plants are for medical purposes.

“Any search engine, you’ll find over a million entries of how marijuana is used as medicine,” said Jim Grieg of the Vote Power Foundation.

Judges will try the plants in a 2 1/2 week span. They’ll answer a survey about the appearance, taste and its medicinal effects. Then the group will award the best strain. That happens on May 22nd at the foundation’s office off River Road.  www.Votepower.org

The U.S. legal landscape surrounding “medical marijuana” is complex and rapidly changing. Fourteen states — California, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Maine, Hawaii, Colorado, Nevada, Vermont, Montana, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Michigan, and most recently, New Jersey — have passed laws eliminating criminal penalties for using marijuana for medical purposes, and at least a dozen others are considering such legislation.  Medical experts have also taken a fresh look at the evidence regarding the therapeutic use of marijuana,  and the American Medical Association (AMA) recently adopted a resolution urging review of marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance, noting it would support rescheduling if doing so would facilitate research and development of cannabinoid-based medicine. Criticizing the patchwork of state laws as inadequate to establish clinical standards for marijuana use, the AMA has joined the Institute of Medicine, the American College of Physicians, and patient advocates in calling for changes in federal drug-enforcement policies to establish evidence-based practices in this area.

States have led the medical marijuana movement largely because federal policymakers have consistently rejected petitions to authorize the prescription of marijuana as a Schedule II controlled substance that has both a risk of abuse and accepted medical uses. Restrictive federal law and, until recently, aggressive federal law enforcement have hamstrung research and medical practice involving marijuana. The federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug — one with a high potential for abuse and “no currently accepted medical use” — and criminalizes the acts of prescribing, dispensing, and possessing marijuana for any purpose. Although physicians may recommend its use under First Amendment protections of physician–patient communications, as set forth in the 2002 federal appeals court decision Conant v. Walters, they violate federal law if they prescribe or dispense marijuana and may be charged with “aiding and abetting” violation of the federal law if they advise patients about obtaining it. A 2005 Supreme Court decision (Gonzales v. Raich) made clear that regardless of state laws, federal law enforcement has the authority under the CSA to arrest and prosecute physicians who prescribe or dispense marijuana and patients who possess or cultivate it.

Nevertheless, in October 2009, the Department of Justice issued a memorandum to U.S. Attorneys stating that federal resources should not be used to prosecute persons whose actions comply with their states’ laws permitting medical use of marijuana. This change in the Justice Department’s prosecutorial stance paved the way for states to implement new medical-marijuana laws, and states are now attempting to design laws that balance concerns about providing access for patients who can benefit from the drug with concerns about its abuse and diversion. Although the current state laws facilitate access, they do little to advance the development of standards that address the potency, quality, purity, dosing, packaging, and labeling of marijuana.

All the state laws allow patients to use and possess small quantities of marijuana for medical purposes without being subject to state criminal penalties. They also allow a patient’s “caregiver” — an adult who agrees to assist with a patient’s medical use of marijuana — to possess, but not use, marijuana. Most laws protect “qualifying” patients, who are variously defined as those who have received a diagnosis of a debilitating medical condition and have written documentation (or, in one case, an oral recommendation) from their physician indicating that they might or would “benefit from the medical use of marijuana” or that the “potential benefits of medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the health risks.” Definitions of “debilitating medical condition” vary by state but typically include HIV–AIDS, cachexia, cancer, glaucoma, epilepsy and other seizure disorders, severe nausea, severe and chronic pain, muscle spasms from multiple sclerosis or Crohn’s disease, and other conditions. All but two states allow additions to this list if approved by the state health department.

Most Americans still oppose legalizing marijuana, but larger majorities believe pot has medical benefits and the government should allow its use for that purpose, according to an Associated Press poll being released today.

Respondents were skeptical that crime would spike if marijuana is decriminalized or that it would lead more people to harder drugs like heroin or cocaine.

Marijuana use, medically and recreationally, is getting more attention in the political arena. California voters will decide in November whether to legalize the drug, and South Dakota will vote this fall on whether to allow medical uses. California and 13 other states already permit such use.

The balloting comes against the backdrop of the Obama administration saying it won’t target marijuana dispensaries if they comply with state laws, a departure from the policy of the Bush administration, which sought to more stringently enforce the federal ban on marijuana use for any purpose.

