This just in from the Department of Tooting My Own Horn: I was featured last night on the CBS affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona, for my dedication to nationwide marijuana reform and my tattoo commemorating that mission. CBS 5 covered me as part of their story on Scottsdale-based CannabisRadio.com, the network that hosts my live daily podcast, The Russ Belville Show.

A marijuana advocate and talk show host on the Valley-based Cannabis Radio Network has a target on his back. Literally.

“Radical” Russ Belville, host of the Russ Belville Show, has a map of the United States tattooed from shoulder to shoulder. States that have legalized recreational use of marijuana Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska are shaded in green ink.

“I’m not stopping until all 50 states are legal. I’m not stopping until nobody has to fear a drug test for their job. I’m not stopping until every patient who needs medical cannabis can get it.”

…

“Will I be in my 80s by the time Kansas legalizes? Maybe. But since I use a lot of cannabis, I’m sure I’ll see it,” he said with a smile.

CBS 5 – KPHO

There is an informative piece on BuzzFeed entitled “How Black People Are Being Shut Out of America’s Weed Boom” that is a must-read for the marijuana movement. If it is a subject that interests you (and it should) you can also check out MinorityCannabis.org to learn more.

The gist is that the legal marijuana world is a rich white man’s playground, after decades of the illegal marijuana world being the domain of black and brown people who bore the brunt of racist prohibition enforcement. As Michelle Alexander put it, “White Men Get Rich from Legal Pot, Black Men Stay in Prison.”

One major hurdle for minority involvement in the newly legal cannabis industry is the high cost of getting licensed for cultivation operations and dispensaries. States may require outrageously high demonstrations of secured capital – like being able to show one has a $2 million letter of credit – before even applying for a license. Then there are non-refundable application fees in the tens of thousands of dollars.

These kinds of requirements obviously favor white capitalists who are able to amass such fortunes in an economy that disfavors building minority wealth through historic practices such as real-estate redlining and the legacy of slavery through Jim Crow that has left black families with virtually no wealth.

But the monetary hurdles are secondary barriers more indicative of systemic racism in general than anything particular to the marijuana movement. As Dr. Carl Hart put it, “We can’t expect one fledgling, developing industry alone to solve this major problem in the United States, which the republic has ignored since we came out of slavery. That’s not even logical.”

Yes, we could write marijuana laws so that there aren’t such enormous monetary barriers to entry, but that’s not going to fix the black/white wealth gap, in other words.

Another hurdle that is specific to the newly legal cannabis industry, however, is the practice of disqualifying for licensure anybody who has had a conviction for being a part of the previously illegal cannabis industry.

Not only is this in effect racist, since black and brown growers and dealers were four times more likely to be busted in the illegal cannabis industry, but it is also counter-productive. Why would we want to shut out from the legal industry those who gained the requisite experience illegally? Why would we want to favor operators who are less likely to have real-world knowledge of how cannabis production, supply, marketing, and demand actually work?

Lawmakers, I believe, like these “no drug felons” restrictions because of a mistaken understanding of what drug dealers are. They are not evil criminal masterminds looking to harm the public for their personal gain – they are entrepreneurs no different from any other, aside from their product being illegal. If they have a chance to become legal entrepreneurs, they will abandon the illegal side, and isn’t that what we want to happen? Why would we incentivize those who’ve been criminal marijuana dealers to remain criminal marijuana dealers?

Obviously, then, we need to write marijuana laws so that one’s non-violent marijuana conviction isn’t a barrier to getting licensure. We can also ensure that our laws don’t contain vague coded references to judging an applicant’s “character”, something that can work against a minority applicant without being overtly racist enough to be called out. We can do more like my home state of Oregon and provide easy pathways and assistance to expunging criminal records of marijuana violations that are no longer illegal.

But if I may offer a radical suggestion, we should take the concept further.

Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote for The Atlantic the excellent piece called “The Case for Reparations”, detailing how and why America owes African-Americans payback on that “40 acres and a mule” promise to make up for the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow. Solving that large a problem is beyond my pay grade, but in my little slice of marijuana activism, may I offer a case for reparations in our domain?

Make an affirmative action program for marijuana licensing that gives bonus points for licensure to applicants with prior non-violent marijuana convictions.

This program would then favor minority applicants indirectly, since they will be four times more likely than white applicants, generally speaking, to be able to accrue those bonus points. But it wouldn’t be racially unfair, as a white applicant who’d been busted could get those points, too.

Critics would say that such a system rewards past lawbreaking. But isn’t the point of legalization a recognition that calling those past behaviors “lawbreaking” was wrong? By promoting the previously convicted for licensure, we’d be incentivizing people previously and currently involved in the illegal market to become legal operators who follow regulations and pay taxes. We’d be draining the best horticultural and sales talent from the illegal side of the ledger.

Some might say that such a system unfairly penalizes the savvy growers and dealers who avoided getting caught. But since that avoidance of law enforcement also has a racially-favorable bias toward whiteness, it’s not a complaint that will garner much sympathy. Yes, sorry you grew illegally for twenty years and scored lower than the two-year grower who got caught – your consolation prize is that you did no prison time and got to enjoy your prohibition profits on the outside.

Such a system would begin to create an engine of wealth for communities of color, addressing a small piece of Coates’ call for reparations. It could succeed without angering regressive whites by being a program that explicitly favors black and brown people. Prohibitionists who play the “more liquor stores in the ‘hood” card to fearmonger about legal pot shops would have less traction with minority voters if the people in the ‘hood were owning and benefitting from those shops.

The Oregon Legislature has completed its short session and has once again made significant changes to marijuana laws in the state. By all appearances it seems like the legislature’s goal has been to merge the medical and recreational marijuana systems in the state.

I think that’s a fantastic idea that is best for both medical and recreational consumers, especially in the Portland area.

The first step was when the legislature passed the so-called “early sales” bill. That law allowed the existing medical marijuana dispensaries to sell to all adults 21 and over. Sales were limited to just 7 grams of cannabis flower and four seedlings, so there would still be plenty of flower for patients. Edibles, tinctures, and concentrates were still off-limits to recreational consumers, though.

This was a laudable move, motivated by Sen. Ted Ferrioli’s observation that if we were legal to possess and grow as of July 1, 2015, but had nowhere to acquire marijuana, we would simply support the black market until our recreational shops open in September 2016.

What has happened instead is that some people are satisfied with 7 gram purchases, but others find that a short drive across the Columbia River into Vancouver, Washington, takes you to multiple shops that will sell you a full ounce at far lower prices than found in Portland. The shops there will also sell you edibles, tinctures, and concentrates.

