Marijuana Sales Out of Shadows in California

Marijuana Sales Out of Shadows in California
July 26, 2009

News Summary

No longer relegated to the street corner, marijuana can now be ordered by phone and delivered to your home in California, a byproduct of the state's medical-marijuana law and the Obama administration's decision to scale back raids on providers of the drug.

The Associated Press reported July 19 that medical-marijuana patients can order the drug with the ease of getting a pizza delivered, or go into a retail store like the Farmacy chain in Los Angeles. There's still plenty of black-market drugs available, experts say. But the marijuana business in California is easing towards legitimacy and spawning an economic boom in places like the so-called Emerald Triangle (Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties), with so-called "compassion clubs" expanding and hireing workers, stores selling growing equipment, and clinics touting the services of doctors who certify medical-marijuana patients.

On the down side are marijuana farms that damage public lands, indoor grow operations that drive up real-estate prices, and violent crime related to the drug trade.

With the California marijuana crop valued at $17 billion annually, some lawmakers are pushing for even broader legalization, such as tax plans that could bring in $1.3 billion a year for the state. More than half of state residents support marijuana legalization.

Marijuana money is a potent force in Ukiah, the largest city in the Emerald Triangle. "I really don't think we would exist without it," said wine and garden shop owner Nicole Martensen. For retailers, however, the marijuana business has been a mixed blessing when hiring because they cannot compete with the wages paid by grow operators.

Marijuana growers who use the state's medical-marijuana laws as a cover for drug dealing still face arrest and prosecution. "We operated out in the open, and the feds knew who we were and they let us do it for four years, so as time goes on you get this comfortable feeling," said Sparky Rose, now serving time in federal prison on drug charges. "While I was still in the business, a lot people would ask me, 'I'm thinking about starting a club, what advice do you have?' "And I'd say, 'The biggest warning is sooner or later, you will start to think it's legal.'"

COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE:

Posted by silverbird on 27 Jul 09 10:52 AM EDT

Just what the "legalizers" wanted. Just wait, we will all be terribly sorry for this and it will be difficult to turn it back around...

Posted by Verde on 27 Jul 09 11:26 AM EDT

As you can see it isn't about the termanally ill. They have changed the name of the game to over throw the black market. Sort of like the whole Iraq war, went there to defend ourselves against weapons of mass destruction and changed our reason to liberating Iraq. I don't know why potheads rip on our Government, they do the exact same thing. Spread lies, utilize deception to pass their adgenda, do imorale things at the taxpayers expense. Silverbird, I agree with you and one day we will be standing alone wondering "how the heck did we let this happen?"

Posted by SensibleCitizen on 27 Jul 09 03:35 PM EDT

Marijuana is a safe and effective medicine. Tylenol kills 800 people a year and marijuana doesn't kill. You can't even overdose. Marijuana saved my life after a near-fatal car crash that was not my fault. I would not be here if it was not for marijuana. End the war on marijuana today.

Posted by maxwood on 27 Jul 09 08:43 PM EDT

"Spread lies, utilize deception to pass their adgenda"-- that inventive last word sums up what the Big 2Wackgo $bil. advertizing "industry" got away with for years, currently killing 440,000 a year (US). What "imorale" things are intended with cannabis? Well, if I served a single toke to a 4-year-old, they would list that as molestation or something. But somebody has been sneaking nicotine into the bloodstreams of enough 4-year-olds (or even unborn fetuses) to guarantee 800,000 more children recruited into hot burning cigarette addiction each year, in US alone. (Obama said, "I was one of those teenagers who got hooked before being of legal age to smoke.") I guess that's morality, or do you say more orality.

Posted by Dwayne on 28 Jul 09 11:51 AM EDT

Ya baby I like what I'm seeing and reading

Posted by Verde on 28 Jul 09 04:42 PM EDT

Another lie, "Marijuana never killed anyone." Just because you can smoke your brains out and not die, doesn't mean you can't die from marijuana. The drug is loaded with toxins and causes thousands of fatal DUI crashes a year. It's funny how people claim the crash wasn't their fault and claim to smoke weed. That was probably the cause of their crash in the first place. I had the horrific experience of seeing two of my closest friends dead at 17 a couple summers ago after she smoked weed and crashed on the way to a swimming hole near Phillipsville, California. I know for a fact she was high, witnesses came forward and admitted she smoked with them and the coroners report came back with high levels of THC. So don't lie, people die from marijuana and it is not much different than alcohol. It effects your judgment and inhabitions, which cause you to make poor decisions. What is worse with marijuana is that most users justify their abuse of the drug and then think they are normal when they are under the influence. Don't take it from me, just type in Fatal Marijuana in your Google search engine and you can read tons of stories where people have died from using marijuana. I always love when people compare weed to alcohol or tobacco as a defense to allowing weed. Alcohol and tobacco are bad drugs too.

