Associated Press: “Californians may awake on New Year’s Day to a stronger-than-normal whiff of marijuana as America’s cannabis king lights up to celebrate the state’s first legal retail pot sales. . . . From the small town of Shasta Lake just south of Oregon to San Diego on the Mexican border, the first of about 90 shops licensed by the state will open Monday to customers who previously needed a medical reason or a dope dealer to score pot.”
The Guardian: “The state that is the world’s sixth biggest economy will legalise cannabis on New Year’s Day – and expects a boom time for jobs and investment. . . . On Monday [January 1, 2018] , California, the US’s most populous state, and the world’s sixth biggest economy, will officially “hit it” by legalizing cannabis. . . . Overnight a shadow industry worth billions of dollars annually will emerge into the light, taking its place alongside agriculture, pharmaceuticals, aerospace and other sectors that are regulated and taxed.”
Los Angeles Times: “the draft of cannabis rules that the Los Angeles City Council will be asked to vote on sometime in the next week or so, . . . almost every other cannabis business except about a few dozen older dispensaries — will be required to shutter their operation until they receive an official city license. It’s a process that could take months. ‘You have a multimillion-dollar industry in Los Angeles and to have it come to a grinding halt will be ridiculous,. . . . People will be fired, or laid off. Businesses will have to leave the city. It’s a very messed up situation to say the least’.”
Los Angeles Times: “Scientists. Tax collectors. Typists. Analysts. Lawyers. And more scientists. Recreational marijuana use becomes legal in California in 2018, and one of the things to blossom in the emerging industry isn’t green and leafy, it’s government jobs. The state is on a hiring binge to fill what eventually will be hundreds of new government positions by 2019 intended to bring order to the legal pot economy, from keeping watch on what’s seeping into streams near cannabis grows to running background checks on storefront sellers who want government licenses. Thousands of additional jobs are expected to be added by local governments.”
Reuters: “Toxic chemicals from illegal marijuana farms hidden deep in California’s forests are showing up in rivers and streams that feed the state’s water supply, prompting fears that humans and animals may be at risk, data reviewed by Reuters show. The presence of potentially deadly pollutants in eight Northern and Central California watersheds is the latest sign of damage to the environment from thousands of illegal cannabis plantations, many of them run by drug cartels serving customers in other states, according to law enforcement. . . . California accounts for more than 90 percent of illegal U.S. marijuana farming. There are as many as 50,000 marijuana farms in California”
Press Banner: “The so-called “green rush” has jarred Santa Cruz County, where the value of a retail cannabis license has soared to more than $2 million. Of the 14 dispensaries in the county, four have changed hands in the last 12 months. . . . What’s driving the prices up, according to sellers and lawyers, is the July passage of the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis and Safety Act that allows owners to possess two licenses – medical and recreational – and sell both products at the same location.
Los Angeles Times: “A leader of California’s marijuana industry warned Wednesday that the state’s cannabis growers produce eight times the pot that is consumed in the state so some will face “painful” pressure to reduce crops under new state regulations that will ban exports after Jan. 1. Some marijuana growers will stay in the black market and continue to illegally send cannabis to other states, which is also not allowed under federal law, said Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers’ Assn. ‘We are producing too much,” Allen said, adding state-licensed growers “are going to have to scale back. We are on a painful downsizing curve’.”
httpvh://youtu.be/a3IHijQ71uw
Daily Mail: “In California, illegal marijuana farms are taking over thousands of acres of land as toxic wastes are increasingly corrupting ecosystems. California is responsible for the majority of illegal U.S. marijuana farming. New data says the state holds ‘731,000 pounds of solid fertilizer, 491,000 ounces of concentrated liquid fertilizer and 200,000 ounces of toxic pesticides.’ The United States Environmental Protection Agency announced in 2011 its planned to ban toxic fertilizers like zinc phosphide. Chemicals of the kind have been linked to serious health effects in both animals and humans.