This session, the legislature continued the process of merging the two systems. Laws were passed that allow the existing dispensaries to add edibles, tinctures, and concentrates to the menu for all adult shoppers. Future recreational shops will be able to sell their products to medical marijuana patients tax-free. New licenses have been created to allow for micro-canopy grows and for non-profit dispensaries to continue purchasing product from medical growers. (Some of these bills have been passed and signed by the governor, others still await her signature as of press time.)

That means sometime this fall, there will be one building called a dispensary where anybody can go in and purchase marijuana products, but patients make those purchases free from tax. Then there will be another building called a pot shop where anybody can go in and purchase marijuana products, but patients make those purchases free from tax. The recreational products will come from recreational grows to be regulated by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) and the medical products will come from medical grows to be regulated by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA).

These nearly identical parallel systems for producing, regulating, inspecting, and distributing marijuana add unnecessary cost to taxpayers and unnecessary paperwork for cannabis entrepreneurs and caregivers. Merging the two only makes sense.

One criticism I’ve heard about the idea of merging is that patients have much more sensitive needs for their medicine, in terms of being contaminant-free and medically effective. That sounds like “It’s OK for recreational consumers to be poisoned by lousy weed.” Just make the inspection and quality standards for marijuana products that which will suffice for patients. I guarantee that we recreational consumers will not mind getting clean, powerful weed.

Another criticism is without a medical-only system, there will be a dearth of patient-specific products, like high-CBD oils, for instance. But that’s not how supply and demand works. If there is a huge demand for, say, vacuum cleaners, it wouldn’t matter if there was a dedicated vacuum cleaner shop in your town or a Wal-Mart. If people want to buy vacuum cleaners or high-CBD oils, someone will sell them, it doesn’t matter where they will be sold.

A third point is that many places in Oregon are going to outright ban any sort of recreational marijuana, but might accept a medical marijuana shop. Well, the only difference between a patient and a pothead is that Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) card. In the future, bans of recreational marijuana would simply become a requirement for an OMMP card to enter a pot shop.

Another reason for merging the systems is the issue of location. Currently, there are over 250 medical marijuana dispensaries that must be 1,000 feet from schools and such. That means the medical side has already poached all the best locations in any given town. If new pot shops have to be separate and have to be 1,000 feet from the dispensaries, it pushes the recreational shops to the faraway fringes of any given town.

Let there be an entity that licenses, regulates, and inspects marijuana in the state of Oregon – I’d prefer a new cannabis-only commission stocked with people who’ve actually used cannabis, rather than the current squares on the OLCC – but let there be just one entity. Let there be one universal system of grows, processors, extractors, testers, and retailers to serve both patients and potheads alike.

That’s not to disregard patients’ needs. Let the OMMP remain and issue cards to patients. That card, shown at a universal pot shop, gets you a tax-free purchase and allows you to purchase in greater quantities. It allows the patient to maintain greater home-grow allowances and possession. It allows the patients and their caregivers to sell excess marijuana to the non-profit OLCC shops. It also provides that out-of-state coverage in the other medical states that have reciprocity.

Why does this need to be so difficult?

UPDATE: I mistakenly reviewed the text from what was the version 5 of MCLR. I have updated the text of this article in italics to reflect the changes found in the version 7 currently being circulated. I apologize for the error.

You may have heard that there is another marijuana legalization initiative in California that isn’t the one supported by billionaire Sean Parker and the major drug policy organizations. It’s called the Marijuana Control, Legalization, & Revenue Act (MCLR) and its supporters tout the fact that it’s the first legalization measure that can be printed on a single sheet of paper, petition space, summary, and all.

Today I’m preparing my hyperlinked documentation of MCLR , to go along with the ones I’ve done for California’s Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), as well as the Campaigns to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol (CRMLA) in Nevada, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Maine. That’s when I discovered a fatal electoral flaw in the MCLR.

If MCLR passes, it would be impossible difficult to do anything but fine an adult who sells marijuana to a kid.

Let’s dispense with the disclaimer that I am not a lawyer. However, I have read a whole lot of state initiatives and statutes and I believe I’m correct in this interpretation.

Section 7 of MCLR states: “Sections 11357, 11358, 11359, 11360, 11361, and 11485 of the Health and Safety Code are hereby repealed.”

There are some in the movement who criticize legalization initiatives as not being “True Legalization™” because they retain existing criminal penalties while merely providing windows of lawful behavior within a certain range. For instance, Washington State legalized possession of an ounce of marijuana, but the felony that already existed for possessing more than 40 grams is still on the books.

Therefore, I can understand why MCLR chose to repeal Health & Safety Code (H&SC) sections 11357 [marijuana possession crimes], 11358 [marijuana cultivation crimes], 11359 [marijuana sales crimes], 11360 [marijuana trafficking crimes], and 11485 [asset forfeiture] – nobody would go to jail or lose their stuff over a plant — but why repeal 11361?

Here are the statutes MCLR would be repealing. When you read section 11361, you’ll find the following (trimmed for brevity):

“Every person 18 years of age or over who… unlawfully sells… any marijuana to a minor under 14 years of age… shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a period of three, five, or seven years.”

How would the MCLR campaign respond to the inevitable attack ad that states, factually, that passing MCLR would legalize end the mandatory imprisonment of adults selling marijuana to children under 14? If section 11361 is repealed, there is no statute on the books to punish adults who sell marijuana to kids!

Perhaps the response is found in section 3, where MCLR creates a new division of the business code. There, in new section 27400, “The Legislature shall implement this Act with one or more bills…” Certainly, we would expect the California legislature to pass bills making it illegal for adults to sell marijuana to kids.

But in new section 27500, “Violations of any statute or regulation enacted or promulgated to implement this Act shall not constitute a felony and shall not be punished by imprisonment.”

The worst punishment the legislature could invoke for dealing marijuana to kids would be a misdemeanor with a fine.

The punishment MCLR proposes for selling marijuana to minors would be the punishment an adult receives for selling cigarettes to minors, as shown in new section 27500:

Except as otherwise authorized by law, any person who knowingly sells, gives, or in any way furnishes cannabis products to a person under the age of 18 years, and any person under the age of 18 years who purchases, receives or possesses any cannabis or cannabis products, shall be subject to the penalties set forth in Penal Code 308 as if the cannabis or cannabis products were cigarettes.

