Reporting from Seattle, A Smoker's Perspective

[Chamba]

I have seen her at the mail box tree and I have apologized. Perhaps I should have mentioned that here.


Yes, you should of....and I'm glad you did...it takes class to step up and try to make things better.

 

[HOPS5K]

Seattle isn't depressing really..or Vancouver...it is kinda weird I guess when you can't see the sun for a few days and it just rains torrents on you when you go to work and come home from work..but when I was there I was like 18/19 and I didn't get bit by the depression bug at all, but I did get weirded out in the woods when I'd go hiking after work...just creepy kind of , not super depressing or anything. CO can be depressing for some in the winter, but there's weed man..tons of weed!!

 

[huligun]

I am new to living in Seattle, but have lived in Portland Oregon since college. It is about the same climate, and to me it is depressing in the winter. I have spent many a summer day in Seattle and it is by far one of the nicest places to be that time of year. While the rest of the country is sweltering in heat Seattle (and Portland) are in the high 70s to the low 80s. In the winter months it is damp and cold and a bit depressing. My answer has always been to leave town a couple times during the winter and recharge my batteries in some place warm and sunny. I have reservations for Kona Hawaii in about 3 weeks. In the mean time I have to train a couple people to handle my work while I am gone.

As for fighting with neighbors I don't see a clear answer. If someone brings respect to my door they are going to get it back, and if there is a lack of respect, likewise. I had some young guys and a girl out there when she come and I don't exactly condone their behavior. It was not their place to get into a squabble with my neighbor and I felt it was a bit immature. My only defense is this is a new law, one that people were waiting a long time for and they had chips on their shoulders defending our new rights. There are good ways to deal with a neighbor and bad ways, and some neighbors are impossible period. I am in the city and have to get along in a high population density. In all honesty I have more problems over the dogs than marijuana. I have two pit bulls and some people think my dogs are going to eat their dogs. My dogs don't do that shit the are lovers, just like me.

 

[Hydrosun]

How you would feel if a couple of wankers spoke down to your mother or granny in the same way?

Freedom comes with responsibility.

If my mother or grand mothers were so Koonty as to harass a neighbor for smoking outside on their own porch BEHIND a 6' fence, then I would expect them to be BITCH enough to handle a punk response.

I don't like cigarette smoke or the sound of loud motor cycles, unfortunately for me I have no FREEDOM to interfere with my neighbors LEGAL choices, so I have to keep my fucking mouth shut.

Maybe that is what the old bird should have done also.

I'd also like to point out that your calls for violence as an answer is highly enlightened and evolved. Perhaps you can help out this community by telling us who else should have their head caved in for speaking freely in their own home, perhaps me for typing this rude shit?

 

[trichrider]

some of the responsibility one should excercise is acknowledging the fact that this climate/lack of sunshine does indeed cause depression, anxiety, and other health issues.

does it cause conflict? indubidably.

recognizing the conflict and adjusting response to harmonize is called maturity.

i've met older people with less maturity than some 16 yr olds. understanding limitations reduces frictions but heated words are fuel to flame and some older peoples are prone to tunnel vision once this escalates to verbal sparring...flight is overcome by fight so to speak. never mind the younger mindset.

monitoring your mood is a must.

 

[yortbogey]

G-men, and .... this thread is about SEATTLE & SMOKING.....
not the other nonsense....lets get back on track~PLZ

 

[yortbogey]

dbl~pst

 

[trichrider]

sheesh, we get that at home...

being somewhat of a shut-in, i don't get around seattle much even though i live just about 15 miles due west of Huligan. pass his spot going to sounders games, concerts, SAM, or dinner at eliotts on the water.

only once have i witnessed any blatent exhibition of our 'right' being excercised...and those kids were ticketed by foot patrol SPD.

that was the folk festival, and after that it was dubious even attempting hempfest.

ime that is the prevailing attitude...let 'them' have their day but keep it away from me!

so not much change in perceptions or actions on my part...but for the feeling that the state patrolman who just moved in next door is perusing my peculiarities.

 

[huligun]

This thread is becoming useless swift. Smoking Marijuana legally is not a big deal in Seattle anymore.

 

[trichrider]

legal but still looking over the shoulder.
went to wallymart today and on the way out to the parking lot, someone had left some fresh cannabis cuttings, like clone cuts on the sidewalk.
didda doubletake and called the wife over to put a smile on her face too.
the less of a big deal it becomes the more i like it...when i see groups outside the bars toking i'll feel like it's accepted.
church and state should feel equally threatened.
just an opinion. you should check yours for similar settling of contents.