In the poll, only 33 percent favor legalization, while 55 percent oppose it. People under 30 were the only age group favoring legalization (54 percent) and opposition increased with age, topping out at 73 percent of those 65 and older.

Like California, which was the first to OK medical marijuana in 1996, Colorado’s marijuana infrastructure and culture are well ahead of the other 12 states that followed.

Though Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington allow the practice, they are in various stages of start-up mode.

Similar ballot measures or legislation allowing medical marijuana are pending in 14 more states this year: Alabama, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wisconsin. The City Council of the District of Columbia today considers a bill to allow the sale and use of medical marijuana.

Those states have a lot to learn from California and Colorado. In the Mountain State, the jump in dispensary openings and applications for medical marijuana cards appears to be a direct result of key events — both local and national — that essentially loosened restrictions.

In February 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder said the Drug Enforcement Agency would end raids on state-approved marijuana dispensaries. He said President Obama’s election campaign position condoning medical use is “now American policy.” Marijuana for non-medical purposes remains illegal.

In July 2009, during a 12-hour hearing in which hundreds testified, the Colorado Board of Health rejected a proposal to limit the number of patients to five that could be served by each caregiver or dispensary. In October, the Obama administration clarified Holder’s February statement, telling federal authorities not to arrest or prosecute medical marijuana users and suppliers who aren’t violating local laws.

The policy decisions bolstered a business model used by most existing dispensaries, which serve 400 or more patients. And they offered a measure of certainty to investors who are bankrolling the growth in retail outlets.

Tomorrow is a special day for 420.  But what does 420 really mean?

• Myth: Police dispatch code for smoking pot is 420.Fact: The number 420 is not police radio code for anything, anywhere. Checks of criminal codes suggest that the origin is neither Californian nor federal. For instance, California Penal Code 420 defines as a misdemeanor the hindrance of use of public lands.
• Myth: There are approximately 420 active chemicals in marijuana.Fact: There are approximately 315 active chemicals in marijuana. This number goes up and down depending on which plant is used.
• Myth: April 20th is National Pot Smokers Day.Fact: Well, it is now; but that wasn’t the origin.
• Myth: April 20th is Hitler’s birthday.Fact: Yes, it is his birthday. But, as 420 started out as a time, not a date, his birthday had nothing to do with it.
• Myth: April 20th is the date of the Columbine school shootings.Fact: This happened after the term was already in use.
• Myth: 4:20 is tea time for pot-smokers in Holland.Fact: Tea time in Holland is at 5:30 pm, or is it 2:30 pm? Seems no one is quite sure when the wonderful people of Holland drink their tea.

The Origin Revealed

According to Steven Hager, editor of High Times, the term 420 originated at San Rafael High School, in 1971, among a group of about a dozen pot-smoking wiseacres who called themselves the Waldos, who are now pushing 50. The term was shorthand for the time of day the group would meet, at the campus statue of Louis Pasteur, to smoke pot. Intent on developing their own discreet language, they made 420 code for a time to get high, and its use spread among members of an entire generation. While our teens feel that they know something we don’t, you can let them in on the fact that it was your generation that came up with the numbers.

A quote from one of the Waldos in the High Times article states, “We did discover we could talk about getting high in front of our parents without them knowing by using the phrase 420.” Fortunately, your teenagers will not have that same option.

Answer

Simply put, 420 is a symbol of cannabis and its culture. Today, April 20th events are international and 4:20 pm has become sort of a world wide “burn time”.

The “Cow Palace” is hosting the first-ever International Cannabis and Hemp Expo which celebrates all things marijuana.
There are vendors, speakers, booths and bands all ready for anyone who wants to see the latest and greatest products focused on growing and ingesting pot.

The weekend event is the stage for iGrow to introduce its latest “thing.” It has a new option for those wanting to grow their own pot, for medical purposes of course.  Mann helped come up with a new concept that puts pot growing on wheels.  iGrow with GrowOp Technologies partnered with Mann to develop a mobile marijuana growing station they call “buds.A bud is a trailer fully equipped and ready to grow marijuana.  They sell for between $10,000 and $60,000.

The International Cannabis and Hemp Expo at the Cow Palace in Daly City has opened its doors.

Organizers say the two-day event, which began Saturday at 10 a.m., is intended to showcase the state’s multibillion dollar pot industry and educate people about the drug’s uses.