Here is the Penal Code 308 language authorizing punishment:

Every person, firm, or corporation that … sells … to another person who is under the age of 18 years any tobacco… is subject to either a criminal action for a misdemeanor or to a civil action … punishable by a fine of two hundred dollars ($200) for the first offense, five hundred dollars ($500) for the second offense, and one thousand dollars ($1,000) for the third offense.

Here’s the explanation from the California Department of Public Health’s pamphlet, “Tobacco Control Laws That Affect Retail Businesses Updated 2013”

Penal Code Section 308 – It is a crime to sell, give, or in any way supply tobacco products and paraphernalia to minors. Signs with the “1-800-5 ASK-4-ID” phone number must be posted at each cash register. WHAT are the penalties? Storeowners and/or clerks who sell to minors may be charged with a misdemeanor or may be fined: $200 for the first violation, $500 for the second violation, and $1,000 for the third violation.

So the charge may be a misdemeanor, but could also be mere civil fines. Charging that misdemeanor will require the prosecutor to use statutes regarding the endangerment of the welfare of a minor, and that will require proving harm or immenent harm to the child.

I understand repealing all these criminal penalties and making jail for marijuana impossible sales to minors much more difficult. Even the laws regarding providing alcohol to minors are misdemeanors with $1,000 fines only, unless the kid causes injury to someone else when he or she is drunk. MCLR is really regulating marijuana like alcohol.

But the problem is marijuana ain’t alcohol and legalizing it requires the votes of a majority of Californians, most of whom don’t use marijuana and know very few facts about it. When they hear that “MCLR will let weed dealers at your child’s middle school go free with a slap on the wrist!” and “MCLR repeals mandatory felony prison time for people who deal weed to kids, replaced with a mere civil fine or misdemeanor!” they will reject that initiative.

There is this weird idea among some True Legalizers™ that AUMA is a bad initiative because it is 62 pages long. This has led to the creation of this one page MCLR that touts its brevity as a major selling point. (You know, like the eleven-line Prop 215, whose brevity has led to numerous conflicting judicial interpretations, local bans in wide swaths of California, and even 20 years later is still being litigated and regulated.)

The problem is that law can be complex and sometimes, it requires a few pages of text to make clear what the initiative intends to do and what limitations and powers should be assigned to the government regulating that law. In trying to keep an initiative artificially short, major questions are left unanswered and blanket repeals have unintended electoral and legislative consequences.

So, you can’t have a Cannabis Cup in Seattle, Portland, or Denver.

If you thought there’d be nothing for marijuana legalizers to be fighting for after legalization, you were sorely mistaken. Like our First Amendment right of Free Association.

Legalization is just the beginning of the real fight, which is the freedom to use cannabis as equally as people use alcohol and aspirin.

You know my stand on the True Legalizers who’ll say, “See, it’s not really legalization!” as if we should have rejected Initiative 502 (WA), Measure 91 (OR), and Amendment 64 (CO).

Of course it isn’t! Even True Legalization™ wouldn’t really be legalization; there would still be prejudices and court cases and expungements and many things to work out.

The Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t True Freedom, either. There were still (and still remain) many battles to be fought for true equal civil rights for all people. The right for black people to marry white people in all fifty states has happened only within my lifetime. (OK, so I was a fetus in June 1967, but hey, gay people just got the right to marry last year.)

But it would be ridiculous to suggest in 1863 that President Lincoln should not move forward with the Emancipation Proclamation because it wasn’t True Freedom that included the right to interracial marriage, and it would be tragic if that argument was coming from the enslaved black people.

These Cannabis Cup bans are not arguments against supporting legalization, however it appears on your state’s ballot. What they are is proof that legalization is a marathon, not a sprint.

Smokeless in Seattle

Seattle can’t have a Cannabis Cup or any sort of public toking lounge because the State of Washington passed a law that felonizes the operation of any club or event that directly or indirectly promotes and allows for the consumption of cannabis.

Because if a bunch of people gathered together and smoked pot… what, exactly?

There was fear at last year’s Seattle Hempfest that the new law could essentially criminalize that protestival, where over 100,000 people, many of them suspiciously young, are openly smoking pot and even doing dabs. No charges came for the event – Seattle has generally been friendlier to the cannabis community than Olympia – but nobody can say for certain that’s because there couldn’t have been charges, if a future prosecutor wanted to file them.

I’ve covered that Hempfest for ten years and I attended the first Cannabis Cups in Seattle, and they are like every other marijuana-themed event I cover in the country – friendly and mellow.

You don’t need to take my word for it. Ask a cop, an EMT, or a nurse whether they’d prefer to cover a pot event or an alcohol event. Just last week I had a nurse, a spry septuagenarian veteran in practice since the mid-1970s, tell me she’s never had to deal with an end-of-life patient suffering the ill effects of marijuana, but she’s helped many smokers and drinkers face their self-inflicted death.

Seattle has literally hundreds of buildings built for the express purpose of administering mind-altering and performance-decreasing drugs to adults for entertainment. These buildings have parking lots for the express purpose of storing the vehicles of those adults while they alter their minds and decrease their performance with drugs inside the drug building. Society then trusts the drug building owners to not administer too much drugs to the adults and trusts the adults to judge the degree of their mind alteration and decreased performance before returning to the parking lot to operate their vehicles. Society even allows for a tolerable degree of mind alteration and decreased performance for adults operating vehicles on the road after taking drugs in the drug buildings, knowing that this tolerance comes at the cost of thousands of deaths on the roads.

But because we call the drugs “alcohol” and the buildings “bars”, none of that is a felony in Washington.

Potless in Portland

In Portland, there can’t be a Cannabis Cup or any sort of cannabis café because Oregon’s Clean Air Act was amended to include vaporization and cannabinoids. So, anywhere you cannot smoke tobacco indoors, you now cannot smoke cannabis or vaporize cannabis or use nicotine e-cigarettes.

The rationale behind the original Oregon Clean Air Act was What About The Servers! In workplaces where there is excessive cigarette smoking, like bars and restaurants, the workers would be exposed to the deadly secondhand smoke. So we eliminated cigarette smoking indoors as a safety protocol to protect workers’ lungs from the scientifically demonstrated harms of secondhand tobacco smoke.

But there is scant scientific evidence for any comparable harms from secondhand cannabis smoke. Renowned pulmonologist Dr. Donald Tashkin’s groundbreaking work found that cannabis smokers – firsthand smoke – showed lower risk for lung cancer than even non-smokers. Furthermore, vaporization doesn’t produce secondhand smoke, but secondhand vapor. The science isn’t there to show anywhere near the tobacco harms needed to apply the Clean Air Act’s restrictions to cannabis.

