What is the purpose of the STATE ID CARDS? TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF PATIENTS AND PREVENT ARREST WHILE GIVING OFFICERS VERIFICATION 24/7!
WHERE ARE THEY PRINTED? OUT OF THE STATE
WHY? ONLY ASSUMPTION WOULD BE COST, CONNECTIONS OR CONTACTS! CORRUPTION
MORE UPDATES TO COME! CALLING THE COUNTIES IN THE MORNING!
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Medical-pot sales in AZ could start as early as mid-'11 Prop. 203
PHOENIX - Patients hoping to get medical marijuana now that voters have approved the law should not hold their breath.
State health director Will Humble said it could be summer 2011, or possibly even that fall, before all the applications to distribute legal marijuana are processed and the selected facilities are set up.
Humble said Monday that Proposition 203 gives the Department of Health Services 120 days from the time the election results are certified - now set for Nov. 29 - to come up with rules and regulations for how the system will operate.
Theoretically, he said, that should allow doctors to begin writing recommendations for patients in early April, but patients still may not have any place to legally purchase their drugs by then.
At the end of that 120 days, Humble said, his agency has to start reviewing what he expects to be hundreds of applications by groups wanting to operate one or more marijuana dispensaries around the state. He can approve only 125 permits, by law.
Humble said he probably will check each application for its operating and security plans, and award the licenses to only the most qualified. The alternative is a simple lottery process, which he said he does not favor.
"And remember, they've got to get their cultivation facility up and running so they have an inventory that's legitimate," he said. "I don't want this to be inventory that comes off the street or from Mexico or something. This has got to be from cultivation facilities inside the state."
But Andrew Myers, the campaign manager for Proposition 203, said patients may not have to wait that long because the proposition allows those who are at least 25 miles from a state-regulated dispensary to grow their own.
"Patients will be given ID cards before dispensaries will be licensed," he said. "So, at the outset, the first batch of patients are all going to be able to grow, for a year, until their renewal comes up."
Humble said he's still researching that question.
He said everything else to make the system work will be more complex.
Humble said there needs to be a secure computer system to track the drugs and the users. And, he said, there needs to be an inventory system to ensure everything that starts out as seeds in a legal cultivation facility winds up being sold through a legal dispensary, and only to a legitimate cardholder.
"That's not as simple as it might sound on the surface," he said.
He said dispensaries need round-the-clock access to the database of patients who have state-issued cards to verify that person is entitled to purchase marijuana. The system will keep cardholders from buying more than 2 1/2 ounces every two weeks, the limit in the new law.
Finally, law enforcement needs the same access to determine if the person they stopped is entitled to have that bag of marijuana.
Of greater concern is keeping some doctors from becoming the kind of "recommendation mills" he said have popped up in Colorado, Humble said.
"If we have a loose interpretation of what a doctor-patient relationship is ... you could end up with situations like they have in Colorado where folks are walking into a doctor's office for a 15-minute appointment and $150 bucks on the barrelhead, they're walking away with a recommendation," Humble said.
Of particular concern are those seeking the drug for chronic pain, which he said is difficult to measure and has become the justification for 90 percent of the marijuana recommendations in Colorado.
State health director Will Humble said it could be summer 2011, or possibly even that fall, before all the applications to distribute legal marijuana are processed and the selected facilities are set up.
Humble said Monday that Proposition 203 gives the Department of Health Services 120 days from the time the election results are certified - now set for Nov. 29 - to come up with rules and regulations for how the system will operate.
Theoretically, he said, that should allow doctors to begin writing recommendations for patients in early April, but patients still may not have any place to legally purchase their drugs by then.
At the end of that 120 days, Humble said, his agency has to start reviewing what he expects to be hundreds of applications by groups wanting to operate one or more marijuana dispensaries around the state. He can approve only 125 permits, by law.
Humble said he probably will check each application for its operating and security plans, and award the licenses to only the most qualified. The alternative is a simple lottery process, which he said he does not favor.