Posted by Brian on 28 Jul 09 06:02 PM EDT

I live in California, and I am a Registered Addiction Specialist working in addiction treatment. I admit: The "Medical Marijuana" status is a joke. I see completely able bodied, pain free healthy people with medical marijuana cards all the time. It went from relief for those with cancer to pain management for those that at one time may or may not have had a splinter in their finger. Get rid of the "medical" status, and just legalize it. The sooner it becomes less demonized and more accepted, the sooner we can get on to treating it like the medical issue it is. The problem is not the drug. It is people’s relationship to the drug that creates the problem.

Posted by Verde on 29 Jul 09 03:04 PM EDT

Brian, you sound like you are trying to get more customers, because that is exactly what will happen if it is legalized. What we need to do is overturn prop 215 or at least layout stricter guidelines for medical use. The California Attorney General's guidelines are a fricken Joke. We need to tighten our belts and stand against the Marijuana advocates. The law should lay out when and where it can be used, where and when it can't, and how it shall be grown and where. It should also tell us how it should be dispensed and a doctors prescription should be required, not a recommendation. The cannibis should be labled with the patients name and address, how much was dispensed, its THC level, and how often it should be taken and by what method (Vaporized, smoked, injested). Why is there no government entity assigned to inspect these dispensories to ensure they are following the laws?

Posted by maxwood on 29 Jul 09 09:05 PM EDT

Fair question, Verde. My guess is that if attention was paid to prescribing a "method", such as to vaporize, in particular, the nicotine cigarette "industry" (which now PROCURES huge tax revenues to the govt. misleadingly described as PAID by the cigarette buyers) would find some way to derail any legislator who favored allowing such prescriptions. In deference to their "sponsor", which loves hot-burning overdoses, the NIDA now allegedly supplies cannabis to its list of registered medical users in only one form, i.e. rolled up in 900-mg. cigarettes.

Posted by Verde on 30 Jul 09 01:54 PM EDT

Well Maxwood, until they do care, then we shall work to overturn prop 215 or vote in an Attorney General that cares. I don't agree with your view that the Government needs the tax money from the cigarette industry. For every dollar they take in from cigarette tax, the spend over $8 in prevention, education and healthcare. They know that and it is published. What we need to do is quit comparing marijuana to cigarettes. It is its own monster and has its own problems. You have people like Brian that are looking to increase addiction so he has a better paycheck in ten years. You have sensiblecitizen that don't care about kids, or other members of society, they just want to get stoned. Then you have the real terminally ill who make up about 2% of the medical marijuana consumers. I really feel for them because they are being used by the marijuana advocates to push their pot legalization agenda. Cigarettes will kill you, true, but so will marijuana.

Posted by Eric in Indy on 30 Jul 09 02:54 PM EDT

Verde, it is sad to see that our position tends to be the minority on this forum. It is interesting to see how marijuana advocates continue to try and put distance between themselves and the tobacco/alcohol industries, yet their tactics of deception and misinformation are even more calculated and subversive. 'Medical Marijuana' is a complete farce. The Marijuana Policy Project states on their own website challenging legislation on medical marijuana is just a means to get their foot in the door for broad legalization. That strikes me as sadistic and cruel -- climbing on the backs of the terminally ill just to further their agenda. The bad news is, those groups are becoming more and more vocal and have very deep pockets to pursue their agenda. When are we going to get organized and counter that effort with equal force?

Posted by J. Motterotz on 31 Aug 09 07:56 PM EDT

Worse than simply being ineffective, supply-side strategies drive immutable market forces to expand cultivation and trafficking, generate unintended consequences and, in many instances, ultimately worsen the problem.

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