 

[huligun]

Originally published January 5, 2013 at 8:02 PM | Page modified January 6, 2013 at 11:09 AM

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020067771_marijuanacolorado06m.html


Rocky Mountain high: Pot a $200M industry in Colorado

Vigorous regulation of a thriving medical-marijuana industry in Colorado offers the best glimpse of what is coming to Washington when it launches its voter-approved social-use market. With continuous surveillance, bar-coded plants and strict financial background checks, Colorado's rules allowed capitalism to be unleased, creating an instant $200 million industry.

By Jonathan Martin

Seattle Times staff reporter


In a former bus barn near Denver, marijuana plants live their lives on camera, part of an intense seed-to-sale scrutiny that distinguishes Colorado's medical-marijuana industry. Washington is looking to Colorado as it considers rules for a new legal marijuana market.
Enlarge this photo

ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES

In a former bus barn near Denver, marijuana plants live their lives on camera, part of an intense seed-to-sale scrutiny that distinguishes Colorado's medical-marijuana industry. Washington is looking to Colorado as it considers rules for a new legal marijuana market.
Related


Washington's marijuana law

Possession: Eliminates state criminal penalties for possession of 1 ounce of marijuana (or 1 pound in cannabis-infused food, or 72 ounces of cannabis-infused drink). Public consumption of marijuana, like alcohol, can mean a fine.

Retail stores: It will be illegal to sell marijuana for recreational use anywhere except state-licensed marijuana stores; those stores won't open until at least December 2013.

Grow operations: The Liquor Control Board is accepting public comments on plans for a marijuana-producer license. Marijuana sold at state-licensed stores must be grown in-state.

Medical marijuana: Not affected by the new law.



DENVER —

Inside the industrial-scale marijuana grow farms that dot Denver's low-rise warehouse districts, it is perpetual summer — 78 degrees, moderate humidity and fields of shoulder-high plants with fat, sticky buds swaying in the breeze.

These unmarked THC factories are easy to miss from the street, except for the casino-style security cameras perched on each corner. But inside the world's only fully regulated, for-profit marijuana market, there are few secrets.

Colorado has approved 739 of these indoor grow farms over the past two-plus years after vetting their owners' finances and requiring the buds be tracked on high-definition video and bar-coded every moment from seed to sale. Local building inspectors have signed off, and cops — city, state and federal — can drop in at any time.

This out-in-the-open marijuana is the best glimpse of the strange new reality coming soon to Washington state.

If Washington, as expected, follows Colorado's experiment, our state regulators will be investigating entrepreneurs' finances for links to organized crime and keeping steady watch over leakage to the black market — even as they allow warehouses of weed.

The challenges are immense. Washington's new marijuana law, approved by voters in November, creates a market for social use — vastly bigger than the medical-marijuana market regulated in Colorado. There is nothing like it anywhere.

In Colorado, regulators had to broker a shotgun marriage between law enforcement and marijuana dealers. Anxious state regulators wrote more rules than they could enforce. The state is now thinning its thick rule book, even as drug cops say Colorado-regulated marijuana has popped up across the Midwest.

Capitalism unleashed, medical marijuana suddenly became a $200 million industry, with retail prices — averaging about $7.50 a gram — among the cheapest in the country.

The federal government — despite its ban on marijuana — has largely been hands-off. Not a single big grow operation has been raided. It's not clear how the Justice Department will react to the massive, voter-approved expansion of social-use markets in Washington and Colorado.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, the grandson of a bootlegger, said regulations need to address teen use while acknowledging consumers' "huge appetite" for an increasingly potent drug.

"This is not your father's marijuana," he said.

'Twice as strict as alcohol'

Colorado's one-of-a-kind system arose through necessity.

In 2000, it joined Washington in allowing medical marijuana, but it wasn't until 2009 that Denver, like Seattle, began seeing wildcat marijuana dispensaries popping up across the city.

Then-state Sen. Chris Romer, son of a former governor, in 2010 pushed through medical-marijuana regulations envisioned to be "as strict, if not twice as strict, as alcohol."

Five-figure licensing and application fees — plus security and requirements that dispensaries grow most of their own product — added up to $500,000 or more. That was intentional, Romer said.

"If you raise the bar high enough, they won't risk their $500,000 or million-dollar investment to sell to youngsters," said Romer.

With a new law in place, a retired liquor regulator and one-time drug cop, Matt Cook, was brought in to broker a five-month negotiation that "had drug dealers on one side, law enforcement on the other, and my staff in the middle," he said.

Cook had one primary goal: no "diversion" of marijuana spilling from regulated grows onto street corners.

The result was a blizzard of rules: 24-7 video surveillance in grow farms and dispensaries accessible to enforcement officers via the Internet; bar codes on each plant; criminal background checks; and hard-copy manifests faxed to Cook's staff each time a pound of pot was moved.

