Legal weed is a roaring success

No doubt because of my involvement with the launch of NORML Ireland and Luke Flanagan’s Cannabis Regulation Bill 2013, I was bombarded with “what do you have to say for yourself now?” tweets and mails when it was reported last week by the online Daily Currant that, “Colorado is reconsidering its decision to legalize recreational pot following the deaths of dozens due to marijuana overdoses.”

“Drugs destroy lives; period,” raged Ciara O’Reilly who, like countless others, was blissfully unaware that the Currant is an Onionstyle satirical news site and that a lethal marijuana overdose is medically impossible. In fact, the state’s legit marijuana business hasgot off to a safe and successful start as outlined to Hot Press by Timothy McDowell, the owner of Denver’s marQaha medicinal marijuana company, which will start selling recreational weed – otherwise known as “rec” – as soon as the paperwork comes through.

“While the Daily Currant’s ‘37 people OD-ing’ story going viral was kind of funny, the fact that it was believed shows just how much misinformation there still is about marijuana,” the former culinary school graduate reflects. “Some people here are going, ‘We’ve won the battle’, but I’m like, ‘No, this is just the start. One of our responsibilities as an industry is to educate’.”

As even conservative news organisations like Fox have had to concede, Colorado and legal weed seem to be getting on just fine.

“We’ve three dozen dispensaries up and running, which have been taking in about $1 million a day,” McDowell resumes. “$200,000 of that goes straight to the public school system in tax, up to an annual cap of $40 million. The demand’s been so great that a lot of shops have sold-out. We won’t know for sure how big the market is until the novelty factor wears off in a few weeks, but obviously it’s substantial.”

Under the terms of Colorado’s Amendment 64, locals aged 21 or older can buy up to an ounce of marijuana at a time from licensed outlets, on the proviso that it’s not smoked in public. Hence, there’s no Amsterdam-style coffee shops. People from outside the State – including foreign nationals – are limited to a quarter per purchase.

“It’s Tuesday afternoon and one of the shops just drove by has 200 people queued up outside it,” Timothy resumes. “There’s no typical customer – they’re all ages and all backgrounds. 70 to 80% of the city of Denver voted ‘yes’ for this. It depends on what strain you’re buying, but the average price is $55 for three grams, which is about double the medical market. I’ve heard of people paying $200 an ounce and $500 an ounce, which is outrageous. The first really big harvest for rec is due in a few months, so prices will likely level out then.

“It’s not, as some people would have you believe, a ‘free-for-all’. With recreational, you’re allowed to grow 1,000 plants, with medical it’s 500. They’re emergency caps, though, which may well increase and allow corporations to enter the market. When the big boys see Mom & Pop stores make $100,000 a week, they’re going to want a slice of the action. In 2010 there were roughly 1,400 cannabis businesses here, which is a lot for a population of five million. Of those, there are maybe 500 of us still standing, so that ‘only the strong survive’ thing is already happening. Under the current rules, though, you’ve got to be from Colorado to own or invest.”

Can you switch your TV on now and see cannabis commecials?

“TV, billboards and websites that are likely to visited by kids, no, but our local free paper, which is considered to be more targeted, has 15 pages of marijuana adverts at the back.” Fox may have been begrudgingly won over, but Colorado’s marijuana industry still has powerful enemies in Washington D.C.

“The Federal Government has threatened banks saying, ‘You’re not to give these guys accounts’, which has made things extremely problematical for us,” McDowell explains. “Taken in isolation you’d have to say it’s a hostile act, but then you have the Justice Department, a federal agency, going, ‘Here’s a memo with eight bullet-points; we’ll leave you alone if you follow them and jump on you if you don’t’.”

Those areas of particular Justice Department concern include distribution to minors, situations when marijuana revenue is going to criminal enterprises, trafficking across State lines and consumption/growing on public land.

