hMPp://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/blogs/white-coat-notes/2014/02/25/former-congressman-unusual-dealings-with-marijuana-company-detailed-lawsuit/rGZUa8IhVmSiQkHOrXjwbJ/blog.html




Former congressman’s unusual dealings with marijuana company detailed in lawsuit



A non-profit company led by former Massachusetts Congressman William D. Delahunt, which received three coveted state licenses last month for medical marijuana dispensaries, intends to give 50 percent of the company’s revenue to a management firm that is controlled by Delahunt and his business partners in the marijuana dispensary.

n its license applications, Delahunt’s dispensary company, Medical Marijuana of Massachusetts, projected it would earn revenue of roughly $49 million in the first three years from the dispensaries in Plymouth, Masphee, and Taunton, meaning the management company would get at least $24 million.

Delahunt is listed as a manager of Triple M Managment Company LLC, but the application does not spell out Delahunt’s share of income from the management company.

The agreement to give half of the marijuana company’s revenue to the management firm was described as “laughable” by the owner of an Andover-based consulting practice that focuses exclusively on non-profits. “It’s completely excessive,” said Thomas A. McLaughlin, who owns McLaughlin & Associates.

Delahunt also is supposed to receive a $250,000 annual salary as chief executive of the marijuana company, according to the applications—although he has said he doesn’t expect to be paid a salary for the first several years while the business is getting off the ground.

Delahunt’s business arrangement is cited in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Suffolk Superior Court on behalf of a Needham company, 1 Relief Inc, which was unsuccessful in its bid for a marijuana license, and is seeking to block the state Department of Public Health from finalizing the 20 provisional licenses it awarded last month.

The suit contends that the department violated state procurement rules in awarding the licenses.

“Everything from beginning to end the Department of Public Health did wrong,” Robert Carp, a Newton attorney who is representing 1 Relief, said in an interview.

“The money has to be for the patients,” Carp said. “It’s hard to be patient-centric when you are collecting $250,000 a year in a job you have no training for, and then adding half of the revenue of the managed company that you also control.”

The Globe has reported that Delahunt and all the other top executives in his dispensary company are keeping their full-time jobs and will not be running the firm’s cultivation and dispensing operations.

Delahunt and his business partners could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening.

David Kibbe, a spokesman for the Department of Public Health, said in an e-mailed statement, “No provisional licenses have been handed to applicants. None will be until they clear our verification phase. We do have 20 applicants approved for provisional status, but they have not been given provisional certificates at this point.”

McLaughlin, the Andover consultant, said it’s very unusual for a non-profit to hire a management company, and unheard of that it would take 50 percent of revenues.

“Under no circumstances can I imagine that management would take 50 percent of every revenue dollar,” McLaughlin said. “What product do you buy or get where you are paying for mostly management?”

He compared the state’s fledgling medical marijuana industry to “the business equivalent of the wild, wild West.”

“If I were on the non-profit and somebody came in with that deal I would have laughed them out of the board room,” he added.

McLaughlin said that such an arrangement places officers of a non-proft at risk of being charged with violating their fiduciary duty to the organization.

In addition to the 50 percent of revenues Delahunt’s management company will receive, it also is slated to earn 8 percent annual interest on $2.47 million it loaned to the dispensary firm for its start-up costs, according to the applications filed with the state health department.

Since the department awarded the provisional licenses in late January, the Globe and other media have reported that a number of the companies awarded licenses made misstatements in their applications about local support and the agency has acknowledged it didn’t check the veracity of companies’ claims during the evaluation process. Questions also have been raised about possible conflicts of interest between the agency and some of the winning applicants. Public Health Commissioner Cheryl Bartlett held fund-raisers for Delahunt in the mid-2000s when he was still in Congress, though she said she was not involved in the final selection of winning companies.

The suit lists more than a dozen examples of what appear to be significant mistakes in projected budgets, cultivation plans, and federal tax calculations in applications of the winning companies. The suit contends these should have automatically disqualified the companies from receiving a license under the state’s procurement rules.

