420 Policies and Laws

[sirloot]

lolz bob erb

[wa3zrm]

Shots fired at Denver pot holiday gathering, police say

Shots were fired in the area of the 4/20 marijuana rally being held at Civic Center Park in Denver, KDVR.com reports. Denver police say one person has been shot in the leg and another is down with unknown injuries. Witnesses say they heard three or more shots about 20 minutes after 4:20 p.m. Police swarmed the scene, and crime tape was around the pavilion where the celebration was being held. Aerial footage showed the massive crowd frantically running from the park. The pot celebration Saturday was the first since Colorado and Washington made marijuana legal for recreational use.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/20...#ixzz2R3EefpzH

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...

[Crow]

20. April 2013 -- Terrace, British Columbia

[Crow]

[Crow]

Lost your herbs on the bus ride? Fret not!!

Marijuana treated as a lost and found item on Seattle buses



Metro bus drivers have been given new instructions for lost marijuana: turn it into the lost and found.

In Nov. 2012, a statewide ballot initiative approved adults age 21 and older to have up to one ounce of usable marijuana.

Even before that, Metro would occasionally find marijuana left on buses – typically small amounts in backpacks or film containers, sometimes with a pipe. That was turned over to police, and amounts over 1 ounce still will be, Metro spokesman Jeff Switzer said Friday.

“People can’t just come to lost and found and say, ‘I lost some pot,’” he said. “They will need to provide a lot more information before we reconnect them with that lost and found item.”

Metro has roughly 200 bus routes, and riders trying to reclaim their missing weed will have to say specifically the route and time when they lost it. No one has tried to pick up pot from Metro’s lost and found yet.

In an average year, Metro has about 40,000 lost and found items, with the most common being black umbrellas. But they also come across cell phones and laptops often, and sometimes even the more bizarre: dentures, personal items, and prosthetic limbs.

Source

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... and here's a snapshot from a cannabis rally tweeted earlier today ...


Interim Seattle Police Chief Jim Pugel headlining a cannabis rally

As KIRO 7's Graham Johnson said, "How times have changed."

[Crow]

Forgot to post this (for those interested in the progress of I-502):

============

The Liquor Control Board (LCB) is pleased to release the initial draft rules for I-502 implementation. These rules reflect the Board’s stated goal of developing a tightly regulated and controlled market, and also demonstrate the agency’s initial thinking on how best to achieve that market. The Board is concerned with out-of-state diversion of product, traceability of products, responsible business practices, youth access and other public and consumer safety issues.

By releasing these initial draft rules before filing the formal draft rules the LCB can solicit public comment before starting the official draft rule process in mid-June. Vetting thes rules with our stakeholders allows us to adapt and improve these draft rules. These draft rules will benefit from your changes, alternatives and adjustments so please review closely and send your suggestions to the below contact points no later than June 10, 2013.

Download

The best way to provide your input is via email at rules@liq.wa.gov

Alternatively
Mail
Rules Coordinator
Liquor Control Board
P.O. Box 43080
Olympia, WA 98504-3080

Fax
360-664-9689

[Crow]

Pot rules taking shape; public gets a taste of what’s ahead

State officials released proposed rules for a legal seed-to-store marijuana system that would allow adults to buy an ounce of tested, labeled pot seven days a week. But the draft rules are likely to be refined in weeks to come.



Logo that will be used for labeling legal pot produced in the state.

Washington residents and out-of-staters could buy an ounce of tested, labeled marijuana, seven days a week, up to 20 hours a day, in state-regulated stores under draft rules for a new legal-pot system released Thursday by the Liquor Control Board.

That rule is more permissive than in Colorado, the other state creating an adult recreational-pot market. Colorado lawmakers limited out-of-staters to buying one-quarter ounce in stores in an effort to impede “smurfing,” the practice of making repeated buys and aggregating pot to sell on the black market.

But Washington would not allow the sale of marijuana concentrates, such as hash or hash oil, unless they were infused in edible or liquid products. The high-potency concentrates have become popular to vaporize, particularly with younger users.

Washington’s 46-page raft of rules covers issues from product testing to growing licenses to advertising restrictions to package labeling.

The draft rules would allow sun-grown pot in greenhouses — with rigid walls, roofs and doors — but not open fields. And they would not initially cap the number of growing licenses issued by the state, in an effort to include smaller growers in a seed-to-store system untested on the planet. The rules would not cap processing or retail licenses either, for similar reasons.

Alison Holcomb, primary author of Initiative 502 — approved by voters last November to legalize recreational pot — said she was pleased with the rules’ balancing of public safety and health with the desire to create a workable system.

