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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A flourishing and unregulated industry of medical marijuana delivery services is circumventing bans on storefront dispensaries and bringing the drug directly to people’s homes, offices and more unconventional locations across the state, records and interviews show.

The unfettered delivery of marijuana through hundreds of these services highlights how quickly California’s fabled pot industry may be moving from the shadows into uncharted legal territory.

These new couriers include enterprising farmers, business entrepreneurs and even a former Los Angeles pot dealer methodically switching her former clients to legal patients.

“It seems like there are … delivery services popping up right and left,” said a 26-year-old man who runs a small collective that delivers medical marijuana to member patients throughout Southwest Riverside County.

Most of the people who run medical marijuana delivery services and who were interviewed for this article asked that their names not be used out of fear of prosecution.

Some of the local delivery services said they grow their own medicinal cannabis for patients who are members of their collective; others said they purchase the herb from outside sources.

In newspapers and on the Internet, 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.

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 around the state using private prescription-drug couriers.

Although delivery of medical marijuana is not a new phenomenon, advocates say the growth of these services could be a game-changer in the state’s pot war, which pits law enforcement, elected officials and community groups in some localities against dispensary owners and patients.

Delivery businesses could increase in popularity if voters approve an initiative on the November ballot that would legalize pot possession.

“They’re delivering the product better, cheaper, more discretely and probably at a higher profit rate than dispensaries,” said Allen St. Pierre, director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which advocates legalization. “These delivery services are starting to grab more and more market share.”

Exact numbers unclear

A question remains on whether these services are legal. Some local and federal officials say delivery services violate the 1996 Compassionate Use Act that legalized medical marijuana in California for qualified patients, as well as other laws. The services are viewed as a way to circumvent local regulations clearly banning dispensaries.

“They’re transporting drugs,” said Tommy LaNeir, director of the National Marijuana Initiative, which is funded through the White House’s drug policy office. “It’s a trans-shipment operation that’s trying to bypass the ordinances that have been set up by cities and counties. It’s as simple as that.”

The exact number of delivery services operating in California is unclear, because the state does not keep a registry of medical marijuana distributors or outlets. In April, 758 services advertised direct delivery of marijuana to patients on Weedmaps.com, a commercial listing service.

Those numbers have nearly tripled in the last 18 months and grown by 39 percent since February, as more counties and cities began regulating storefront dispensaries or banning them outright, according to Justin Hartfield, owner of Weedmaps.com.

David, who runs a North County delivery service, said he wanted to open up a brick-and-mortar dispensary, but since a local moratorium removed that as an option, he said he went with the system he and his attorneys “felt was the best and the safest.”

“It’s a gamble opening up a dispensary,” said David, who asked that his last name not be used. “I consider myself a dispensary that delivers.”

David said the adversarial environment seen in counties throughout Southern California has created a guerilla war atmosphere.

“It’s a very gray area,” he said, “so basically you do the best you can to stay legal under the environment.”

Riverside, San Diego rank 3rd, 4th

More than half the couriers who advertised on Weedmaps.com in April said they were located in the Los Angeles region. Other services clustered around metropolitan regions, such as San Francisco, San Diego and Sacramento, with most regions experiencing steady growth. The number of couriers advertising within L.A. has jumped from 110 to 161 since February. San Diego saw an increase from 68 to 101 over the same period.

A total of 129 cities and nine counties in California have banned medical marijuana dispensaries. An additional 96 cities and 13 counties have moratoriums, according to Americans for Safe Access. Yet, in many of these “dry” communities, pot delivery services appear to be flourishing. The number of couriers advertising in Riverside County, for instance, has increased from 76 to 105 since February.

The 26-year-old man who runs the small collective in Southwest Riverside County said he moved to the area to set up his delivery service after he found the rules in Riverside County more hospitable than those in Los Angeles County.

For the state, the trend has caught officials flat-footed and unable to pinpoint any legal guidelines that directly address the delivery of medical marijuana by courier or mail. It’s clear that sending drugs through the Postal Service and cultivating pot for sale violates U.S. law, but most marijuana growers know federal prosecutions are rare these days.

“Delivery services are a relatively new creature, one that has not been directly addressed by the courts or in legislation,” said Peter Krause, a California deputy attorney general who helped write the state’s landmark guidelines on medical marijuana in 2008.

And that gray area keeps the man who runs The Ministry of Cannabis “erring on the side of caution,” he said. The 37-year-old Temecula Valley man, who asked that his name not be used, runs a collective that delivers medical cannabis to patients from Carlsbad to Corona.

“The one thing about delivery service is there is still a lot of gray areas,” the Temecula-area man said. “I sat down with an attorney and designed the delivery service around the less gray areas.”

He said ambiguities led him to routinely run questions by his attorneys and scour Web sites by groups such as the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, which advocates for legalization of marijuana.

“You try and do the best you can with what you have,” the man said. “And as you learn, you make adjustments. I want to be able to operate knowing for a fact that this is legal.”

He said he often sees a peak in demand for delivery services after authorities raid or shut down a brick-and-mortar dispensary.

DAs: Law is unambiguous

The state’s 1996 initiative and a companion law approved by the Legislature in 2003 granted cities and counties most of the authority over implementing the Compassionate Use Act. But no city council or board of supervisors has explicitly outlawed or legalized delivery services, according to Americans for Safe Access.

Senate Bill 420 —- signed into law by former Gov. Gray Davis during his final weeks in office —- appears to protect individual patients from prosecution for “possession, transportation, delivery, or cultivation of medical marijuana” under legal limits. The law also allows patients and their primary caregivers to “associate” with each other to “collectively or cooperatively” cultivate pot for medical purposes.

To some law enforcement officials, the law is unambiguous. John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney’s office, said the county has banned storefront dispensaries and that delivery services are prohibited.

“It is the position of this office that based on current law, all mobile medical marijuana operations are illegal,” Hall said. “That would include those that may be based in Riverside County as well as any which may be based elsewhere and come into the county to attempt to do business.”

Paul Levikow, spokesman for San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, said prosecutors in her office have not found any medical marijuana dispensaries or delivery services operating legally.

“There is nothing in the attorney general’s guidelines or the law that provides for for-profit sales of marijuana either at a store location or by a delivery service,” Levikow said.

Others agreed that California law does not allow the distribution of medical marijuana to hundreds of people by a service or any single person.

“I don’t see anything that suggests that when voters passed the Compassionate Use Act, they envisioned (marijuana) delivery services,” said Joseph Esposito, head of narcotics for the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.

This article was reported in collaboration with KQED public radio, with assistance from the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

North County Times staff writer Teri Figueroa contributed to this report.

California Watch is a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting, with offices in the Bay Area and Sacramento.

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.