Anti-Marijuana ProPAGANda Blitz Today
Both CNBC and CNN were today united against weed. From CNN:
California now has a patchwork of inconsistent laws, making for a confusing business environment. An outdated list kept by the pro-cannabis group Americans for Safe Access shows that in California, 46 cities and 10 counties allow the drug, 178 cities and 20 counties don’t, and the rest have temporary measures or none at all.
That means a business could be complying with state rules but violating a local ordinance and breaching federal law.
“It’s a mess,” said Charley Pappas, who until recently ran Divinity Tree Patients Wellness Cooperative, a marijuana dispensary in San Francisco.
Like most driven to open their own dispensaries, Pappas started using the drug long before he opened a storefront in 2005. A gunshot wound from a 1973 home invasion robbery in Philadelphia left him a quadriplegic, and marijuana’s analgesic effects ease his muscle spasms. He launched the cooperative to offer others similar treatment, supplying nearly 7,000 patients until his landlord received a stark warning from the federal government: kick him out or lose your property.
And from CNBC today:
Teens who routinely smoke marijuana risk a long-term drop in their IQ, a new study suggests.
The researchers didn’t find the same IQ dip for people who became frequent users of pot after 18. Although experts said the new findings are not definitive, they do fit in with earlier signs that the drug is especially harmful to the developing brain.
“Parents should understand that their adolescents are particularly vulnerable,’” said lead researcher Madeline Meier of Duke University.
Study participants from New Zealand were tested for IQ at age 13, likely before any significant marijuana use, and again at age 38. The mental decline between those two ages was seen only in those who started regularly smoking pot before age 18.
Sound familiar?
In California, despite several years of growth, legal crackdowns have sapped California’s medical marijuana industry of much capital, threatening to wipe it out completely as small business owners are stripped of their investments. Local cities have banded together with state and federal enforcement to crackdown on the robust medical-marijuana industry in California.
Since 1996, the state has allowed marijuana growers and distributors to operate legally. All it would take is a doctor’s note or a claim that one is a “caregiver” for an individual to enter into the economy. More than 1,000 dispensaries are in business, employing thousands of people and paying $105 million in taxes each year. Authorities, however, are becoming stricter, seizing marijuana and shutting down individual’s investments on a whim–investments that, for one operation, could easily run into the $100,000 range. Last year, law enforcement agents stole 3.9 million plants.
Some say the attacks go against the California law, and goes also against a campaign promise by President Obama not to override the states marijuana laws. US Attorney Ben Wagner, however, says raids are needed in order to prevent spillover to states where dispensaries are not legal. “There was an explosion of marijuana production, and it’s everywhere,” he said. “And it’s being shipped across the country.”