"And remember, they've got to get their cultivation facility up and running so they have an inventory that's legitimate," he said. "I don't want this to be inventory that comes off the street or from Mexico or something. This has got to be from cultivation facilities inside the state."
But Andrew Myers, the campaign manager for Proposition 203, said patients may not have to wait that long because the proposition allows those who are at least 25 miles from a state-regulated dispensary to grow their own.
"Patients will be given ID cards before dispensaries will be licensed," he said. "So, at the outset, the first batch of patients are all going to be able to grow, for a year, until their renewal comes up."
Humble said he's still researching that question.
He said everything else to make the system work will be more complex.
Humble said there needs to be a secure computer system to track the drugs and the users. And, he said, there needs to be an inventory system to ensure everything that starts out as seeds in a legal cultivation facility winds up being sold through a legal dispensary, and only to a legitimate cardholder.
"That's not as simple as it might sound on the surface," he said.
He said dispensaries need round-the-clock access to the database of patients who have state-issued cards to verify that person is entitled to purchase marijuana. The system will keep cardholders from buying more than 2 1/2 ounces every two weeks, the limit in the new law.
Finally, law enforcement needs the same access to determine if the person they stopped is entitled to have that bag of marijuana.
Of greater concern is keeping some doctors from becoming the kind of "recommendation mills" he said have popped up in Colorado, Humble said.
"If we have a loose interpretation of what a doctor-patient relationship is ... you could end up with situations like they have in Colorado where folks are walking into a doctor's office for a 15-minute appointment and $150 bucks on the barrelhead, they're walking away with a recommendation," Humble said.
Of particular concern are those seeking the drug for chronic pain, which he said is difficult to measure and has become the justification for 90 percent of the marijuana recommendations in Colorado.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
420 Insurence for the 215 Industy : Risk of an Insurace Agent For Medical Marijuana Collectives and the Cannabis Business
The risk of being an Insurance Agent for the medical marijuana industry
Even us Insurance Agents have a risk in the mmj industry.
Greenpoint Insurance
Financials see green in growing licensed marijuana industry
By Mindi Westhoff
SNL Financial
At first glance, the policies sold by Greenpoint Insurance Group owners J.B. and Mary Woods seem apropos for most any retail business, as lines such as general liability and business income coverage are common inclusions in their packages.
But the Woods have no misgivings about the unique product their clients offer and what they, in turn, insure: Medical marijuana.
The business of cannabis dispensary and crop insurance caters to a focused but growing segment of the retail industry, the Woodses said. Professional liability protects pharmacists who make recommendations to medical marijuana patients. Crop insurance, which Greenpoint has only been able to offer since the start of 2010, offers growers protection against, among other things, fire, flood and theft, the last of which Mary Woods said is the No. 1 concern for most dispensary owners and marijuana crop growers.
The threat of theft is exceptionally high for dispensaries because of the cash-only nature of many of the businesses, said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Because most banks will not provide lending to dispensaries due to federal laws against marijuana, St. Pierre said the roughly 4,000 “cannabusinesses” in the U.S. are forced to deal with university credit unions, “sketchy” regional banks that “go down on almost any given weekend,” or worse.
“Some of these folks must have the biggest mason jar collection you can imagine. They must have Tupperware stuffed to the brim with cash,” he said. “The banks are leaving hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees [on thetable].”
A growing industry
While the Woodses would not reveal the names of the policy underwriters for competitive reasons, J.B. Woods said the underwriters for Greenpoint were “major” companies with A ratings or above. Many are domiciled in the U.S., but some are overseas. All of them specialize in medical marijuana insurance.
In the 17 years the Woodses have offered insurance packages to medical marijuana dispensaries, the pair have watched average six-month premiums slide from between $15,000 and $17,000 to closer to the $5,000 to $6,000 range, with some as low as $2,000, as more and more carriers have entered the marketplace. The increased competition is bittersweet for insurance brokers like Greenpoint, since more players also means a legitimization of the market, and the Woodses expect to see the business grow.