She noted that many rules seem to beg further clarification. “This is literally just a preview of where they are right now. And they’re intentionally doing this to give the public an opportunity to provide meaningful input,” said Holcomb, drug-policy director for the ACLU of Washington.

The state’s new system allows adults to possess one ounce of dried marijuana, one pound of pot-infused edibles and 72 ounces of pot-laced liquid.

Under proposed rules, the state would not track a person’s pot purchases, or know how many stores they visit in a day. But the state would require that marijuana be traceable as it is grown, processed and moved to stores.

Trying to stop smurfing makes more sense in Colorado than Washington, according to some. Colorado is more centrally located and states on three sides have strict laws against marijuana, said Christian Sederberg, a member of Colorado’s Amendment 64 Task Force. A law-enforcement group reported evidence that Colorado’s medical marijuana was diverted to 23 states.

Washington is different, with abundant weed in British Columbia to the north and Oregon to the south. “I don’t think someone will go to 15 stores and drive [the pot] somewhere,” said Randy Simmons, the state’s marijuana project director.

The requirement that greenhouses have rigid walls did not sit well with Jeremy Moberg, an Okanogan County activist pushing for sun-grown pot because of its environmental advantages.

Moberg said security should be focused on the perimeter of a sun-grown operation, not the greenhouse itself. Fully enclosed greenhouses become too hot in summer and should have fabric walls that can be peeled back for cooling, he said.

Growing pot indoors requires intense use of electricity that rivals that of data centers, according to a study published last year in the journal Energy Policy.

“I’d like to see more conversation around what security requirements are actually necessary, and whether or not we can’t have adequate security of outdoor fields,” Holcomb said. “Eastern Washington has fabulous territory for growing this crop.”

Liquor Control Board spokesman Brian Smith said the board would consider changing that rule if Moberg and others could show that greenhouses could be secured with a different approach.

Other proposed rules include:

Uniform testing standards by independent accredited labs. Testing might measure moisture, potency and residues of pesticides and other chemicals.

• Consumers would know the contents and potency of products they buy from labels that would come with a stamp of the state’s silhouette decorated with a seven-point marijuana leaf.

• Advertising for retail stores would be restricted to one sign visible to the public, limited in size. Ads couldn’t be false or misleading, promote overconsumption or depict toys or characters especially appealing to minors.

• Backgrounds will be checked for license applicants and financiers. Certain criminal convictions, such as a non-marijuana felony in the last 10 years, would exclude applicants.

• Strict security and surveillance, as well as tracking systems for products, would be required.

The board also laid out a schedule of fines for violating rules, which could lead to a canceled license.

Pot entrepreneurs gathered at a West Seattle meeting of the Coalition for Cannabis Standards & Ethics to pore over the rules.

“Some of this added more questions, but that’s good, that’s what process is for,” said John Davis, the coalition’s director and a medical-marijuana dispensary owner.

Davis was not bothered by the ban on selling stand-alone concentrates, which he called “trendy with kids” and likened to beer bongs.

“I can understand them having that restriction because concentrates can be potent,” he said, adding that 95 percent of his dispensary sales involve dried pot and an older consumer demographic.

The board proposed prohibiting concentrate sales, Smith said, because they didn’t think it was allowed under I-502, which said usable marijuana amounted to flowers and infused products. The board is inclined to allow the sale of stand-alone hash, hash oils and concentrates, Smith said, “but it’s not going to break the law to do it.”

Holcomb said that may be an area ripe for further discussion and may need to be resolved by changing the law next year. Under state law, stores have to be 1,000 feet from the perimeter of schools, libraries, parks and other places frequented by youth. The draft rules do not specify the number of stores nor how they would be geographically dispersed. The rules only say the board will determine the number of stores in each county.

If there are more applicants than the permitted licensed locations, the state would conduct a lottery to determine who gets licensed.

The initial draft rules are not to be confused with the official draft rules, to be filed in mid-June.

The board issued draft rules now because it wants to vet the groundbreaking regulations before releasing formal draft rules, which can be more difficult to revise, Smith said.

Gov. Jay Inslee praised the board’s work and said it couldn’t do much more to allay concerns of the federal government, which considers all marijuana an illegal, dangerous drug.

“I don’t think you could design a system with much more integrity as far as tracking the product from the producer to the consumer,” Inslee said. “I think this plan has a robust system of control and checks in a variety of ways.”

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Bob Young: 206-464-2174 or byoung@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times staff reporter Andrew Garber contributed to this story.

[thegilldeal]

"Pot rules taking shape; public gets a taste of what’s ahead

State officials released proposed rules for a legal seed-to-store marijuana system that would allow adults to buy an ounce of tested, labeled pot seven days a week. But the draft rules are likely to be refined in weeks to come."