"The process works," said Cook, who retired and is now a consultant to the medical-marijuana industry. "It sort of set the example for the rest of the nation. This commodity won't go away. And it can be regulated."

Washington lawmakers tried to replicate the system in 2011, but Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed the bill, citing the remote risk that state employees could be charged with violating federal law.

Colorado skipped right over that.

Colorado's 2.9 percent state sales tax last year generated $5.3 million from medical-marijuana sales. Cities, which can impose huge licensing fees and extra sales taxes, have reaped far more. Dispensary owners say they pay federal income tax, often at high rates because their businesses do not qualify for many deductions.

With all the marijuana and money out in the open, theories abound about why federal authorities haven't intervened. Most cite Colorado's role as a swing state in presidential elections and the fact its own regulators — not federal drug cops — are called to handle problem dispensaries.

"All of the arguments used, to do a half-assed regulatory system, are based on the fear of the feds," said Romer. "I understand that. But the greater risk here is a use by younger users because (of) a lack of controls."

'That's a lot of marijuana'

Denver Relief's grow site, in a nondescript warehouse in northeast Denver, is a midsized operation by local standards, but would be the Taj Mahal by Seattle standards: 2,000 plants, 13,000 square feet, 62,000 watts of power and 2,000 gallons of filtered water a day. Build-out costs were $500,000, including the site's own transformer.

Up close, flowering marijuana plants look like Frankenflowers, genetically filtered into strains such as Romulan or Red Headed Stranger to produce plum-sized buds dangling from spindly stalks. The dispensary was one of the first amid the Colorado medical-marijuana land rush of 2010. More than 1,800 budding entrepreneurs, some pushing shopping carts full of documents, lined up at Cook's office, dreaming of getting a state license to grow or sell pot.

To get one, applicants had to waive their Fourth Amendment right to limitations on search and seizure: regardless of state law, the business is illegal under federal law. They also had to disclose years of bank statements.

"I think a lot of the info they required weeded out a lot of people who would have been bad for the industry," said Kayvan Khalatbari, co-owner of Denver Relief.

It is a tightly competitive market, with more than 520 dispensaries and 150 processors of cannabis-infused food statewide. The industry leases an estimated 1 million square feet in the Denver area, with some grow sites having as many as 10,000 plants.

Still, all this would be dwarfed by Washington's new marijuana market.

The state predicts 363,000 consumers will go through 187,000 pounds of dry marijuana a year in Washington. But that estimate may be way low — it fails to include production needs for marijuana-infused food and drinks; in Colorado, about half of the marijuana produced goes toward so-called "medibles."

By Khalatbari's calculations, Washington would need about 1,000 grow sites the size of Denver Relief. "Wow, that's a lot of marijuana," he said.

It is "naive" to think that any rules Washington may create will keep that much bud from leaking into the black market, said Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, a Republican ex-federal prosecutor.

He and other opponents say the Mile High State has become a bulk exporter: a recent report documented cases of state-regulated marijuana finding its way to 23 other states. Suthers' office is pressing a racketeering case against the owners of a local dispensary, The Silver Lizard, for selling hundreds of pounds as far away as Florida.

Recreational use will only make it worse, Suthers fears, and sends a "terrible" message to teenagers.

"We're in a cultural collapse, in my opinion. But I'm an old fogey," said Suthers. "The industry would call me a drug-war dinosaur."

Preparing for legal sales

In theory, Colorado's Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division was to have dozens of regulators so vigilant that every plant could be tracked, in person and on camera, from seed to sale.

But that ambition gave way to financial reality. The agency overspent, then had to cut staff; now there are 10 regulators for a $200 million industry. Shipping manifests, spit from a state fax machine, have gone unread, and more than 860 license applications still need to be vetted.

"Sometimes it feels like the division bit off more than it could chew, truly looking over the shoulder of the licensee at every step of the way," said Laura Harris, who took over the enforcement division a year ago.

Her agency is now simplifying rules with input from industry leaders such as Norton Arbelaez, an attorney who runs River Rock, one of the largest dispensaries in the state. He said his company pays $1 million in taxes, with top-end growers earning $100,000.

"The free market has done a good thing," said Arbelaez. "Isn't that better than operating in the shadows? ... Isn't it better for the city of Denver that revenue from medical marijuana funds the parks?"Colorado, like Washington, is just starting work on the social-use market. Both states plan to open retail stores in about a year.

Rick Garza, deputy director of the Washington State Liquor Control Board, said his agency first needs some basic numbers: How many customers will there be? Is it 363,000, as the state once estimated? Or will more people dabble, now that it's legal under state law? And how much will they consume? About a half-pound, on average, as the state predicted? Or double that, as Colorado's medical-marijuana patients do?