“I think it’s being considered by more insurance companies out there,” Mary Woods said. “I think they see the opportunity, due to the fact that there are so many legal states right now.”
So sure that the business of protecting medical marijuana dispensaries is about to explode, the Woodses have licenses to insure the businesses in Colorado, California, Montana and Oregon and are awaiting the approval to write policies in New Jersey, New Mexico, Michigan and Washington as well.
“This will become a national program for us,” Mary Woods said.
High profits, risky business
The threat of legal action on a federal level has kept some major money-center banks such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. from approving new accounts for medical marijuana dispensaries. Although medical marijuana is now legal in 14 states, it is still very much illegal at a federal level, and no safe harbors have been put in place protecting banks or insurance companies from being prosecuted, said law firm Fenton Nelson LLP founder Harry Nelson, who also co-founded the Medical Marijuana Law Group.
“The statements of nonenforcement have focused on patients who use it or providers who recommend it. It has not focused on all these ancillary services,” Nelson said of medical marijuana. Although there is no known case of the federal government taking action against a bank for lending to a dispensary, “nobody wants to be the first one to be tagged for it,” he said.
The level of risk can be viewed as different for a small bank versus a national bank, but the differences are even more noticeable between a bank and insurance company, Nelson said. While all can be pegged for aiding and abetting a dispensary, the assistance provided by a bank is more direct, while insurers can make the argument that they are only insuring for a potential loss. Only once a claim is actually paid out, and only then if that claim is directly related to an illegal product, can an insurer hypothetically be charged, he said.
Regional banks, while broadly held to the same regulatory standards as their larger brethren, tend to maintain lower profiles, and some could make the argument — albeit tenuous, according to Nelson — that their businesses are intrastate if they solely conduct banking operations in California, Colorado or any of the states where dispensaries are legal.
There is “very limited” permissiveness for depository institutions operating purely intrastate in the states that have decriminalized marijuana, Nelson said. “But a regional bank that had any kind of interstate transaction would be at the same risk as a national bank,” he added.
The Woodses discovered this fact in early May, when the pair made calls to 50 local banks in Colorado to determine for their clients which ones would be willing to simply open a checking account for a dispensary. The response was bleak.
“We had two,” J.B. Woods said.
Rolling out new rules
A handful of banks in the Woods’ survey said they were considering the prospect of opening accounts for dispensaries, but the remaining 42 voiced a loud and clear “No.” From a conservative business point of view, St. Pierre admitted that the banks are probably right to be cautious, despite the recent Oct. 19, 2009, “Ogden Memo,” which provides guidelines that offer some protection for those who use and sell marijuana, so long as they comply with state laws.
“Even with that in place … you would be rue to make the advice to the CEO or CIO or whoever that this is a business endeavor or an underwriting they should undertake,” St. Pierre said. “Technically speaking, if someone is selling marijuana, they’re taking in cash. They hand it to a bank or insurance company, [and] by any strict reading of the law, that’s a RICO conspiracy.
Despite the risks of violating antiracketeering laws, the opportunity for the financial services industry to jump on board with medical marijuana dispensaries is an attractive one, and St. Pierre pointed to the growing number of hedge funds actually buying medical cannabis businesses.
Texas-based International Merchant Advisors announced March 15 that it would purchase medical marijuana company Organic Science Inc., followed by news in April that it would operate the Healing Arts Cooperative Medical Marijuana dispensary in San Diego. There are untapped opportunities in the insurance field as well, St. Pierre said.
“Even if you can walk into one of these places and buy a ball of hash the size of your fist, that doesn’t negate the fact that you can’t get health insurance,” he said of medical marijuana users. “You can’t get life insurance often.”
The conflicting laws that limit banks’ ability to access this segment of the retail market are ones that several lawmakers hope to change, including 15 members of Congress who on May 20 submitted a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asking for formal, written guidance that assures banks will not be prosecuted for doing business with medical marijuana facilities.
As much as the pending legislation would open up opportunities for banks, the Woods said that a ballot in November to legalize marijuana for recreational use in California would also mean a huge boom to business for the insurance market.