Whether secondhand cannabis smoke is less harmful, however, isn’t even a point we need to defend. That same Clean Air Act has exemptions within it to allow for tobacco smoking at smoke shops and cigar bars! So, somehow, we can allow for the alcohol buildings and the tobacco buildings, but not the cannabis buildings?

Another sticking point in Oregon is the regulators’ decision that any venue that has a liquor license is a “public place”. Under the law, cannabis consumption cannot occur within public view, and if you’re in a public place, you’re in public view.

Note: that doesn’t mean you just can’t hold a Cannabis Cup where there is alcohol being served. That public place definition applies to the liquor license, whether it is in operational use or not. Thus, you could find a big ol’ private ballroom to hold your event in and not serve a drop of alcohol, but because the ballroom does other events throughout the year where it does serve alcohol, it has a liquor license and you’re out of luck.

Doobieless in Denver

In Denver, the problems all come down to securing permits from recalcitrant bureaucrats who can find all manner of imagined harms from 10 to 20 thousand cannabis consumers in a building but turn a blind eye to the shenanigans of 76,000 people drinking beer at Sports Authority Field Mile High Stadium or Coors Field.

Denver NORML is attacking the problem head on with their proposal of a city initiative to legalize pot lounges. Alaska is signaling its acceptance of the right of cannabis consumers to gather. The proposed initiatives in California, Nevada, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Maine (assuming their appeal goes favorably) all provide for some sort of public accommodation for cannabis consumers.

Come 2017, Portland and Seattle could be the only major cities in legal states that don’t allow for some sort of cannabis café.

So rejoice, cannabis activists, that we are winning the battles for hearts and minds. Now that marijuana is legal, we can force the public to address the incompatible standards we have for alcohol bars and festivals versus cannabis lounges and festivals. Without “it’s illegal!” to fall back on, it is untenable to defend Cannabis Cup bans as any sort of public safety measure. As more states become legal and allow these events, the banning states become more exposed as reactionary cannabigots.

Now make sure you get out and register to vote!

A couple of weeks ago, Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) announced the details of their planned medical marijuana initiative for the state of Ohio. The Buckeye State had infamously rejected legalizing recreational and medical marijuana last year because Nick Lachey might get rich, but within that electoral drubbing was the polling information that showed overwhelming support for medical marijuana.

MPP’s initiative is largely cut-and-paste from some of the better medical marijuana laws they’ve been successful in passing throughout America. But there are a few stinkers in there from some of their lesser medical marijuana laws as well.

• Patients would qualify for a medical card with any of the “Big Eight” conditions most states recognize (cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, cachexia, seizures, spasms, pain, and nausea) as well as PTSD, Alzheimer’s agitation, ALS, Hepatitis C, Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis.
• Registered cardholders could possess 2.5 ounces of usable marijuana, cultivate (or have a caregiver cultivate) at least six plants (they could raise that limit) and possess all the usable marijuana harvested from them at the grow site.
• The state will come up with limits for other cannabis products, like edibles and extracts.
• Only one caregiver can grow at any one address, and he or she must be an Ohio resident.
• Caregivers can only serve up to five patients, unless he or she is working as a caregiver in an assisted-living facility.
• Registry cards cost no more than $40 per year, with lower-cost cards for low-income patients.
• There will be reciprocity for medical marijuana cards issued from other states.
• Until registry cards are issued, patients have an affirmative defense to marijuana charges as soon as the law goes into effect.
• Medical cardholders cannot “be denied any right or privilege” for medical cannabis use, and they cannot be discriminated against in housing*, education*, child custody, and medical procedures, such as organ transplants.
• Nursing homes and hospices have to allow some sort of patient access to medical cannabis*.
• Cardholders are specifically protected from search and seizure solely for being cardholders and being a cardholder is no sort of probable cause or reasonable suspicion for police to investigate.
• There would be a new Marijuana Control Division to establish rules on safety, packaging, labeling, inspection, testing, marketing, and advertising of medical cannabis. They’ll control licensing of the medical cannabis industry and favor those who help provide medicine to financially-needy patients and promote investment in communities of color.
• There would be up to fifteen Type 1 Growers, who pay a $500,000 fee to cultivate up to 25,000 square feet of canopy space, and an unspecified number of Type 2 Growers, who pay a $5,000 fee to cultivate less than 5,000 square feet.
• Production (processing), testing, distribution (wholesaling), and dispensary (retailing) licenses also cost $5,000.
• Cardholders could not process their own hydrocarbon or carbon dioxide extracts without a commercial processor’s license.
• Dispensaries will have to maintain internal, confidential tracking of patient purchases to ensure they don’t sell them more than the 2.5 ounces allowed per two-week period.
• You can own any or all of the licenses, except testers can only be testers, and cultivators can only own one cultivation license.
• Licensees must be Ohio residents from before January 1, 2016, but that residency requirement ends in 2020.
• Licensees generally can’t have felony convictions within the past five years, unless they were for things made legal by this medical marijuana law.
• Licensees can’t co-locate with a doctor who writes recommendations for medical cannabis.
• Licensees must be at least 500 feet from schools, churches, libraries, playgrounds, and parks, but localities could increase that distance requirement.
• Localities could only enact restrictions on time, place, and manner of medical marijuana establishments. Outright bans of dispensaries would require a majority vote of the people.
• The Ohio legislature can’t come up with sneaky ways to undermine the amendment.

MPP’s got the funding and the experience. They’ve passed several medical marijuana laws; this one is one of their better iterations and would be the best medical marijuana law east of the Mississippi. They’ve hired three longtime local activists from NORML, the Ohio Rights Group, and the former Issue 3 campaign. They’re proposing a law far better than what the Ohio legislature offered: a cannabidiol, no-whole-plant medical marijuana proposal.

So, of course, MPP’s plan is terrible and must be dropped in favor of a competing, grassroots initiative that promises to legalize medical marijuana the right way.

Grassroots Ohio announced they are proposing their own amendment to legalize medical marijuana, which their spokesperson, Cassie Young, said is “intentionally brief”. (This comports with recent True Legalization™ criticism of California’s Adult Use of Marijuana Act as being “too long” at 62 pages.) “We shouldn’t be putting regulations in our constitution,” Young told Cleveland.com. “The amendment is about protecting inherent rights of Ohioans – not enshrining business interests.”