Great read, Crow. And this sounds like a VERY sensible approach to law-abiding participants in Washington State.

[truthwolf1]

Well i have not heard anything about that. I hope its not true. They have not attempted anything like that at all in the medicinal states, and there has been no talk of anything like that in the 2 recreational states, so I don't see a pattern going in that direction. And hopefully it stays that way.

I actually thought it would of been big tobacco but it looks like EX-Microsoft has begun the gamble. I would buy stock in this.

Ex-Microsoft manager plans to create first U.S. marijuana brand

http://news.yahoo.com/ex-microsoft-m...191949078.html

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A former Microsoft executive plans to create the first U.S. national marijuana brand, with cannabis he hopes to eventually import legally from Mexico, and said he was kicking off his business by acquiring medical pot dispensaries in three U.S. states.
Jamen Shively, a former Microsoft corporate strategy manager, said he envisions his Seattle-based enterprise becoming the leader in both recreational and medical cannabis - much like Starbucks is the dominant name in coffee, he said.

[Crow]

An update from our ally (Colorado).............

Colorado Governor Signs Historic Measures Creating Legal and Regulated Marijuana Market

This week, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed two historic measures into law, making Colorado the first state in the country to officially authorize a legalized and regulated cannabis market.

These measures, House Bills 1317 and 1318, are the first-in-the nation regulations governing the statewide commercial production and retail sale of cannabis to those age 21 and older. HB 1317 establishes a regulatory framework for retail cannabis businesses, which are anticipated to begin operating in early 2014. House Bill 1318 proposes tax rates for commercial marijuana production and sales.

These regulations were drafted by the legislature with guidance from a task force, created at the request of the Governor. Colorado NORML served on this task force as a representative for marijuana consumer interests.

The Colorado Department of Revenue is anticipated to more details for the program in the coming weeks. The proposed tax rates in HB 1318 must be approved by a majority of state voters. They seem likely to do so, as recent polling revealed that 77% of Colorado voters support the 15% excise tax on cannabis sales (which is designated for school construction) and an additional 10% sales tax to cover the costs of regulating the industry.

Continued...

[Premium Parrots]

[Crow]

Wrong coast, me bredda.







Fixed.

[Zimobog]

When yall put in a bar at the airport, let me know, Crow!

[Crow]

When yall put in a bar at the airport, let me know, Crow!

Will do

Speaking of Sea-Tac, here's a post I made a couple of years ago... For the sake of relevancy, and a look-back to our progress then, and now.

From Ye Olde Cannabis Thread

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November 2011

Washington (US)

SeaTac Joins List of Airports Allowing Medical Cannabis Onboard

It takes a special kind of confidence to openly display your medical cannabis patient status—not to mention your medicine itself—in the face of a Transportation Security Administration airport employee. The repercussions could easily expand well beyond a missed flight. But because Tacoma resident Mike Schaef is exactly that kind of confident, we now know that patients can board planes departing from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport with their cannabis.

Schaef, who operates a medical cannabis patient collective called North End Club 420, was going through the SeaTac security line when he placed about two grams of cannabis in a bowl to be scanned. It was seized, but after just a few minutes of speaking with a handful of federal and local officials the cannabis was documented and returned, and Schaef proceeded to his flight.

He shared a photo on Facebook shortly thereafter, accompanied by a caption reading, “This is what happens when u put your meds in the scanner bowl at seatac….they let me go and gave it back…said have a nice flight….”

Steve Elliott of Toke of the Town contacted SeaTac Airport last week to ask about their policy regarding Washington medical marijuana patients boarding flights while possessing cannabis. The response: “I don’t see a problem, as long as they have a doctor’s authorization,” according to airport spokeswoman Charla Scaggs.

That would mean SeaTac joins a list that includes Bay Area airports like San Francisco International, Oakland International, and San Jose International in allowing cannabis into its terminals. A report surfacing in August 2010 also indicated medical cannabis was allowed inside Montana airports, but the current status is unclear after a Republican-controlled legislature in the state scaled back its medical cannabis laws.

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Mike Schaef put his medicinal cannabis in the scanner bowl at SeaTac, and after a short delay, he was given back his medicine and allowed to go on his way.

[Zimobog]

Ballsy! lol

Schaef, who operates a medical cannabis patient collective called North End Club 420, was going through the SeaTac security line when he placed about two grams of cannabis in a bowl to be scanned. It was seized, but after just a few minutes of speaking with a handful of federal and local officials the cannabis was documented and returned MINUS TWO FAT PINCHES, and Schaef proceeded to his flight.

FTFY