It is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Organizers say vendors connected to the industry will be on hand. There will also be an area where medical marijuana patients can smoke.

Bob Katzman, chief operations officer for the event, said organizers insisted on having an onsite medicating area before holding the expo.

The event comes as California voters head to the polls in November to decide whether to legalize marijuana.

The Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled that medical marijuana authorized in California stays in California. Joel Berringer was convicted in Oregon of possessing of two pounds of marijuana but lost an appeal today.

He argued that his letter from a California doctor authorizing him to use medical marijuana should be good in Oregon. But the Oregon Court of Appeals said Oregon does not enforce California’s medical marijuana laws.

Oregon has its own medical marijuana law, but it didn’t play a role in Berringer’s case. Berringer was arrested during a traffic stop for speeding in Clackamas County in 2006.

He was taking a friend to Fort Lewis in Washington state.

Students from a new school are becoming leaders in a new economic sector.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) — 420 College (www.420college.org), the premier medical marijuana school in California, offers an all encompassing educational program for people who are interested in becoming a part of the thriving medical marijuana industry.

After their first year in business, 420 College has had over four-hundred students pass through their program, and acquire the training it takes to become a medical marijuana professional. The school’s success is dependent on what makes them different from other institutions of this nature.

Not only does 420 College provide an extensive education through all the in and outs of the business, but they also give their students other essential resources. The school helps both their students and the medical marijuana industry itself. In that, they make it possible for people in the program to connect with and gain knowledge from industry professionals of all types, including lawyers and licensed medical marijuana doctors, and provides the industry with individuals who want to be involved.

The students of 420 College have been applying their skills through entrepreneurial efforts. Business ownership is one of the most popular topics for the school, and they also offer resources for individuals to get into business for themselves.
These include a wide range of business start-up options, including:

-Medical Marijuana Dispensaries
-Medical Marijuana Delivery Services
-Non-Profit Medical Marijuana Collectives
-Medical Marijuana Co-operatives
-Medical Marijuana Cultivation Centers

The Maryland Senate approved a bill this morning that, if eventually made into law, would legalize medical marijuana in the state.

Senate Bill 627, sponsored by Senator Jamie Raskin among others, passed by a vote of 35 to 12.

The House of Delegates is debating the Senate bill’s counterpart, House Bill 712, but it has not been put to a vote.

The provisions of the Senate bill would allow pharmacies to provide patients with a doctor’s authorization with medical marijuana.

The Senate bill, if adopted, would also mean that marijuana would no longer be categorized as a drug, but would be considered a regulated pain medication.

(AP) – Sponsors of a bill to legalize medical marijuana in Maryland said Thursday the Senate may approve the measure, but it could be several years before it wins the approval of the House of Delegates.

The Senate measure would allow pharmacies to distribute marijuana to patients who receive authorization from a physician with whom they have had ongoing medical relationships. It would also re-categorize marijuana as a highly regulated pain medication like morphine, instead of keeping it in the same group of drugs as heroin. Ten senators have signed on as sponsors of the legislation, including Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, a Democrat, and Senate Republican leader Allan Kittleman.

Sen. Jamie Raskin, D-Montgomery, presented the bill on the Senate floor Thursday as “the exact opposite” of California’s medical marijuana program, where the state doesn’t license the growers or dispensers of medical marijuana and patients do not have to prove a long-term relationship with a doctor.

The Maryland proposal calls for state-run production centers that supporters say would be closely monitored and licensed by the state. Pharmacies would also be licensed to distribute the drug. In addition, people could only receive prescriptions from a doctor who’d treated them for a while and could attest that alternatives have not worked.

A statewide initiative in November would allow cities to regulate pot possession and cultivation. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has proposed a broader legalization. Neither is certain to pass.

Yet as medical marijuana has spread and city and state budgets are being slashed, legalized marijuana is becoming more possible than ever. That has some people here thinking twice.

Wholesale prices have dropped in the last five years — from $4,000 a pound to below $3,000 for the best cannabis — as medical-marijuana dispensaries have attracted a slew of new growers statewide, Humboldt growers say.

Recently, “Keep Pot Illegal” bumper stickers have been seen on cars around the county. In chat rooms and on blogs, anonymous writers predict that tobacco companies will crush small farmers and take marijuana production to the Central Valley.

