By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Due to the close of the legislative session, the various families in the legislature were not able to agree how to put the Medical Marijuana industry out of business. Bosses at the Liquor Control Board and the two prominent political families worked all session to preserve the state’s business interests in the Recreational Marijuana Racket, with its excessive taxation and protection.
This had the potential to force medical marijuana patients to give up their medical privacy, pay more for their medicine, and force the medical dispensaries out of business. This in the hope of shunting people in to the state sponsored highly taxed recreational marijuana racket. Luckily for now, the bill is dead.
The bill would have forced independent, family and cooperative medical marijuana dispensaries to submit to the bosses’ protection and have retail marijuana licenses then tax medical marijuana patients as recreational. Most small businesses in the Medical Marijuana industry faced destruction if the law was passed and they and patients demonstrated before the legislature to kill the bill. Patents were told the bill if passed would curtail their home grows and make the price of the medicine they need rise as much as 100%
Additionally, the regulation would require all medical marijuana patients to register with the State Liquor Control Board and carry a card to bypass the 25% retail tax. Of course the 25% grower’s tax and the 25% processor’s tax will still be assessed. One has to wonder when Lithium, Simvastatin, and Provera patients will have to get cards from the Liquor Control Board, but time will tell.
The contention between the families generally was centered on how to divvy up the tax lute. One representative, Cary Condotta of East Wenatchee, proposed local governments should get a piece of the action by diverting 10% of the marijuana tax money to cities having dispensaries and retailers. This and other issues caused the bill to become bogged down and when the legislative session came to a close, the door slammed shut on the bill.
Medical Marijuana patients and dispensary owners breathed a puff of fresh smoke knowing they were safe from the legislature for at least a few more months.
There is still a worry for all. The revenuers with the Federal Government have made threats to swoop in and raid small medical marijuana if the families don’t get with the program and shakedown the dispensaries themselves. So it remains to be seen what will happen in the next few months.
Source: The Olympian
By Darren Smith
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
Reblogged this on McBlog.
Obama only enforces the laws he wants to, the drug laws, Immigration,and the A.C.A which he changes at will. He also knows nothing about foreign affairs. Sure is making Jimmie Carter look good. And how about those Democrats, they stay up all night talking about climate change but not one of them took the time to read the Affordable Care Act before they voted it into law. Talk about a bunch of BUMS.
I’ve said it before, tax & regulate is a trap. The power to tax is the power to destroy. It just empowers bureaucrats, the same bureaucrats who have been putting our people in prison for years. Just legalize, like tomatoes. Keep government out of your backyard gardens. But the Supremes have ruled that is still somehow interstate commerce. Governments (Fed, State, & local) are insane, and the corruption enabled by regulation is what makes them insane.
kskiprob
I agree completely. Though I would be hesitent to allow some really dangerous drugs such as Heroin and Methamphetamine to be sold as marijuana is, and this is strictly due to the damage those two dangerous drugs do.
Larry Wrote:
“Maybe it is time to learn a lesson from Colorado and discover that both the government through taxation and the users can coexist.”
~+~
You are right about Colorado. There system is moving along as well as can be expected. Colorado’s will work. Washington’s I’m afraid is going to be torn left and right between the legislature and the liquor control board until it is in tatters. I wish it would be better but I have not much hope.
Seems logical if you want to control or run a business out….oh there’s money to be made….
Swarthmoremom,
From your CSMonitor article.
“A court would simply say, “You’ve got remedies of your own. Don’t bother us.””
So in their efforts to force Obama to obey the ACA, they will also want him to enforce the federal Marijauna laws. Libertarians might not be on board with this. If the quoted sentence above is correct, then it’s all moot anyway.
Here in Michigan a court decision has left even legal medical marijuana users and grow-their-owners in legal limbo. What can be legally possessed has been limited by the decision to dry substance only. In other words, for the half dozen plants specifically permitted by the original citizen’s legislation to be legal now, they have to grow without any water and stay that way, an obvious impossibility.