The Californian: “a big white bus was waiting to whisk 14 seniors off on a new adventure: a shopping trip at a medical marijuana dispensary. ‘I don’t want a buzz,’ passenger Kay Nelson insisted, shaking her silver head. ‘I want relief from pain.’ Nelson has been a member of the Laguna Woods Medical Cannabis Club for two years. She uses a vaporizer and oils supplied by the senior-run collective to ease her chronic backache.”
Tucson Weekly: “Recreational marijuana has proved to be a boon for states that have legalized it, and this year four states will add that bounty to their budget. A new analysis from the Orange County Register estimated marijuana could account for $23.3 billion in yearly revenue.”
Daily Mail: “Two years ago, the city of Adelanto, a crumbling outpost in California’s Mojave desert, was facing a bleak future as it teetered on the brink of bankruptcy and struggled with double-digit unemployment. ‘We were about to vanish, to be incorporated into another city,’ says councilman John ‘Bug’ Woodard Jr. ‘The place was dying and in total despair.’ Today, however, the once-desolate town is firmly back on the map, having joined a handful of communities in California in embracing large-scale commercial cannabis cultivation — a move that smells of success as the state prepares to vote in November on legalizing the use of recreational marijuana.”
Washington Post: Jean Kennedy has a BS in biology and a master’s in special education. Now, she’s trying to decide what to do with her third degree: a certificate of achievement from Oaksterdam University, the Harvard Business School of marijuana. . . . Horticulture 102 is one of the many subjects Kennedy studies at Oaksterdam, whose storefront campus is set amid the hip cafes, restaurants and cannabis dispensaries of downtown Oakland. Founded in 2007, the school sees itself as a training ground for citizen advocates in the fight to legalize marijuana.”
The U.S. Tax Court in an October 22, 2015, memorandum decision called Canna Care, Inc., vs. Commissioner ruled that a California medical marijuana dispensary owed back federal income taxes of $229,473, $304,090, and $339,604 for 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively. The IRS used Internal Revenue Code Section 280E to disallow deductions that would be otherwise have been deductible if Canna Care’s businesses did not involve “trafficing” in a controlled substance.
Section 280E states:
“
[n]o deduction . . . shall be allowed for any amount paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business if such trade or business (or the activities which comprise such trade or business) consists of trafficking in controlled substances (within the meaning of schedule I and II of the Controlled Substances Act) which is prohibited by Federal law or the law of any State in which such trade or business is conducted.It is indisputable that marijuana is a schedule I controlled substance.
Section 280E applies to deny deductions if all of the following facts exist: (1) there is a trade or business; (2) that involves trafficking in (3) a controlled substance. The Tax Court found that all three elements exited with respect to Canna Care, Inc., for the years at issue and denied all deductions.
Canna Care is a California mutual benefit corporation that is prohibited by California law from distributing marijuana for profit. Nevertheless, the non for profit medical marijuana dispensary business was very, very good to its shareholders Bryan Davies and Lanette Davies.
“Petitioner had 10 employees in 2006 and 2007 and 6 employees in 2008. Mr. Davies determined salaries. During the years at issue the shareholders’ salaries far exceeded the salaries paid to any other employees. Mr. Cowen was paid $88,700, $152,900, and $144,000 during 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively. Mr. Davies was paid $79,200, $160,900, and $146,200 during 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively. In addition to their salaries, petitioner made payments for its shareholders’ automobiles in the amounts of $31,459, $24,609, and $23,942 during 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively. Petitioner’s manager, its highest paid nonshareholder employee, was paid $36,000, $55,600, and $52,000 in 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively. Mrs. Davies was paid $27,000, $66,480, and $74,000 during 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively. Petitioner’s other employees made an average of $24,494.17, $12,173, and $12,314.29 during 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively.”
The Tax Court ruled that “section 280E prohibits petitioner from deducting any amounts paid or incurred during the years at issue in connection with its trade or business that respondent disallowed.”
Section 280E imposes a very heavy and some would argue an unfair price on businesses that sell marijuana in states that have legalized the drug.