The boogeyman of the wrong people making money on marijuana reform was the scare tactic that undermined the legalization campaign (as well as an ill-advised mascot) in Ohio last year. It’s no surprise, then, to learn the mastermind behind the Grassroots Ohio one-page medical marijuana amendment was one of the most vocal critics of last year’s Issue 3, “GW Pharmaceuticals Founder” Don Wirtshafter.

Here’s what the Grassroots Ohio initiative proposes:

• People the “age of majority” (aged 18 and older) can use, possess, cultivate, process, and share cannabis for medical purposes.
• People under age 18 can use cannabis for medical purposes if a doctor says so.
• Everybody can grow, process, and sell industrial hemp.
• Hydrocarbon extraction, edibles production, commercial cultivation, and retail sales may be taxed and shall be regulated by the state.
• People aged 21 and older can get licenses in the medical cannabis industry.
• You still can’t endanger others, engage in malpractice, or operating heavy machinery while under the influence of cannabis, but…
• Evidence of active or inactive metabolites** is not evidence of being under the influence of cannabis.
• You still can’t smoke in public places.

That’s it. What condition qualifies you for this medical use? Apparently, it’s your belief that your cannabis is for medical use. The only requirement for a physician’s approval is for people under aged 18.

How much cannabis can you grow in your backyard for medical purposes? How much usable cannabis can you keep on hand? It doesn’t say; apparently, it is limitless.

Those medical rights “shall not be infringed” and active THC isn’t evidence of impairment, so does that mean the 18-year-old who believes he needs cannabis for anxiety and is carrying a quarter-pound of it while puffing a joint and driving is safe from any police interference?

The heart part of me loves this Grassroots Ohio initiative. No doctor’s notes, age 18 and up, toking and driving is legal, what’s not to love?

But the head part of me says there is no way in hell Ohioans would vote for such a measure, especially after the easy attack ads it would summon.

And the practical part of me says that this is yet another case where there’s a professional, national, funded, moderate reform initiative with a decent chance of making the ballot and passing being “primaried” once again by a grassroots, local, unfunded, True Legalization™ initiative with a tenuous chance of making the ballot and zero chance of passing.

* Caveat: they can discriminate if not doing so causes them to break a federal law or lose a benefit under federal law (like a grant or a contract).

** There is no such thing as an “active metabolite”. If THC has been metabolized, it is inactive. In fact, “inactive metabolite” is redundant. There is THC (a molecule that active in influence over human physiology) and THC-COOH (a metabolite that is inactive in influence). Well, I was wrong about this! As reader Matthew Meyer points out: 

Russ, in your rush to pick nits you have erred. It appears there is, indeed, such a thing as “active metabolites” of cannabis:

“11-Hydroxy-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (11-OH-THC) is the main active metabolite of THC which is formed in the body after cannabis consumption.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11-Hydroxy-THC

So our bodies apparently do transform the THC into another substance that is active, hence “active metabolite.”

I get the chance to meet and interview amazing people, like pot star Tommy Chong, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, quarterback Jim McMahon, billionaire Richard Branson, and the leading researchers and activists in the marijuana movement.

But the interviews I find most special are those with the children battling life-threatening illnesses and conditions who find relief and cures from cannabis treatments. Imagine trying to comprehend the concept of your own mortality, finding a medicine that will save you, and then comprehending why the government would imprison your parents for giving it to you.

Such is the case for 10-year-old Alexis Bortell. She suffers from a terrible form of epilepsy, but her father, Dean, has found that a combination of CBD oil and THC supplements relieve Alexis’ condition. A little girl who was slipping behind in school and spending afternoons with the school nurse is now almost a year seizure-free.

But that’s only because Dean moved himself and Alexis out of Texas and into Colorado, where her medicine is legal. While Texas has passed a law allowing epileptic kids to use CBD oils, it mandates that the level of THC be exceptionally low to non-existent. Alexis’ condition doesn’t respond to CBD alone; she requires THC for it to be effective.

I had the chance to interview Alexis one-on-one shortly before her keynote speech:

In her keynote speech, she had two thousand attendees hanging on her every word. She was professional and rehearsed, an accomplished public speaker by any measure. She laid out her plans to bring whole plant medical marijuana to Texas, even if she has to become governor.

You can learn more and support Alexis Bortell at TeamAlexis.org. You can find my entire coverage of the Southwest Cannabis Conference & Expo, including the Gridiron Cannabis Coalition panel of Jim McMahon, Ricky Williams, and Marvin Washington, the inspiring Montel Williams, and the numerous activists and entrepreneurs fighting for marijuana reform in the Lone Star State at my Soundcloud page.

My conversation with Tommy Chong at the International Cannabis Business Conference began with his thoughts on the candidacy of Donald Trump, who Chong believes “personifies the Republican Party.”

In Part 2 of our interview, Chong talks about how rich people like Donald Trump lose contact with the real world. Chong also tells a hilarious anecdote about racism in prison and weighs in on the various initiatives to legalize marijuana in California.

Chong seems to endorse all efforts to legalize marijuana, just so long as it is not excessively taxed.

In Part 3, Chong talks about the Black Lives Matter movement and parallels to being a “hunted animal” as a marijuana consumer.  Chong also goes into how the law enforcement system is addicted to the money they make through prohibition.

Oregon legislators are working on a bill (SB 1511) during this short legislative session that will allow medical marijuana patients to show their Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) card at a future recreational marijuana retail shop to make tax-free purchases of marijuana and cannabis products.

Meanwhile, the bill also extends the temporary “early sales” program of adults buying marijuana and cannabis seeds and seedlings from current medical marijuana dispensaries to also allow purchase of cannabis products like edibles and concentrates.

If the bill passes as expected, the result would be two buildings that sell marijuana and cannabis products. One’s called a retail shop, and it sells to all customers, with no taxes charged to OMMP patients. The other’s called a dispensary, and it sells to all customers, with no taxes charged to OMMP patients.

The retail shop will get its marijuana and cannabis products from a producer licensed by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC), who transfers it to an OLCC-licensed processor. An OLCC-licensed tester will inspect the goods before they are then sold by an OLCC-licensed retailer to any adult, without taxes if the customer shows an OMMP card.

The dispensary will get its marijuana and cannabis products from a producer licensed by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) or from patients’ designated growers, who transfers it to an OHA-licensed processor. An OHA-licensed tester will inspect the goods before they are then sold by an OHA-licensed dispensary to any adult, without taxes if the customer shows an OMMP card.

Can anyone explain to me the need for this bureaucratic and operational redundancy?