In March, Hamilton organized a community meeting in Garberville addressing the question “What’s After Pot?” It attracted more than 150 people, including a county supervisor, economic development consultants and business owners.

All this was unimaginable to the hippies and student radicals who came here in the 1960s and ’70s, escaping a conventional world they abhorred. As marijuana’s price steadily rose, it funded their escape. In time, mom-and-pop growers became experts.

Four medical marijuana patients have filed a federal lawsuit in efforts to halt the cities of Costa Mesa and Lake Forest’s recent crackdowns on dispensaries.

According to the lawsuit filed Friday, Orange County residents Marla James, Wayne Washington, James Armantrout and Charles Daniel DeJong allege that the cities’ efforts to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries/collectives deny them the access to public services.

“All of them suffer from severe disabilities and illness,” said attorney Matthew Pappas. “They are and have tried other medicines to help all the various symptoms associated with the disabilities and illnesses and those have not worked for them.”

The plaintiffs are seeking the court to temporarily restrain the cities from taking any further action against collectives; bar the cities from violating the rights of qualified people under the American Disabilities Act; award damages for past actions in violation of the ADA; and award attorney’s fees.

Legislation to legalize dispensing, growing and using marijuana for medical purposes has been introduced in the Ohio House. Passage is unlikely, but if that happens, Ohio would become the 15th state to make medical marijuana legal.

The primary sponsor is Rep. Kenny Yuko, D-Richmond Heights, but there are five other sponsors. The Drug Policy Alliance in Ohio worked with Yuko in drafting the bill, which is similar to Senate Bill 343 from the last session but has significant changes, backers said.

Edward J. Orlett, a former state lawmaker who is Ohio representative for the California-based Drug Policy Alliance, said if the state doesn’t pass the legislation, voters could take matters into their own hands. Michigan residents did that in passing a similar medical marijuana ballot issue in 2008.

Among other things, the bill would allow certified cardholders who verify they have debilitating medical conditions to grow marijuana plants. However, it would require them, when they are not at home, to keep the plants in a locked “room, greenhouse, garden or other enclosed area that is out of public view.”

New York is turning towards legalizing marijuana for medical purposes as a way to close the state’s $9 billion budget gap. The state Senate included medical marijuana in its budget resolution.

Manhattan state Senator Daniel Squadron is a supporter of allowing New Yorkers with a debilitating illness turn to marijuana for relief. Senator Squadron says legalizing marijuana could generate $15 million in new fees.

But Brooklyn state Senator Martin Golden says selling marijuana legally could put it in the hands of young people and make it more accessible to the public.

Governor Paterson will not weigh in on the issue until he sees the final bill from the state.

Far from being a war between medical marijuana and police, the fight to legalize marijuana in California centers on whether decriminalizing and taxing cannabis can help fill the state’s fiscal hole.

Using the drug for medical purposes has been legal for 14 years in the western state. But a new initiative that will appear on the ballot in November elections is seeking to legalize recreational marijuana use.

The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 would let cities and counties adopt ordinances authorising the cultivation, transportation and sale of marijuana, and tax its sale just like it taxes alcohol and cigarettes.

Supporters are hoping the potential tax windfall will help garner support for the measure at a time when California is suffering from a crippling budget crisis.

The debate is heating up, with supporters and opponents investing millions of dollars in their cause amid rising concerns the campaign could have a nationwide impact on relaxing drug laws.

The best supporter of this initiative would be our governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as you can see from the picture in this article.

Medical marijuana is rapidly becoming big business in Missoula, but it has emerged with very distinct growing pains.

Since September, the city of Missoula has processed 28 applications for business licenses related to the commerce of medical marijuana.

“I haven’t seen anything come on like this,” said Scott Paasch, account coordinator for the city of Missoula’s Finance Department, which oversees business licenses.

“We get at least one or two people a day who come in and at least three or four phone calls a day from people who want to know what would it require to get a license in the city to dispense or deliver medical marijuana,” he said. “This isn’t a business boom. It’s more like an explosion.”

In Missoula specifically, the bumper crop of entrepreneurs includes a wide variety of services.

Montana Caregivers Network is a resource service that, among many things, connects patients to caregivers and helps people find doctors who support the use of medical marijuana.