The Guardian: “Marijuana farms have been engulfed by California wildfires over the summer as firefighters work to contain blazes across northern California that have already burned through more than 70,000 acres. While the marijuana crops destroyed are unlikely to cause any statewide supply issues, it could drive up some prices, put small farmers out of business – and disseminate a familiar smell.
The Fresno Bee: ” The cost of inaction couldn’t be more clear. Acres of ancient trees are disappearing and illegal marijuana farms are popping up in their place. Streams and rivers are being sucked dry, diverted sometimes miles away through plastic pipes into tanks. Several species of fish, along with a rare breed of wild rodent, are on the verge of extinction. All of this is happening now, all across California, but particularly in the North Coast and in our national parks in the San Joaquin Valley. All of this environmental destruction is occurring to grow marijuana and meet consumer demand. While there’s plenty of blame to go around for how things have turned out in the nearly 20 years since California legalized medical marijuana, much of it must land at the feet of consumers, and of lawmakers.
Associated Press: “Marijuana is only legal for medical purposes in California, but that isn’t stopping purveyors of pot-infused cupcakes, nuts and other edible forms of the drug from putting on an outdoor food festival to showcase their wares. The ‘Get Baked Sale’ happening Saturday at a food truck hub in San Francisco comes as marijuana advocates are working to legalize recreational use of the drug through a statewide voter initiative in November 2016.
KTLA 5: “During a police raid on an unpermitted pot shop in Santa Ana late last month, hidden cameras caught officers eating marijuana-laced “edibles,” playing darts and displaying other questionable behavior, according to an attorney who plans to sue the city in connection with the raid. The incident occurred at Sky High Holistic, a medical marijuana dispensary operating without a business permit, officials with the Santa Ana Police Department confirmed. . . . Video of the raid was taken by the regular surveillance cameras the shop had in place, as well as a hidden one set up in anticipation of a police visit.”
Yahoo News: “A year into the nation’s experiment with legal, taxed marijuana sales, Washington and Colorado find themselves wrestling not with the federal interference many feared, but with competition from medical marijuana or even outright black market sales. In Washington, the black market has exploded since voters legalized marijuana in 2012, with scores of legally dubious medical dispensaries opening and some pot delivery services brazenly advertising that they sell outside the legal system.”
USA Today: “Although state elections are now in the books for another two years, it’s not too early to start thinking about which states could be the next to introduce legal marijuana and medical marijuana legislation in the next election. Though we could theoretically see as many as a dozen states bringing some degree of marijuana vote in front of their citizens in 2016, no state has greater make-or-break potential for the marijuana movement than California.”
NBC Bay Area: “The water that flows through California’s public lands and state parks is the life blood of the forests’ ecosystems. But in the midst of a water shortage, the Investigative Unit has found some criminals are disrupting nature’s course and stealing massive amounts of water meant for public lands. . . . According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Marijuana Enforcement Team (MET), in the last two years, illegal marijuana grows have stolen 1.2 billion gallons of water.”
CBS 5 KPIX: “There’s been some mysterious activity in the skies over Mendocino County lately. Folks who live there want to know: Who are the armed men dropping out of helicopters to chop down their marijuana grows? They dress in combat camouflage, some of them hide their faces. This summer, a group of men in Mendocino County loaded into helicopters and flew missions to eradicate marijuana. They’re not police officers. They work for a security company called Lear Asset Management.”
Huffington Post: “A California city is offering a unique benefit for low-income residents: free marijuana. Starting next summer, Berkeley residents who earn less than $32,000 per year (or $46,000 per family) and have a prescription for medical marijuana will be able to get it for free from one of the dispensaries operating within the city. Under a law passed unanimously by the city council, dispensaries must set aside 2 percent of their pot for distribution to the poor.”