I first experienced this dual-track marijuana madness in Fort Collins, Colorado. There, I walked into a “Rec/Med” facility where the first thing you notice is one of those banker’s ropes separating the room right down the middle. A sign on the pole pointed left and said “MEDICAL” and pointed right and said “RECREATIONAL”.

Behind the counter were all the same items – marijuana, edibles, tinctures, salves, and extracts. However, the “Super Silver Haze” in the jar on the medical side came from a clone of the mother plant tracked on the medical side, while the “Super Silver Haze” in the jar on the recreational side came from a clone of the mother plant on the recreational side.

Despite what the Supreme Court said in the Raich case, in Colorado and Oregon, marijuana isn’t fungible – there’s medical marijuana and there’s recreational marijuana – and even though it’s exactly the same strain, it must be grown and tracked and sold in two separate supply systems.

Why? How much overhead does maintaining two redundant systems add to the overall price of marijuana?

It seems to me like the Oregon legislature is slowly merging the medical and recreational marijuana systems. Considering that medical marijuana was always a temporary measure to “get the sick and dying off the battlefield” until we ended adult marijuana prohibition, this change seems only logical. If medical marijuana was an exception to criminal prosecution, why must the exception continue in the absence of criminal prosecution?

For years, the OMMP evolved to better suit the needs of patients by turning a blind eye to the clone shares, farmers’ markets, and ersatz dispensaries that cropped up. By 2013, the legislature recognized the situation by legalizing the dispensaries and setting up a system by which medical growers could sell their patients’ excess medicine to help stock the dispensaries.

But that was a temporary fix for the problem of patient access, not the establishment of an industry for growers. The growers were never supposed to be in this for personal enrichment; their role was supposed to be that of compassionate caregiver for the sick, merely recouping their expenses for supplies and, later, labor.

Now that marijuana is legal in Oregon, the distinction between medical and recreational marijuana isn’t as compelling as the distinction between personal and commercial marijuana.

For commercial marijuana, I’d prefer if the legislature took all command over the industry from OLCC and OHA and created a new Oregon Cannabis Regulatory Authority (OCRA, because I like clever acronyms). OCRA would regulate all commercial growers, processors, wholesalers, testers, and retailers, period.

If you’re growing pot to sell, you’ll need an OCRA license and follow OCRA rules. What difference does it make if your end customer is sick or healthy? Why would there need to be different rules for different customers. The fragile health of the OMMP patient, perhaps? Then why not make the standard one that applies to the patients; I’m sure the recreational customers won’t mind purer, safer, better-labeled products.

That might require a sort of “micro-business” license for the small grower currently selling to the dispensaries, but so what? If you want to make money selling marijuana, you’re a commercial grower and should follow the same commercial rules.

But if you’re growing pot for personal use, you need no license and need only follow the law. What difference does it make if your personal use is to treat an illness, a disability, or boredom on a Saturday night?

While OCRA would run the commercial marijuana industry from seed-to-sale, there would remain within OHA an OMMP that maintains a registry of patients with doctors’ recommendations for medical use and issues OMMP cards. That card gets you the tax-free purchase at the OCRA store, allows you to purchase more at the OCRA store, and grants you greater personal possession and cultivation limits.

But what about those Western Idaho (Eastern Oregon) counties that ban pot shops, but allow medical dispensaries? Simple. Write a compromise that allows localities to ban adults from shopping at local OCRA stores without an OMMP card, but requires a minimum amount of OCRA stores by patient population. (For fun, let’s call them Medi-OCRA stores.)

If you can think of a logical reason why we need to maintain two redundant systems for the same flower, please let me know in the comments. Otherwise, thank you, Oregon legislature, for recognizing that marijuana is fungible and redundancy is unneeded.

The patient-focused medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) has released their 2016 report, grading the fifty states for their medical marijuana programs or lack thereof.

To little surprise, ASA gave California a grade of B+ for its overall average score of 88, based on the categories of patient rights, access to cannabis medicine, ease of navigation (i.e. the bureaucracy), functionality (ease of abiding by the law), and consumer safety.

Each of those categories gets ranked 0-100, based on subcategories. For instance, 40 of the 100 points for the patient rights category come from ranking arrest protection, another 15 for an affirmative defense, another 10 for child custody protection, and so on.

Can you guess a state that tied with California for the highest score in the class with 88 points? Colorado, perhaps? Nope, they got an 84. Oregon, maybe? Nope, they got an 85.

Did you guess Illinois? (Of course you did; it’s in the title.)

Yes, somehow, ASA has come up with an incredibly detailed report card system that ranks California and Illinois (and New Mexico) as equally great medical marijuana states with a score of 88.

Illinois is a better medical marijuana state than Colorado or Oregon, where you don’t even need to be sick to be protected from arrest for possession and cultivation of marijuana.

Illinois is a better place for patients than Colorado or Oregon, where any adult can walk into a store, purchase cannabis and cannabis seedlings, without paying a dollar to the state for registration or a dollar to a doctor for a permission slip.

Illinois, the state where the medical marijuana law is just a pilot program that will sunset unless renewed, is a better medical marijuana state than Colorado or Oregon, with 15 and 17 years of medical marijuana, respectively.

Illinois, where the possession limit is 2.5 ounces per fortnight and no home grow is allowed, is better than Colorado or Oregon, where any adult can cultivate 3 or 4 mature plants and possess at least a half-pound at home (and patients can possess 1.5 pounds in Oregon!)

Illinois, where there are just eight dispensaries in a state of 13 million people, is better than Colorado or Oregon, with hundreds of dispensaries in states of 9 million people, combined.

Illinois, where the law is currently protecting roughly 2,000 patients from arrest, is better than Colorado or Oregon, that protect every adult from arrest for personal amounts and roughly 200,000 patients combined from arrest for medical amounts.

This isn’t to completely dismiss the ASA 2016 Report. They’ve amassed a ton of great information in there, especially the chart of qualifying conditions by states.

But reading it reminded me of a Super Bowl spreadsheet I once built. I thought it was wrong that a team like the New York Jets, who are 1-0 in Super Bowls (a 1.000 win pct), should be ranked above my beloved Green Bay Packers, who are 4-1 (a .800 win pct… stupid John Elway!)

So I concocted a formula by which a win counted for 3 pts and a loss counted for 1 point. Thus, an 0-4 Minnesota Vikings or Buffalo Bills team with 4 pts would rank ahead of the New York Jets with 3 pts, because going to the Super Bowl four times ought to count for something.

Then someone convinced me that a one-time Super Bowl winner ought to rank ahead of a four-time loser. I changed the formula to 5 points for a win and 1 for a loss. That also shifted the rankings of some of the other teams from the 3:1 system.

