MJ News for 08/21/2014

[7greeneyes]

http://www.oregonlive.com/marijuana/index.ssf/2014/08/recreational_marijuana_in_wash_7.html

Recreational marijuana in Washington: High prices, pot shortages dog new industry​

On a recent morning, New Vansterdam sat empty. A clutch of employees chatted behind a counter. Occasionally, the sound of a would-be customer rattling the locked metal gate at the entrance echoed through the quiet lobby.

Display cases intended for marijuana-infused foods and products were filled with glass bongs and pipes.

Marijuana was nowhere in sight.

You’d expect the sleek Vancouver shop, with its reclaimed wood paneling and two dozen iPads playing video clips of Washington marijuana farms, to hum with activity. Washington, after all, is one of just two states in the country where anyone 21 and older can legally buy pot.

But since Washington launched its recreational marijuana industry in July, New Vansterdam has been closed more than it’s been open. There’s not enough marijuana to fill the shelves. Some days, when state-licensed marijuana growers do have marijuana to offer, the price is so steep that New Vansterdam’s owners decline, opting instead to keep the business shuttered another day.

Six weeks into Washington’s experiment with legal recreational marijuana, the industry continues to be a volatile one with extreme pot shortages, complaints about high prices, a backlog of growers, processors and retailers awaiting state licensing and barely a trickle of specialty items like marijuana-infused edibles and concentrates.

“From a business perspective, from a customer service perspective, this is the worst case scenario you could ask for,” said one of New Vansterdam’s owners, Brian Budz, sitting in the shop’s empty lobby. “When your customers are unhappy about unscheduled closures, it’s very hard to build a reliable customer base.”

Washington’s rocky rollout stands in stark contrast to Colorado, where the state relied on its established medical marijuana industry to shape its recreational one. Washington’s medical marijuana dispensaries remain unregulated – much like Oregon’s before this year. (Oregon began regulating medical marijuana dispensaries in March.)

Washington, as a result, “started from scratch,” said Brian Stroh, who owns CannaMan Farms, a state-licensed pot producer in Clark County.

Stroh said regulators with the Washington Liquor Control Board, which oversees the industry, haven’t moved quickly enough to license marijuana producers to meet demand.

The state has so far issued 47 retail licenses statewide. Washington has allotted a total of 334 retail licenses. It’s licensed 170 marijuana producers; another 2,412 producer licenses are pending, according to the liquor control board. State officials say they'll continue to issue producer and retailer licenses as they complete their review of each application.

Mikhail Carpenter, a board spokesman, defended the pace of the state’s licensing process.

“This is an industry that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world,” he said. “We continue to issue these licenses. While things are tight right now, this system is designed to be very robust. We are just adding more and more producers to the system.”

But not fast enough to keep prices down, retailers said.

Budz initially expected to sell marijuana for between $17 and $24 a gram, but ended up selling it for $32 to $38. In Colorado, recreational pot is cheaper: Take Medicine Main Denver, a recreational marijuana shop. One gram of marijuana ranges from about $9 to $14, according to Weedmaps, an online guide to marijuana retailers.

By comparison, marijuana sells for between $5 to $10 on the black market in the Portland area.

Budz said he’s had growers ask as much as $15 to $20 per gram wholesale, translating into $50 a gram at the retail level.

“I can’t in good conscience charge $50 a gram for marijuana,” he said. “It’s not right.”

On a recent afternoon, only pre-rolled joints were available at Main Street Marijuana in downtown Vancouver. Ramsey Hamide, who manages the shop, hopes the arrival of outdoor marijuana, which will be harvested starting this month, stabilizes the supply.

But Jeremy Moberg, who owns CannaSol, a large-scale outdoor grow operation in north central Washington, dispelled that idea. He said his sizable harvest – 2,000 pounds – won’t last long on store shelves.

“We are barely going to have enough to keep up with all the new stores that have come on,” said Moberg.

Moberg hoped to have a state license in February, but ended up getting one in June, leaving little time to get the crop in the ground. The late start meant he didn’t have cannabis to offer retailers when they opened in the first week of July.

“Prices will stay high and scarcity will rule for at least another 18 months,” he said.

For now, New Vansterdam’s schedule is so erratic that shop owners advise customers to check the store's Facebook page and Twitter to make sure it's open.

Budz and his partners are committed to sustaining the business through the early stages of the industry but wonder when things will shake out.

“It’s a business owner’s worst nightmare,” said Budz, whose normally cheerful demeanor seemed frayed by the ups and downs of being a pot entrepreneur. "It’s an untenable business model.”

 

[7greeneyes]

http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/First-medical-marijuana-dispensary-in-state-opens-5701326.php

(Connecticut) First medical marijuana dispensary in state opens​

Connecticut's first medical marijuana dispensary opened Wednesday night in South Windsor, and the rest of the state's cannabis dispensaries -- including one in Bethel run by two Trumbull residents -- won't be far behind.

The grand opening of Prime Wellness of Connecticut, at 75 John Fitch Blvd., gave potential customers and the public a chance to see its facilities, meet pharmacists and cannabis producers, and generally get information. The dispensary won't receive its first shipment of medical pot for roughly another month, though staff members have been consulting with patients since last week, Director of Operations Brett Sicklick said.

So far, he said, response to the new dispensary has been positive.