OC Weekly: “After years of doing nothing to stop dispensaries from coming to town, the police crack down. . . . Aloha was one of the first dispensaries to be raided that afternoon, so the paddy wagon was otherwise empty on the short ride to the Santa Ana Jail. They could consider themselves lucky: Nearly 70 people would be arrested that day, many of whom would complain about cramped, even dangerously overheated conditions in the vehicle and, later, the city jail. Some 24 dispensaries were targeted by Santa Ana cops throughout the afternoon. Seven were already closed when officers arrived, staff at another managed to flee the location before they could be arrested, and 16 others were successfully raided, according to a SAPD list obtained by the Weekly. A total of 68 people were cited as being in violation of the city’s municipal code banning the owning or operating of, as well as volunteering at, a cannabis dispensary.
Los Angeles Times: “The Los Angeles city attorney is seeking an injunction to stop what’s being dubbed as the city’s first-ever cannabis-centric farmers market, which opened for business over the Fourth of July weekend. The medical marijuana market opened July 4-6 inside a Boyle Heights warehouse and continued to operate this past weekend, following its successful start. But City Atty. Mike Feuer says his office will request a temporary restraining order to stop operations.”
Hollywood Reporter: “The three-day event at California Heritage Market was billed as L.A. County’s first farmers market for medical marijuana, where buyers could bypass dispensary owners and go directly to growers. Temperatures in the 90s didn’t keep thousands of pot smokers, pain sufferers and partiers alike from standing outside California Heritage Market, billed as L.A. County’s first farmers market for medical marijuana, this past weekend. Lines to get in were as long as an hour Friday, the first day of the three-day event.”
CNBC: “California cannabis growers may be making millions, but their thirsty plants are sucking up a priceless resource: water. Now scientists say that if no action is taken in the drought-wracked state, the consequences for fisheries and wildlife will be dire.”
Hollywood Reporter: “The world’s first medical marijuana farmers market is set to take place in L.A. from July 4-6, allowing patients to purchase cannabis directly from growers. The market hopes to create a better relationship between growers and patients, giving them a new way to safely access marijuana from trustworthy suppliers.”
The world’s first medical marijuana farmers market is set to take place in L.A. from July 4-6, allowing patients to purchase cannabis directly from growers.
The market hopes to create a better relationship between growers and patients, giving them a new way to safely access marijuana from trustworthy suppliers.
– See more at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/medical-marijuana-farmers-market-open-715081#sthash.BuAe1Kzu.dpuf
The world’s first medical marijuana farmers market is set to take place in L.A. from July 4-6, allowing patients to purchase cannabis directly from growers.
The market hopes to create a better relationship between growers and patients, giving them a new way to safely access marijuana from trustworthy suppliers.
– See more at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/medical-marijuana-farmers-market-open-715081#sthash.BuAe1Kzu.dpuf
The world’s first medical marijuana farmers market is set to take place in L.A. from July 4-6, allowing patients to purchase cannabis directly from growers.
The market hopes to create a better relationship between growers and patients, giving them a new way to safely access marijuana from trustworthy suppliers.
– See more at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/medical-marijuana-farmers-market-open-715081#sthash.BuAe1Kzu.dpuf
Huffington Post: “A bill that would provide order to California’s muddled medical marijuana program cleared a major hurdle Friday, when the state Assembly’s Appropriations Committee moved it forward for a full Assembly vote next week. Authored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), the measure, AB 1894, would create uniform rules to govern the state’s multibillion-dollar medical marijuana industry. Although California became the first state to legalize cannabis for medicinal use in 1996, the state has yet to establish a set of standards guiding the cultivation, production and sale of the plant, which has led to what Ammiano described to The Huffington Post as “chaos.”
The Sacremento Bee published an article that is a history of recent developments with respect to California’s medical marijuana industry. The article was adapted from Peter Hecht’s book “Weed Land.”
Times-Herald: “Vallejo’s facing another lawsuit by a former medical marijuana dispensary operator who claims the city violated his civil rights by raiding his collective last year. In a Solano Superior Court lawsuit, Greenwell, Inc. founder Matt Shotwell alleges the city, Mayor Osby Davis and the Vallejo Police Department violated his civil rights — including his right to free speech — by targeting his dispensary for raid and closure in retaliation for his outspoken advocacy for local taxation and regulation of medical cannabis.”