“We expect to have a ferocious fight on our hands,” Carp said. “But we believe if a judge understands the information before him, he will see there are too many mistakes to award something this valuable to people who have violated the guidelines.”

hMPp://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2014/02/25/light-or-legal-md-lawmakers-move-forward-on-marijuana-bills/




Md. Lawmakers Move Forward On Marijuana Bills



ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ)–Despite a negative reception from Gov. Martin O’Malley, lawmakers are moving forward on bills to stop arresting people for small amounts of marijuana.

Political reporter Pat Warren has more on the testimony.

There are two bills: marijuana legal and marijuana light.

One bill reduces possession of less than an ounce of marijuana to a ticket and a fine. The other makes it legal for adults 21 and older, with state regulation and taxes. That’s the one supporters really like.

“If we legalize marijuana, we take out the whole black market aspect,” said Ryan Record, supporter.

“What’s really the gateway, truly the gateway? Alcohol, and that’s legal and that’s not right,” said John Shook, supporter.

The arguments in favor of legalization center around the failure of prohibition.

“We have criminalized and demonized tens of thousands of our fellow Marylanders and yet we have not put a dent into the demand for the drug,” said Sen. Jamie Raskin, D-Montgomery.

“I’m a certified addictions counselor, and I believe I have never seen one of my clients die from an overdose of marijuana yet,” said Tiffany Thompson, supporter.

But opponents think it’s playing fast and loose with drug prevention programs.

“We believe it sends a horrible message to our kids who otherwise have been told consistently that marijuana is dangerous,” said Chief Mike Pristoop, Maryland Chiefs of Police Association.

But state regulated and taxed, legalization would take the profits away from illegal dealers and reportedly raise an estimated $100 million to $130 million for the state—more than what the state is paying to prosecute for possession.

“From students I’ve talked to in Howard County they have a much easier time finding marijuana than they do getting beer,” said Sen. Allen Kittleman R-Howard.

Sponsors of the bill to write tickets for possession think it has a better chance of passing this session.

Gov. O’Malley has said it’s still an evolving issue for him, but it is highly unlikely that he would sign a bill to legalize it.

A recent poll by the ACLU of Maryland and the Marijuana Policy Project found that a majority of Maryland voters support regulating and taxing marijuana like alcohol.

hMPp://nation.time.com/2014/02/26/medical-marijuana-taxes-irs-christian-dispensary-canna-care/




Christian Marijuana Dispensary Reconciles Dogma and Dope While Battling the IRS




Early in the morning on Feb. 24, a large man with a long white beard and big cowboy hat gathered with about a dozen other people to pray outside the San Francisco branch of the United States tax court. In a kettledrum voice, Bryan Davies led the group in the Lord’s Prayer before asking, “If there is any evil here, let it be sent to the lake of fire!” Then Davies strode into the federal building, where he and his wife, Lanette, took on the Internal Revenue Service in a case that could set an important precedent for the nation’s rapidly growing legal marijuana industry.

At issue is a nearly $875,000 tax bill that the Davies’ have refused to pay on the grounds that a 1982 law meant to prevent drug traffickers from deducting business expenses should not apply to Canna Care, their small “Christian-based” medical marijuana dispensary in Sacramento—or any other marijuana dispensary legal under state law. Even if the Davies’ don’t win that argument, there are legal precedents for the dispensary to get a big discount on that bill if owners can prove they’re involved in two trades. So for two days of testimony, the usually staid federal tax court was given over to a detailed examination of what, exactly, constitutes a Christian cannabis business that claims to spend as much time serving the community as it does selling weed-infused lollipops.

The idea for merging marijuana and ministry came through prayer, the couple said during testimony. They had been exposed to medical marijuana when a doctor recommended Lanette Davies’ daughter use it to alleviate symptoms from a bone disease and it “made her life livable,” she said. Bryan Davies became a convert after finding it helped ease an arthritic condition that affects his spine. Trying to live on Social Security benefits and short on cash, Davies says he asked God for guidance. “I got on my knees, and I prayed to the Lord,” he told the court. “And God said … ‘Open up a pot shop.’”