Anyway, the point is that ASA has given a very through explanation of its grading system and it’s well worth a read, but just as my gut that tells me the Packers are a better Super Bowl team than the Jets, my gut also tells me there is no way in hell I’d rather be a medical marijuana patient in Illinois than in Colorado or Oregon.

There’s something wrong with your grading system when California and Illinois are coming out as the top states for medical marijuana patients and legal states of Colorado and Oregon are next best.

In every election since 2010, I have donned my screen beret to do battle with the keyboard kommandos online who smoke pot and oppose legalization. I don’t know if I coined the phrase or borrowed it, but I call them Stoners Against Legalization. And now, I have damning proof from one of the pioneers of Prop 215, Steve Kubby, that it’s the medical marijuana prohibition profits, not medical marijuana patients, they’re protecting.

These folks claim to support True Legalization™, so they get upset when I call them like I see them. They always cloak their opposition in some doom-and-gloom scenario where legalization imperils medical marijuana patients. They often forecast incredible price hikes resulting from increasing the size of the marijuana market. They inevitably say the legalization in question isn’t really legalization because there will remain criminal penalties for breaking the law.

Well, if criminal penaties involving fines and jail for the unauthorized production of an ingestible product exist, then I guess dairy farming isn’t really legal. I guess since I can’t home brew more than 100 gallons of beer, it isn’t really legal. I guess since I can’t just catch shellfish and sell them, fishing isn’t really legal.

As for the price hikes, I heard it before with Washington’s I-502, that it would raise the price of weed to $600 per ounce! Meanwhile, I can go to Main Street Marijuana in Vancouver, Washington, and buy a half-ounce of Durban Poison for $65 or a half-ounce of Timewreck for $45, and that’s with the 37 percent state tax plus local taxes.

Then there’s the medical marijuana angle. Indeed, medical marijuana has been drastically changed since the legalization of marijuana in Washington and Oregon… by their legislatures. Both I-502 and Measure 91 changed not one aspect of the medical marijuana laws and Oregon’s Measure 91 specifically said the medical marijuana laws were not to be modified.

The Stoners Against Legalization are suffering from the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy – because A happened, then B happened, A caused B. Notably absent in any reckoning why their legislatures would so dramatically alter medical marijuana laws is any accounting of the wide-spread abuses of those laws. It’s never medical marijuana’s fault medical marijuana got changed, it’s always the fault of trying to protect the other 80 percent of pot smokers from arrest and jail.

My contention has always been that the Stoners Against Legalization are motivated by keeping the prohibition profits status quo, whether they be growers who wouldn’t accept a real farmer’s salary, dispensaries that like the lack of capitalized competition, doctors who enjoy the ease of signing permission slips for profit, and black market dealers who don’t want to lose their customers to a well-lit store with better selection and prices.

And what a status quo it is! California medical marijuana plus Schwarzenegger’s decrim is the perfect mix of quasi-legalization and prohibition that keeps risk low and profits high. It’s just legal enough you can grow and sell and possess without really fearing The Man, but just illegal enough that you can still charge $100 to $150 per half-ounce for it.

Well, now I have proof that the real fear of the Stoners Against Legalization is primarily financial, thanks to a long series of Facebook bouts with Steve Kubby.

Kubby is the CEO of Kush, Inc., founder of Cannabis Science Inc., and one of the many-claimed authors of Prop 215. He was a college roommate of Cheech Marin’s and may even be the subject of a reality show. When he’s not calling me a “boot licking moderate“, a “narc“, or a “brown noser“, he’s littering his Facebook wall with photos of his luxurious millionaire lifestyle.

But in our latest online go-round, Kubby slipped from the usual talking points of me appeasing oligopolists, damning patients, and all-we-need-is-Prop-215-which-I-helped-write, to this revealing post (emphasis mine):

Russ Belville sure sounds like a NARC. He calls the current free market a “unregulated, Wild West,” sees growers as “greedy,” and advocates “taxing and regulating” as if weed is as dangerous as plutonium. Worst of all, he has no problem if his AUMA bankrupts the very pioneers who have gotten us to where we are today.

There you have it. You and me and all the rest of the adults in California who aren’t sick and won’t lie to doctors should continue to accept possession tickets, accept sharing misdemeanors, and accept growing felonies, because we wouldn’t want to bankrupt the people in the 1990’s who said their medical marijuana mission was all about compassion, not profits.

P.S. This is the part where they complain that we don’t have to “lie to a doctor” because “all use is medical”, and then they run down how if you’re a regular pot smoker, you already have the legitimate need for medical use of marijuana.

Never mind how that “all use is medical” framing made such a joke out of medical marijuana in California that twenty-somethings line up at a doc-in-a-tent at a cannabis event to get recommendations for their “anxiety” before they attend the rap concert. Never mind how scene after scene of those “all use is medical” people royally screwed any attempt to get reasonable whole-plant medical marijuana laws passed in more conservative states eastward.

The funny part to me is how the Stoners Against Legalization want to paint me as the supporter of monopolies and appeaser of governments when they’re fighting to maintain a system that protects the monopoly pot docs have on writing permission slips for marijuana use, backed by the threat of government fines and arrest and imprisonment, keeps the prices of marijuana artificially high, and protects the entrenched dispensaries from well-capitalized professional businesspeople.

As I continue to take heat from the marijuana growers and True Legalizers™ in California over my support of marijuana legalization in the form of the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), one thing that really bugs me is the deification of the plant and those who grow it.

Look, they’re farmers. Farmers are great people that deserve much respect. But they are not gods.

For one thing, these farmers have been taking advantage of prohibition to price-gouge consumers for decades. Can you name another vegetable crop that retails for $14-$30 per gram?

I can – it’s saffron. That’s a spice that can only be harvested three weeks out of the year and grows mainly in Iran. Families of field workers work 19-hour days to harvest the saffron, which is the three stamens from a crocus sativus flower. It takes about 150 flowers to make one gram of saffron.

I can get a gram of saffron at Wal-Mart for $18.

Now, I know growing cannabis can take some time and effort and expense… but more than hand-picking three stamens out of a flower? Weed should cost more, even though it is a crop that can be grown year-round, can produce many grams from a single flower, and doesn’t have to be freeze-dried and shipped over the Atlantic?

The counter will be “but they’re heroes for risking prison to keep us all in green!” Really, heroes?

First of all, 7 out of 8 marijuana arrests are consumers, not growers. We’re the ones the War on Marijuana is built upon.