Big Pharma lobbyists are sticking their hands in too, with model legislation being peddled to state legislatures by well funded outfits like ALEC. Trying to make the world safe for parasites, I guess. Can’t allow the little people to grow their own, not when there are huge profits to be made.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/us/alec-a-tax-exempt-group-mixes-legislators-and-lobbyists.html?
In his book, “How Capitalism Saved America” economist Thomas DiLorenza points out example after example of how politicians and special interests use main stream media to create various myths, Although, this is not in his book, this article reminded me of how newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst sponsored and used the film Reefer Madness to get politicians and the general public to accept and prohibit recreational drug manufacturing, distribution and use. As with “most” regulatory enactments effecting social polices, and DiLorenzo points out many others, drug prohibition was enacted after the repeal of alcohol.1.The Justice system and law enforcement needed another profit center and arch enemy to replace prohibition. 2. Hearst had purchased huge tracks of timber in the North West and hemp was a obstacle to his plan since hemp produces much more paper per acre, is renewable as it grows quickly and grows just about everywhere. Growing Hemp, even with extremely low THC that would not be used for getting high, is still illegal today.
“Most” of the legislation passed by our corrupt and unethical politicians are just as this, created to provide special interests and economic advantage in the market place to the detriment of others, and more importantly the general public with higher prices and less competition effecting the various market sectors.
And “Most” of the propaganda used to encourage Anti-capitalist enactments such as reefer madness, are myths specifically designed to fool the general public. DiLorenzo goes heavily into the antitrust legislation in the early 1900’s and how it almost immediately caused higher oil and gas prices, stifling both price competition and wages.
Politicians benefit from special interests trying to buy legislation through campaign contributions and investment and participatory access to the benefits they create through the legislation. Congresspeople almost always come out immensely more wealthy then when they go into politics. Hmmm. Thinking that this type of activity will just miraculously work out for in the best interest of the majority is one of the illusions of democracy; compromise. I’ll support your special interests legislation if you support mine and why the protection of individual rights is so important.
In this case, the RIGHT to choose and put various substances in your body for both medicinal and recreational purposes was usurped by drug prohibition and other regulations. Mainstream media used the myths of the snake oil salesman, addiction (under the guise of protecting the public) and the film Reefer Madness to fool the general public. Today, the real snake oil salespeople are from the highly regulated pharmaceutical industry that must place in very fine print, “taking bla, bla, bal may case serious side effects and an occasional death”. One can surely make the argument that synthesizing drugs is much more harmful than the natural products.
Darren,
Maybe it is time to learn a lesson from Colorado and discover that both the government through taxation and the users can coexist. By the way, I love the Godfathers flower!
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2014/0312/Can-House-Republicans-make-Obama-enforce-laws-video The republicans really want those federal marijuana laws enforced, Annie.
Swarthmoremom,
That’s a bit of a twist for Republicans, I thought in principle, they were all for allowing states to make their own laws regarding such things. Once again it seems that if Obama is for something, they come out against it. They should enforce their own principles.
“This is just another example of big government.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/14/republicans-force-obama-legal-marijuana_n_4964995.html Republicans want to sue Obama for not arresting marijuana users in states where marijuana is legal.
Well written Darren! This is another example of big government. Another bill to control and tax marijuana that is landing in the hands of the “Legal Mob” government. We all know that big government and big corporate America will put the small business owners out of business, tax them to death, and make it very difficult to keep their heads above water, as their feet are tied by all the legislative rules weighing them down. The governments offer won’t be great for the small business owners or those who truly need it medicinally, but it will be an offer that can’t be refused.
Just another example of corporatism and the police state. The big corporate money buy the dishonest, unethical politician and the police state threatens the small business and ignores the large corporate criminal beasts. I think I’ve heard that story before. Hopefully the WA legislators can be shamed into doing the right thing.