The Davies’ set up that shop in 2005, in the back corner of a small industrial complex in a neighborhood of Sacramento called Del Paso Heights. The dispensary is marked only by an illustration of an aluminum can with the word care wrapped across the front. Inside, a security guard mans the door to a windowless lobby. A table offers pamphlets on using medical marijuana to treat chronic pain next to bibles that are given away for free. The walls are a crowded tapestry of American flags, cannabis leaves, eagles, crucifixes and the “Don’t Tread on Me” gear favored by Tea Partiers (though Lanette says she’s a staunch Democrat and Bryan calls himself a libertarian). In the back room, employees sell strains of weed like Hindu Kush, Green Candy and L.A. Confidential, starting at $3.95 per gram.

That work of selling dope, the couple said in response to questioning from IRS lawyers, is consistent with the dispensary’s broader mission to help and heal. A patron might arrive having been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease or terminal cancer, Bryan said: “They’ve been told they have so much time to live … and they’re angry with God.” He and other Canna Care employees would often pray with those patients, they testified, in what he said was an attempt to bring them back from the “precipice.” Bryan also said during testimony that he could exorcise patients who “don’t realize they’re hosting a demon.”

Marijuana is an unlikely form of outreach to Christians. A new survey of Americans’ attitudes about marijuana released Wednesday by the Public Religion Research Institute found that the majority of the 3,390 Christians polled, 52%, said they are against legalization. Opposition is strongest among Hispanic Catholics (67%) and white evangelical Protestants (61%), while lowest among Jewish Americans (23%) and the unaffiliated (27%). Robert Jones, CEO of the firm that conducted the survey, attributes the opposition among Christians to their view that the body “as a temple” that shouldn’t be soiled with substances like illegal drugs or alcohol or cigarettes.

The Davies’ use the Bible to reconcile selling marijuana with their faith, believing that cannabis was among the “seed-bearing plants” the book of Genesis says God gave man on the sixth day. “You’ve got to remember who created it,” Bryan said recently, shortly after the dispensary employees finished their daily 6 p.m. prayer.

Prevailing in tax court will require a different standard of proof. The provision at the heart of the case is an obscure bit of federal tax code known as 280E, which states that taxpayers who are involved in drug trafficking are not allowed to deduct any business expenses—like payroll or rent or health benefits—that would be standard for other legal businesses. The law, put on the books more than a decade before any state legalized medical marijuana, has become an expensive reality for dispensaries; while medical marijuana is now legal in 20 states, and recreational marijuana is legal in two, pot is still a Schedule I controlled substance in the eyes of the federal government. And that means that regardless of state law, all dispensaries are drug traffickers as far as the IRS is concerned.

Canna Care’s disputed tax bill comes from $2.6 million in business expenses that the IRS has disallowed under that code. Getting a ruling that 280E should be revisited and no longer applied to medical marijuana dispensaries, as the Davies’ lawyer argued, would be a landmark decision for the burgeoning marijuana industry. But by the time testimony ended Feb. 25th, that appeared unlikely.

Throughout the two day hearing, the Davies’ were rebuked for using the witness stand as a soap box and rambling rather than giving forthright answers. One of their witnesses was disallowed because the IRS had not been notified of her appearance in advance, and their lawyer could not immediately recall what “THC”—or tetrahydrocannabinol, the mind-altering ingredient in cannabis—stood for. Canna Care employees testified that they did not know how their salaries were determined or by whom. Meanwhile, other attorneys arguing related cases have expressed concerns that a ruling against Canna Care might be “very detrimental” to their efforts to see the code reformed.