"Once you get a feel for what that market looks like, it drives everything else," said Garza.

Both states are plowing ahead, but also awaiting a response from the U.S. Justice Department to letters and personal appeals from Hickenlooper and Gregoire seeking clarity. In an interview with ABC in December, President Obama indicated the Justice Department would not arrest recreational users, but did not say how it would deal with large grow farms and heavily taxed sales.

Left alone, Washington's market is likely to be governed by a blend of Colorado's medical-marijuana rules and its own liquor regulations. "I suspect we'll use many of the requirements we do with liquor," said Garza.

Once the rules firm up, expect to see a new land rush from entrepreneurs like Tripp Keber, founder of Dixie Elixirs, a medibles manufacturer. Once a developer of luxury motor-home resorts, Keber decided to get into medical marijuana while at a card table in Las Vegas, and he keeps a pair of red dice in his pocket.

His 27,000-square-foot production space near the Denver airport has 35 employees, including a biochemist, a chef and a mechanical engineer. It churns out 70 different products, including 175 cases of his signature THC-infused sodas.

Preparing for legal recreational sales in Colorado and Washington, his company bought a $200,000 extraction machine to expedite a process now largely done by hand.

"If you don't believe that big alcohol, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma are watching this, you're crazy," said Keber.

"There is no medical-marijuana book for dummies. Given the chance to buy it, I would have, and saved thousands and thousands of dollars."

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or [email protected].

On Twitter @jmartin206.

 

[huligun]

In my neck of the woods it looks like Washington is settling into legalized weed like it has always been legal.

My friend opened her purse in the Rite Aid in West Seattle the other day to give everyone present, a nice smell of some fragrant herbs, only to get a smile out of everyone around. One of the clerks said, "That smell pretty good". At another time that might have been a problem. Now it is just fun to flaunt it. Some day the whole world will be able to experience this.

The news said there are reports about other states worrying about weed leaving the state.

 

[Chunkypigs]

I wish I was there to stank the town up myself, smoke on!

 

[huligun]

It's cold and wet in the winter time. I don't think I will ever get use to that. Maybe I will find a way to move my game to Hawaii some day.

 

[yortbogey]

U gotta embrace that cold and grey... get outside the city, and see/feel the real WA
so much more ... the winter activities are amazing, there is so much to do
nothing like a snowmobile down the side of a hill
or razor claiming the coast... 2 of my favs....

i too once never looked past the grey... but truthfully, grey is a beautiful color of choice....

 

[mugenbao]

I love Washington weather, honestly. I came from Colorado, and liked it well enough, but I prefer Washington. My dad could never get used to it, never could stop bitching about the rain. Sometimes I badly wanted to tell him to suck it up or go the fuck back to Colorado, lol.

 

[Chunkypigs]

Huligan, you should get involved in some of the new legal fun with weed that's happening
your way lately. Stoned driving, Blueberry something, blood tests.

this thing kills me.
Stoned drivers hit test course.
http://www.kirotv.com/videos/news/stoned-drivers-hit-test-course/vqPqJ/

blooper reel
http://www.kirotv.com/videos/news/seattleinsider-outtakes-stoned-girl-gets-behind/vqP4L/

 

[HempKat]

Well it looks like there are more states wanting to get in on the marijuana gravy train, Maryland recently announced it's putting forth a bill to be voted on to legalize recreational marijuana. I wonder how many states it will take before the Federal Government stops trying to fight it?

 

[huligun]

Well it looks like there are more states wanting to get in on the marijuana gravy train, Maryland recently announced it's putting forth a bill to be voted on to legalize recreational marijuana. I wonder how many states it will take before the Federal Government stops trying to fight it?

That is how it works, it is like human nature. Nobody wants someone else to have sole advantage over something.

I still thank California for being the first Medical. That open the gates for all of us and look how many are medical. Washington is legal for recreation and soon the whole planet. It took like 80 years to break through that wall and now it will come tumbling down. Exciting times we live in.

 

[HempKat]

That is how it works, it is like human nature. Nobody wants someone else to have sole advantage over something.

I still thank California for being the first Medical. That open the gates for all of us and look how many are medical. Washington is legal for recreation and soon the whole planet. It took like 80 years to break through that wall and now it will come tumbling down. Exciting times we live in.

Well I'd say don't start doing a victory dance just yet. We still have a long way to go. I just hope that with it turning up legal for recreational use in some areas means that science will take advantage of the situation to do some serious and unbiased research now. I think once we start getting some solid reports that it's not bad for you like they've been teaching people all this time, that will really go a long way toward removing roadblocks.