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RE: New Rules for Black people to Farm Cannabis in Florida
How is that even legal? I know in Washington state the merging of recreational and medical laws led to the closure of hundreds of dispensaries, including nearly every minority-owned cannabis business.
Yeah, I owned 2 dispensaries and farms, in WA state when they took our rights away(I502 and SB5052)I was in the thick of it. We fought, but no one believed it could happen. Now, I just work as a cannabis writer and consultant, but I left WA because of this. They used WA to see how far they could strip the rights from patients. They will use that undertanding from here forward in all other states.
I think the intention, at least from the politician's perspective, had less to do with stripping patient's rights than seeing how much tax revenue they could squeeze out of as few businesses as possible. Less businesses mean cheaper oversight and less risk of embarrassment or legal repercussion if/when those businesses decide to do things they're not supposed to.
It was both, they were fighting with Big Pharma lobby (and big agro, private prisons, police unions and so much more) and the Tax paradigm. The leaders were listening to "experts" with an agenda that did not include the regular patient.
I actually have a tax case AGAINST the WA state DOR for charging taxes on Medicine. Before I502 you paid B&O tax and the rest was left alone. My dispensaries were both Non-Profits (and trust me, we made no profit.)
My constitutional law team Doug Hiatt and Aaron Pelley (Seattle) have both fought hard to teach that the moment you admit to the feds you are selling a schedule 1 drug, you are in essence building their case for them. You also generally do not pay a tax at a pharmacy on your pills, so our stance is the same on cannabis. So, we sued the govt (we are still suing and appealing, winning and then losing and then winning and they come up with another way to keep at us... )
Under their advice, i have never sold cannabis, I have given away for donations. I have never signed a paper saying that I have done anything but, because it is true. That system beat the Recreational model set forth with the legalization of cannabis. I502 was sold as a 'separate system and would NEVER touch patient rights.. UNTIL-- they realized the rec market could not compete with the patient helping patient way it had been for almost 2 decades. So, they created the "Patient Protection Act" Which allowed them to create weird laws and regulations that essentially folded the non-taxable nonprofit market into the highly taxed, highly controlled market.
At one point making it illegal to make concentrates for patients who needed it without a license. At a point when there were no systems in place to give medical cannabis patients a license to do so. They were running us out of town with raids and 'compliance checks."
They gave preference to people for cannabis licenses and the special medical endorsements to people who were not previously in the Non-profit game. Essentially pushing us out.
There was a lot of behinds the scenes bad stuff going on and the LCB was caught having 17 private meetings breaking laws and making us either leave, quit or become felons.
There is some really good articles on what happened on a site called-
www.420leaks.com
There are still many lawsuits against the state of Wa and the LCB.
As a patient, I could not afford the new system of buying it a store for 36% tax and they lowered the limits I could grow and possess at a time that became too restrictive to make it myself.
I use RSO, BHO, Edibles, topicals and more-- all made by me.
My background is in neurobiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Medicine; where I studied and helped put to market drugs for Pfizer and a few other big pharma companies. I quit that life, pursuing natural medicine before I was run over by a bus in Guatemala. I was so injured for so long that I had to make a choice, die slowly from pills, or make that stuff myself. I became so engulfed in my own natural remedies that I moved west to help others like me.
Small world; I grew up in Raleigh! It's great to hear of your recovery. I moved to Seattle just in time to enjoy the waning years of our once-illustrious medical program. DIY is certainly the way to go.
Yeah, I spend most of my time in Central America now. I come to the USA when I am brought in to consult. Other than that, I am safer here. Always nice to meet a Tarheel though.. I often miss Carrboro and my Tribe there..
I will follow you so we can keep up. I know some cool cats in and around Seattle, We were in Bham, but I have music and cannabis friends all around there.
Back atcha! Sounds like you've had quite the adventure. Carrboro was great; I'm pretty sure 2 out of the last 3 times I was there happened to be the opening and closing nights of the Station. I can always use great music/cannabis friends!