A ruling from judge Diana Kroupa may not be forthcoming for at least six months. As testimony ended, Kroupa seemed to acknowledge the shift in popular opinion in favor of legal marijuana, but implied that it would have little bearing on the outcome of a case that hinges, at its core, on an interpretation of fine-grained tax law. “The court is aware that there is a trend,” Kroupa said as the hearing concluded, “but the law is the law.”

Exiting the courtroom, the Davies’ remained upbeat. “I know what we’re doing is the right thing,” Lanette said, “Whether it goes for us or against us, that’s in God’s hands.”

hMPp://rt.com/usa/sell-weed-colorado-county-tax-753/




‘We have to sell more weed!’: Colorado county issues first-ever marijuana tax figures



A recreational marijuana store located in southern Colorado became the first business of its kind in the state to announce the tax totals from the new industry that pot advocates say will be a boon for state education and struggling local economies.

Finance officials in Pueblo County, the tenth most populated county in Colorado, announced that the two marijuana shops there have earned approximately $1 million in sales in January. That sum has produced approximately $56,000 in local sales taxes.

Pueblo County is the only community between Denver, Colorado and the New Mexico state line where recreational marijuana stores are permitted by law. Two shops were opened in January, the first month in which recreational marijuana was legal in Colorado, and three more stores have since opened in February.

Along with the sales tax figure, officials told the Pueblo Chieftain that the county also collected $70,400 in licensing and renewal fees in January alone. County Commissioner Liane McFayden said that $100,000 in the first month is far ahead of the $400,000 in revenue she predicted for the entire year.

“The irony is that the only new revenue we have coming in is in marijuana and yet we have to open a new judicial building,” she said.

County Budget and finance Director Cal Hamler responded by joking, “We have to sell more weed!”

The state taxes recreational marijuana at a 10-percent rate, but then refunds 15-percent of that total back to the counties where the drug was first sold. There are 160 license pot stores throughout Colorado and each has until February 20 to publicize its sales tax totals. Pueblo County was simply the first to do so.

County Clerk Gilbert “Bo” Ortiz told the Associated Press that the marijuana industry could generate as much as $670,000 in new tax revenue for Pueblo County in 2014. If the current pace continues, Gilbert said, the state will earn $11.2 million in marijuana sales this year. That is especially remarkable when considering that the county’s annual budget is $165 million.

“Being really the only real retail marijuana outlet in southern Colorado, the numbers don’t surprise me,” Commissioner McFayden told KRDO-TV in Colorado. “Certainly we have a sheriff and a prosecutor in our district attorney not very excited about marijuana. The likelihood is it’s going to be the best avenue for us to open up our judicial building.”

It’s impossible to predict the total amount of revenue the entire state will receive by the end of the year, yet tax officials have forecast that the additional revenue could amount to $67 million. An estimated $27.5 million will be put aside for education and other regional needs, while a large percentage of the remainder will be recycled and used to regulate the marijuana industry itself.

hMPp://www.10news.com/money/san-diego-council-to-consider-medical-marijuana-dispensaries-regulations-022514




San Diego City Council passes medical marijuana dispensaries regulations



SAN DIEGO - The San Diego City Council on Tuesday passed regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries in San Diego that will limit the establishments to no more than four per council district.

The 8-1 vote, with Councilman Mark Kersey dissenting, sets zoning and operating restrictions for collectives.

The panel has addressed the issue numerous times since California's Compassionate Use Act was approved by voters more than 17 years ago.

Zoning and operating guidelines passed in 2011 were rescinded after medical marijuana advocates collected enough signatures to force council reconsideration.

The advocates considered the 2011 regulations too restrictive, but taking them off the books had the effect of making all dispensaries within city limits illegal. The restrictions in the new plan are considered to be even tighter.

While the regulations will allow dispensaries to operate legally, supporters hope the restrictions will allow them to limit potential problems.

"We can't afford to turn our backs on this, otherwise there will be a continued proliferation of these illegal operations and, chances are, there will be further and greater abuses of the system," Councilwoman Marti Emerald said. "These drugs are going to wind up in the hands of kids and people who really don't need this for medicine."