"I think people have been really shocked and surprised when they enter the facility for the first time," he said. "We really took as much of a medical approach as we possibly could."

Prime Wellness is one of six dispensaries in the state approved for a license by the state Department of Consumer Protection. The other spots are in Hartford, Branford, Bethel, Uncasville and Bristol.

Since 1996, 20 states and the District of Columbia have passed medical marijuana laws. In Connecticut, patients wishing to receive medical marijuana have to register with the state. To qualify, patients must have one of 11 debilitating conditions, which include cancer, Crohn's disease and HIV/AIDS.

Sicklick said the South Windsor dispensary will serve patients from all over the state, including Fairfield County.

He said some patients have been registered for roughly two years and are looking forward to receiving treatment through the facility. Sicklick said he expects there to be as many as 200 to 300 patients seeking to fill marijuana prescriptions when the product arrives.

Until the product is available, Prime Wellness will continue to conduct consultations with patients. Sicklick said the dispensary is also still in the process of training its staff "so there won't be any hiccups" when the cannabis arrives.

The dispensary's marijuana will be provided by four approved growing facilities, in Watertown, Simsbury, Portland and West Haven. Sicklick said it's unknown how much cannabis will be provided in the first shipment. He also didn't have a price range for how much the medical marijuana will cost because he's waiting to hear how much the producers will charge.

Some of the other dispensaries are slated to open soon, including Compassionate Care Center of Connecticut in Bethel. The center will be operated by Monroe-based D&B Wellness, run by Trumbull residents Angela D'Amico and Karen Barski. The women were approved for a dispensary license and tried to open a facility in Bridgeport at 2818 Main St., but the application was rejected.

Eventually, the women were approved for a dispensary in Bethel. Compassionate Care is slated to have its grand opening celebration Sept. 12 and be open for business Sept. 16. D'Amico said she and Barski wanted to wait to open their doors until the cannabis was available, which it should be by their grand opening.

She said given the obstacles they've faced in finding a site for their dispensary, they're looking forward to being in business at last.

"We're excited to be able to start healing, which is what our intention was all along," D'Amico said.

 

[7greeneyes]

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4071429.htm

(Australia) Company considers legal challenge against Commonwealth over cannabis crop​

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Around the world marijuana is increasingly used to treat a range of medical conditions. Many jurisdictions have moved to legalise the drug but in Australia it remains illegal.

And now plans to grow Australia's first medical marijuana crop on Norfolk Island have been blocked by the Commonwealth after it cancelled the grower's license granted by the local administration.

Lexi Metherell reports.

LEXI METHERELL: Medicinal marijuana is legal in parts of the European Union*, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Israel and some parts of the United States.

Three federal MPs are working on a bill to legalise it in Australia. But the Federal Health Minister Peter Dutton has reservations.

PETER DUTTON: We just can't allow people for political reasons to sign up to a particular medication for argument's sake and find that there are long run health implications.

Now that may or may not be applicable to medicinal marijuana but I'm taking the advice of the chief medical officer and that's what we're working on at the moment.

LEXI METHERELL: Among the cross-party group campaigning to legalise it is the Liberal MP Sharman Stone.

SHARMAN STONE: Everyone knows somebody who has a terminal condition, it's usually cancer, who needs some additional pain relief or some pain relief because nothing is working. And it seems to me just about a no-brainer.

LEXI METHERELL: Is the case closed on the benefits of medicinal cannabis? Because the Australian Medical Association says that more clinical tests are needed to prove the drug's effectiveness.

SHARMAN STONE: Well, the AMA, like most medical professionals, always love to have their own Australian research, but internationally the jury is no longer out. This is a product which assists in some circumstances.

LEXI METHERELL: In New South Wales a Nationals MP is preparing to table a private members bill to legalise medicinal marijuana and the Premier Mike Baird has indicated he's sympathetic to the idea.

But the Australian territory most advanced on the issue is Norfolk Island. The island's Health Minister is Robin Adams.

ROBIN ADAMS: We've been the way-showers. We've had the law in place to allow the growing, the importation of cannabis, export of cannabis, planting, cultivating, tending or harvesting cannabis, selling cannabis and having cannabis in one's possession. That law's been in place on Norfolk Island since 1998.

LEXI METHERELL: Earlier this month Robin Adams granted a license to a Tasmanian company, Tasman Health Cannabinoids, or Tascann, to grow a trial crop there for export after it was rejected by the Tasmania Government.

Less than a fortnight later the Commonwealth's Norfolk Island Administrator, former Howard government minister Gary Hardgrave, had cancelled the licence. His stated concerns included that cannabis is a prohibited substance and that the crop could hinder efforts to protect the endangered green parrot.

Robin Adams is determined for the project to succeed.

ROBIN ADAMS: We see that as a great leg up in building our economy. We are open for business and investment.

LEXI METHERELL: Tascann's chairman, another former Howard government member, Mal Washer, has told AM the company will challenge the administrator's decision in the courts if the Norfolk Island community supports it.

Sharman Stone has given the project her backing.

SHARMAN STONE: And I just think that in Australia we've got to get over petty politics and some, you know, half-baked narrow minded philosophy here and look at the practicality.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Federal Liberal MP Sharman Stone ending Lexi Metherell's report.


*EDITOR'S NOTE (21/08/2014): Transcript has been amended to clarify medicinal marijuana is legal in parts of the European Union.