“It’s pretty much a reinforcement of Amendment 64 – ensure that there are no sales to under-21s: you don’t have people congregating outside shops smoking and there aren’t pounds of marijuana going across the state line to, say, Kansas. If those types of things happen, we run the risk of blowing it for not only ourselves but also the 20-odd States now with medical marijuana, who are all watching us to see whether or not they’ll take the next step. It’s up to us as an industry – and good, bad, ugly, we all know each other – not to provide the prohibition brigade with any ammunition.”

McDowell is justifiably proud of the way in which cannabis business owners like himself won over senior politicians and law enforcement during the Amendment 64 referendum campaign.

“We went and spoke to Jared Polis (a Boulder Democrat who’s the only openly gay parent in Congress) and Ed Perlmutter (another Democrat close to John Kerry), who’ve subsequently both been very supportive. In fact, Congressman Perlmutter was at a Denver City Council meeting yesterday to try and sort this banking impasse out. During the campaign, you had LEAP, which is an an acronym for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and NORML working closely
together. On a personal level, we’ve had the local police and actual Metro Drug Task Force in, to show them plants and how we extract from them. Once they got their heads round medical marijuana, the jump to recreational wasn’t so great. They’ve made it clear though that, like the Justice Department, they don’t want Denver to turn into just people hanging around smoking weed in public. Tourism’s a big part of the economy here because of the mountains and skiing, and they won’t let that be jeopardised.”

Welcoming the passing of Amendment 64, Congressman Polis said: “By regulating marijuana like alcohol, Colorado voters hope to reduce crime and keep marijuana away from kids. I applaud Colorado’s efforts to implement the will of the voters and will continue my work to regulate marijuana like alcohol federally.” The 38-year-old is a rising star among the Democrats’ liberal wing who, disappointed by what they
regard as his veering towards the centre-right, have started to disparingly refer to Barack Obama as ‘Black Bush’. That said, the President made headlines last weekend when he told the New Yorker that, “I view it (marijuana) as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”

With a recent CNN poll showing 55% of Americans to be in favour of its legalisation, weed has the potential to become a big electoral vote winner.

“Who’s prosecuted most for the illegal use of marijuana?” McDowell asks. “Minorities. Who do the Republican Party desperately need to engage with if they’re to get back into the White House? Minorities – but not you imagine at the expense of their core middle-class support. The likely Republican nominee for the 2016 Presidential Election, Chris Christie, is the governor of a State (New Jersey) that allows medical marijuana. He fought against it really hard at first, but then moved to make certain cannabis extracts available to terminally ill children. The Republican Party itself is as conservative as it’s ever been, but split. The Tea Party wing is ultra-conservative and stands on the moral high ground, but they’re also about less government, personal rights and libertarian values, which if it suited them could include the legalisation of marijuana. As for the Democrats, Hilary Clinton’s said nothing and appears reluctant to take sides – but may do if she’s running in 2016 and feels it will benefit her. We may get a better idea of where the parties formally stand in November when the mid-term elections take place.”

Whilst the Amendment 64 campaigning was virtually all done in-State, the past few months have seen the emergence of the NCIA, or National Cannabis Industry Association, as a nationwide support and lobbying group.

“We wouldn’t be where we are now in Colorado if it hadn’t been for California’s Proposition 215, which was passed in 1996 but has since been reined in because there were too many grey areas,” McDowell acknowledges. “We’ve been able to refine what they did in a way that will now hopefully help California and other states where there’s huge support like Ohio, Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts and New York to legalise fully.”

Not only states but countries. Uruguayan President Jose Mujica admits that the pro-referenda votes last year in Colorado and Washington State made it far easier to sell the concept of legal pot to the Broad Front coalition of left-wing parties he leads. His Marijuana Legalization Bill comes into effect in April and, according to the Wall Street Journal, is being closely monitored by Chile, Peru, Guatemala, Belize, Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago who’ve been drawing up legislation of their own.

“I’m actually comparing experiences tomorrow with a guy from Montevideo,” Timothy concludes. “What we’re witnessing is the start of a chain reaction that’s going to spread through the States, South America and Central America. If in ten or 15 years we’re all legal, I don’t think Europe will have any alternative but to follow suit.”