She asked for a staff report in one year to make sure the collectives are abiding by the rules, while still allowing safe access for patients.

Operators of dispensaries will have to get a conditional use permit from the city, which will be good for five years, and an annual public safety permit from the San Diego Police Department. They will mostly be placed in industrial zones.

Also, collectives will not be allowed to operate within 1,000 feet of public parks, churches, child care centers, playgrounds, residential care facilities, schools and other dispensaries. There will also be a 100-foot
buffer from residential zones and the dispensaries will be prohibited from having on-site medical professionals, to prevent dispensaries from becoming "one-stop shops."

The panel accepted an amendment from Councilwoman Lorie Zapf to establish the four-per-district cap. Otherwise, large numbers of dispensaries would be allowed to concentrate in Kearny Mesa and Otay Mesa, but not in other areas.

The zoning scheme will keep collectives completely out of the district represented by Interim Mayor Todd Gloria, encompassing downtown, Hillcrest and North Park.

"I think having a cap is fair for all council districts," Zapf said. "It spreads (the impact) out."

Kersey said planning groups within his district voted to oppose the medical marijuana proposal. Councilman and former mayoral candidate David Alvarez voted for the regulations but lamented the restrictions on access.

The California Coastal Commission will have to approve the regulations for the area of San Diego near the shoreline. That could happen in around three months, according to city staff.

hMPp://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/advocates-press-for-marijuana-legalization-measure-on-dc-ballot/2014/02/25/6c51664e-9e3c-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.html




Advocates press for marijuana legalization measure on D.C. ballot



The District should set aside the warnings of its attorney general and let voters decide whether they want to legalize marijuana possession in the nation’s capital, advocates for the measure argued Tuesday before the D.C. Board of Elections.

The band of marijuana advocates is seeking to make the District one of the first East Coast cities to legalize marijuana possession. If it successfully gets the measure on the November ballot, legalization has a strong chance of being approved, according to a recent Washington Post poll, and it could hasten the arrival in Washington of a debate that has simmered mostly in Western states.

Last week, D.C. Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan urged the Elections Board to reject the proposed ballot initiative, saying it would put at least one aspect of D.C. law in conflict with federal law.

He warned that federal law would still require the city to kick out those residents of public housing who are convicted of drug possession, even if D.C. law no longer considered it a crime.

Adam Eidinger, a leading activist for the initiative, played down Nathan’s concern, saying that there was nothing the District could do about the conflict or the fact that it might disproportionately expose low-income residents to continued marijuana prosecution.

“The civil rights issue is the federal government, not us. We’re trying to alleviate the problem,” Eidinger said. He stressed repeatedly that the measure was “not perfect” and that it would largely leave the details of implementation up to the D.C. Council.

To Irvin’s criticism about rental units, Eidinger said that any landlord, public or private, would still have the right to write into a lease a prohibition against having marijuana.

“It’s like signing a lease that says you can’t have a dog in your apartment,” he said.

Some members of the Elections Board appeared skeptical, but the board promised to vote and disclose its majority opinion within seven days.

As introduced, the initiative would allow people 21 or older to have as much as two ounces of marijuana for personal use and to grow up to three plants at home. It would also allow marijuana growers to transfer, but not sell, small amounts to others and legalize the sale of cannabis paraphernalia.

Should the board agree that the proposal is suitable for the ballot, backers would have to collect the signatures of more than 25,000 city voters for it to qualify.

Advocates say they would stand a better chance of getting enough signatures if it is approved in time to collect signatures outside polling places on the April 1 primary.

Next week, the D.C. Council is expected to give final approval to a measure to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana but leave smoking in public a crime akin to carrying an open bottle of alcohol.

hMPp://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2568326/Smoking-cannabis-CAN-kill-German-researchers-identify-two-men-died-purely-result-using-drug.html




Smoking cannabis CAN kill you: German researchers identify two men who died purely as a result of using the drug



It is possible to die as a direct result of smoking cannabis, new research shows.