“If that is passed, I think that is going to change the dynamics of this industry forever,” J.B. Woods said. “It’s going to cause more and more people who have been on the fence to actually jump into this business.”
Even us Insurance Agents have a risk in the mmj industry.
Greenpoint Insurance
Financials see green in growing licensed marijuana industry
By Mindi Westhoff
SNL Financial
At first glance, the policies sold by Greenpoint Insurance Group owners J.B. and Mary Woods seem apropos for most any retail business, as lines such as general liability and business income coverage are common inclusions in their packages.
But the Woods have no misgivings about the unique product their clients offer and what they, in turn, insure: Medical marijuana.
The business of cannabis dispensary and crop insurance caters to a focused but growing segment of the retail industry, the Woodses said. Professional liability protects pharmacists who make recommendations to medical marijuana patients. Crop insurance, which Greenpoint has only been able to offer since the start of 2010, offers growers protection against, among other things, fire, flood and theft, the last of which Mary Woods said is the No. 1 concern for most dispensary owners and marijuana crop growers.
The threat of theft is exceptionally high for dispensaries because of the cash-only nature of many of the businesses, said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
Because most banks will not provide lending to dispensaries due to federal laws against marijuana, St. Pierre said the roughly 4,000 “cannabusinesses” in the U.S. are forced to deal with university credit unions, “sketchy” regional banks that “go down on almost any given weekend,” or worse.
“Some of these folks must have the biggest mason jar collection you can imagine. They must have Tupperware stuffed to the brim with cash,” he said. “The banks are leaving hundreds of millions of dollars a year in fees [on thetable].”
A growing industry
While the Woodses would not reveal the names of the policy underwriters for competitive reasons, J.B. Woods said the underwriters for Greenpoint were “major” companies with A ratings or above. Many are domiciled in the U.S., but some are overseas. All of them specialize in medical marijuana insurance.
In the 17 years the Woodses have offered insurance packages to medical marijuana dispensaries, the pair have watched average six-month premiums slide from between $15,000 and $17,000 to closer to the $5,000 to $6,000 range, with some as low as $2,000, as more and more carriers have entered the marketplace. The increased competition is bittersweet for insurance brokers like Greenpoint, since more players also means a legitimization of the market, and the Woodses expect to see the business grow.
“I think it’s being considered by more insurance companies out there,” Mary Woods said. “I think they see the opportunity, due to the fact that there are so many legal states right now.”
So sure that the business of protecting medical marijuana dispensaries is about to explode, the Woodses have licenses to insure the businesses in Colorado, California, Montana and Oregon and are awaiting the approval to write policies in New Jersey, New Mexico, Michigan and Washington as well.
“This will become a national program for us,” Mary Woods said.
High profits, risky business
The threat of legal action on a federal level has kept some major money-center banks such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. from approving new accounts for medical marijuana dispensaries. Although medical marijuana is now legal in 14 states, it is still very much illegal at a federal level, and no safe harbors have been put in place protecting banks or insurance companies from being prosecuted, said law firm Fenton Nelson LLP founder Harry Nelson, who also co-founded the Medical Marijuana Law Group.
“The statements of nonenforcement have focused on patients who use it or providers who recommend it. It has not focused on all these ancillary services,” Nelson said of medical marijuana. Although there is no known case of the federal government taking action against a bank for lending to a dispensary, “nobody wants to be the first one to be tagged for it,” he said.
The level of risk can be viewed as different for a small bank versus a national bank, but the differences are even more noticeable between a bank and insurance company, Nelson said. While all can be pegged for aiding and abetting a dispensary, the assistance provided by a bank is more direct, while insurers can make the argument that they are only insuring for a potential loss. Only once a claim is actually paid out, and only then if that claim is directly related to an illegal product, can an insurer hypothetically be charged, he said.
Regional banks, while broadly held to the same regulatory standards as their larger brethren, tend to maintain lower profiles, and some could make the argument — albeit tenuous, according to Nelson — that their businesses are intrastate if they solely conduct banking operations in California, Colorado or any of the states where dispensaries are legal.