Second, we’re the ones who had to pay to take the prohibition risk. At least the grower who got busted was paid for his risk.

And that’s the key, they’ll tell you, being paid for the risk. But what’s a reasonable mark-up on risk?

Marc Emery​ once told me it costs between $12.50 and $25.00 to grow an indoor ounce of pot. Let’s take the highball figure. At the going California rate of $300 per ounce, that works out to a 1,200% markup.

That’s Martin “Pharma Bro” Shkreli-type numbers. Is he a hero?

For everybody who hates AUMA and loves Prop 215, are you really defending $300 ounces as “overgrowing the government”? Wouldn’t we have done a much more thorough job overgrowing them if growers had kept the markup down to, say, 400% ($100 ounce)?

When I read these Prop 215 lovers wailing about AUMA and how it will create $500 ounces and make Sean Parker’s friends rich, I can only laugh at the Freudian projection going on.

No, the fear that is becoming so transparent to us consumers is that the growers like things just the way they are under Prop 215 – it’s legal enough to avoid that risk, but illegal enough to keep charging the risk mark-up.

They’re not stupid. They can read what’s happening in Colorado and Washington, where prices are getting into the $45-$65 per half-ounce range.

The last big purchase [from a grower] I made was at $6 a gram. The guy came back two days ago, said, ‘Would you want more at $4.50?’ I said, ‘I’ll take more at $3 a gram.’ And I bought another 10 pounds,” [Vancouver’s Main Street Marijuana Owner Ramsey] Hamide said in December. “(Growers have) been bringing us product for $1, $2 a gram.”

And in Colorado?

Convergex reports that the average price for 1/8th of an ounce dropped from between $50 and $70 last June to between $30 and $45 now. The price of a full ounce is now between $250 and $300 after selling for roughly $300 to $400 a year ago.

Yeah, if the prices for my harvest were going to drop like that thanks to legalization, I’d be wailing about the AUMA, too. But if I were a marijuana consumer, not having to get a doctor’s note and being able to buy a $45 half-ounce of weed sounds like a hell of a reason to vote for AUMA.

One of the most soul-affirming things I get to do in my strange career is speak to men who have been incarcerated over flowers.

The first such man I met was Bobby Platshorn. He was sentenced to 64 years in prison for importing marijuana from Mexico and South America in the 1970s. If your folks smoked pot back in the day and it wasn’t Mexican dirt weed, there’s a good chance Bobby and his “Black Tuna Gang” imported it. He did 29 years in prison – the longest serving non-violent marijuana prisoner in US history (for now) – and was released in 2009.

Bobby has since turned his life toward helping others avoid prison for pot by embarking on “The Silver Tour“, which educated seniors in Florida about the need for medical marijuana legalization. I was one of the first marijuana activists he met once released and I helped him adjust to the world of Twitter, Facebook, and the World Wide Web. In turn, he inducted me into his “Black Tuna Gang”, the medallion of which I wear around my neck to this day.

Imagine going into prison and missing the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Imagine your last free moments in a world without cell phones, internet, space stations, CDs, and our country fully embroiled in a Cold War, then returning to a world without a Soviet Union, 8-track tapes, pet rocks, half of the Beatles, and pay phones.

Imagine losing half your life for wholesaling weed then returning to a world where that’s legal for medical purposes in over a dozen states.

Next, last year, I got to meet Jeff Mizanskey, who had been convicted under an old Missouri three-strikes law and sentenced to life in prison for pot dealing. After 22 years, he is released into a world where pot dealing is a legitimate brick-and-mortar business in two states and pending in two more.

This weekend, I got to meet Dale Schafer. He’s an attorney and hemophiliac who, along with his then-wife, Dr. Mollie Fry, a breast cancer survivor, grew medical marijuana plants in Cool, California, to help themselves and other patients. They worked with the local authorities to ensure their operation was on the up-and-up. Everything seemed to be copacetic with California’s Compassionate Use Act and all the locals, until the feds decided to get involved.

The feds don’t really like to get involved with minor pot possession and cultivation cases (unless you use pot for civil disobedience at the Liberty Bell) unless the plant count is above 100. That way, they get the federal mandatory minimum of five years for the subjects of their persecution, making the effort worthwhile from a cost-benefit analysis.

Dale and Mollie weren’t growing 100 plants… at any one time. 15 here, 25 there, and the feds then added them all up over the five-year statute of limitations to get over the 100 plant limit. So Dale and Mollie each went to prison for five years.

For growing medical marijuana plants.

For cancer patients.

In California, where medical use had been legal for over a dozen years.

Dale’s daughter Heather reached out to me before the International Cannabis Business Conference, hoping to get Dale’s story out to the masses.

I’m honored and happy to oblige. There but for the grace of my non-existent supreme deity go I.

This weekend’s International Cannabis Business Conference in San Francisco was once again the premiere industry/activism event of the year. The Hyatt Regency is an amazing venue and the presentations and people at the event were top notch.

I collected the audio from every speech and panel and will be uploading them all week and presenting them here at Marijuana Politics. Today, I bring you two conversations from a supporter and an opponent of the California Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), sometimes known as the “Sean Parker Initiative”.

First I spoke with Chris Conrad, an expert in cannabis whose bona fides include work with Jack Herer on The Emperor Wears No Clothes, California’s Prop 215, and his own books on hemp and cannabis. Chris is stumping for the AUMA and believes that while it isn’t everything we could ask for in a legalization regime, it’s a very good start to dismantling our current cannabis prohibition.

Next I sat down with the Guru of Ganja, Ed Rosenthal, another longtime cannabis expert most known for his series of grow books. Ed is not at all satisfied with the AUMA and believes it should be rejected in favor of better legalization in a future election.

I got the chance to sit down with cannabis legend Tommy Chong at the International Cannabis Business Conference in San Francisco. Chong, 77, is parlaying his cannabis celebrity into a new brand, Chong’s Choice, as well as co-hosting a podcast with his son, Paris, to be hosted on CannabisRadio.com.

I asked Tommy about the state of marijuana and politics, beginning with the Republicans. “I love Donald Trump,” Chong told me, “he personifies everything the Republican Party is about.” When asked about the unexpectedly exciting battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, Chong replied, “We’ve only got Bernie.” We also discussed the upcoming battle to legalize marijuana in California, with Chong lending his support to any form of legalization that makes the ballot.

Enjoy this first portion of our twenty-minute interview with Tommy Chong – we’ll have more parts uploaded shortly.