German scientists have identified two people who died purely as a result of smoking the drug.

It was previously known that using marijuana could be fatal if it was used in conjunction with other drugs – such as by triggering heart conditions or by causing cancer.

However, whether the drug could kill unaided had remained unclear, New Scientist reports.

Now, scientists at the University Hospital Düsseldorf in Germany have carried out the first full post mortem examinations on people who have died after using the drug.

The team, led by Dr Benno Hartung, carried out 15 examinations.

They performed tests including toxicology tests and genetic tests to rule out any other causes of death.

They discovered that the deaths of two of the patients could not be put down to anything other than marijuana use.

Both of these people were men who had died after their hearts started beating either too fast or too slowly.

The researchers believe that this change in heart rhythm – called arrhythmia - was caused by cannabis.

The reason they came to this conclusion was that both had smoked the drug within a few hours of their death and neither had any history of heart problems.

While the German researchers now believe they have proved that cannabis can kill, it remains unclear how it can trigger heart problems.

Dr Hartung believes cannabis could trigger diseases that increase the risk of heart conditions.

Despite the findings, some people believe the risk of death is not the most significant risk associated with use of the drug.
David Raynes from the UK National Drug Prevention Alliance told New Scientist: ‘These deaths are rare and will remain rare. The real risks are from long-term effects on the young brain.’

His comment is based on the fact that previous studies have shown a link between smoking cannabis and schizophrenia and depression.

hMPp://thefreethoughtproject.com/supreme-court-rules-cops-warrant-search-home/




Supreme Court Rules that Cops DO NOT Need a Warrant to Search Your Home



In another devastating blow to freedom, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police don’t need a warrant to search your property. As long as two occupants disagree about allowing officers to enter, and the resident who refuses access is then arrested, police may enter the residence.

“Instead of adhering to the warrant requirement,” Ginsburg wrote, “today’s decision tells the police they may dodge it, nevermind ample time to secure the approval of a neutral magistrate.” Tuesday’s ruling, she added, “shrinks to petite size our holding in Georgia v. Randolph.”

Georgia v. Randolph was a similar case the Supreme Court addressed in 2006, in which a domestic violence suspect would not allow police to enter his home, though his wife did offer police consent. The police ultimately entered the home. The Court ruled in the case that the man’s refusal while being present in the home should have kept authorities from entering.

“A physically present inhabitant’s express refusal of consent to a police search [of his home] is dispositive as to him, regardless of the consent of a fellow occupant,” the majority ruled in that case.

The majority, led by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., said police need not take the time to get a magistrate’s approval before entering a home in such cases. But dissenters, led by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, warned that the decision would erode protections against warrantless home searches. The court had previously held that such protections were at the “very core” of the 4th Amendment and its ban on unreasonable searches and seizures, reports the LA Times.

According to the AP, Justice Samuel Alito wrote the court’s 6-3 decision holding that an occupant may not object to a search when he is not at home.

“We therefore hold that an occupant who is absent due to a lawful detention or arrest stands in the same shoes as an occupant who is absent for any other reason,” Alito said.

In other words, you have no property rights slave, and we can snoop through your personal belongings if we wish.

The implications for such a Stasi-esque interpretation of the 4th Amendment are staggering. This can and will open the door to even more unscrupulous police behavior. They will only need to say that someone may be in danger, and now they are justified in ransacking your home.

While this doesn’t particularly allow for police to choose and enter any home they wish, it is nothing to be downplayed, especially since Justice Ginsburg, one of their own, even stated that this could lead to even more erosion of what is left of the 4th Amendment.

Thanks 7G for keeping us up to date on all the news. You are appreciated.

3 steps further to police state i guess...so if im on vacation they can search my home and hold me accountable ...so much for privacy rights....

Quote: surfinc wrote in post #10

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3 steps further to police state i guess...so if im on vacation they can search my home and hold me accountable ...so much for privacy rights....

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