There is “very limited” permissiveness for depository institutions operating purely intrastate in the states that have decriminalized marijuana, Nelson said. “But a regional bank that had any kind of interstate transaction would be at the same risk as a national bank,” he added.
The Woodses discovered this fact in early May, when the pair made calls to 50 local banks in Colorado to determine for their clients which ones would be willing to simply open a checking account for a dispensary. The response was bleak.
“We had two,” J.B. Woods said.
Rolling out new rules
A handful of banks in the Woods’ survey said they were considering the prospect of opening accounts for dispensaries, but the remaining 42 voiced a loud and clear “No.” From a conservative business point of view, St. Pierre admitted that the banks are probably right to be cautious, despite the recent Oct. 19, 2009, “Ogden Memo,” which provides guidelines that offer some protection for those who use and sell marijuana, so long as they comply with state laws.
“Even with that in place … you would be rue to make the advice to the CEO or CIO or whoever that this is a business endeavor or an underwriting they should undertake,” St. Pierre said. “Technically speaking, if someone is selling marijuana, they’re taking in cash. They hand it to a bank or insurance company, [and] by any strict reading of the law, that’s a RICO conspiracy.
Despite the risks of violating antiracketeering laws, the opportunity for the financial services industry to jump on board with medical marijuana dispensaries is an attractive one, and St. Pierre pointed to the growing number of hedge funds actually buying medical cannabis businesses.
Texas-based International Merchant Advisors announced March 15 that it would purchase medical marijuana company Organic Science Inc., followed by news in April that it would operate the Healing Arts Cooperative Medical Marijuana dispensary in San Diego. There are untapped opportunities in the insurance field as well, St. Pierre said.
“Even if you can walk into one of these places and buy a ball of hash the size of your fist, that doesn’t negate the fact that you can’t get health insurance,” he said of medical marijuana users. “You can’t get life insurance often.”
The conflicting laws that limit banks’ ability to access this segment of the retail market are ones that several lawmakers hope to change, including 15 members of Congress who on May 20 submitted a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asking for formal, written guidance that assures banks will not be prosecuted for doing business with medical marijuana facilities.
As much as the pending legislation would open up opportunities for banks, the Woods said that a ballot in November to legalize marijuana for recreational use in California would also mean a huge boom to business for the insurance market.
“If that is passed, I think that is going to change the dynamics of this industry forever,” J.B. Woods said. “It’s going to cause more and more people who have been on the fence to actually jump into this business.”
Monday, November 15, 2010
We have yet another chance....
If your pro 19 or not! All medical users have another chance to regulate, control and give back to the communities! Until the 2012 chance! Since prop 215, many retail clinics, private co-ops, or 215 collectives have been paying there taxes for many years now. Although if a not a schedule one drug it would be un-taxed like pharmaceuticals!
Friday, November 12, 2010
Work Slow, Times tough? Have your hours been cut back? Might re-consider the cannabis industry?
Some folks are following the lead, just 14yrs later~! Schools across the state such as Oaksterdamn teach folks everything from growing to selling. However with almost a dozen universities for cannabis, one might wanna think twice about the Cannabis business! For the first time ever the flood started early and even worse, it was a disaster! After speaking with growers, dispensary owners, smokers and caregivers I confirmed it has even hit the youth! With that in mind, we have done one thing positive. Instead of legalizing cannabis with prop.19, we over-grew the government. Prop. 19 would of been a good step, progress as well as change, however it might have increased the youth and underground distribution due to profits and over-taxed retail clinics. It would of been promoting corruption, payoffs, and greed with excess taxes in every town. Although it would of been great, I think it might of gave the wrong impression and we would still see too many friends and family in court, jail and prison~!
Sweet Purple from Stockton
Nice flavor, sweet taste! After a slow cure this smells kinda near a jack strain but dense like a purple...Clean taste, one of a kind~! Picture pending~!
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