Articles Posted in California Marijuana

As CNN Money reported, the medical marijuana millionaires are conspicuously absent from the economic landscape of the 21st century. Despite it being a multi-billion industry, abuses by state regulators and local politicians can cripple or kill a dispensary. And, as we reported on our Marijuana Lawyer Blog, the IRS can create tax and accounting nightmares for legitimate businesses operating under state medical marijuana laws.

Our Los Angeles medical marijuana attorneys believe there is something more sinister at work than the commonplace ineptness of politicians. We believe the greed factor will continue to ensure dispensaries and collectives are hounded by local, state and federal officials. Those who have sought legal help have enjoyed some recent court victories. Many businesses that have tried to go it alone have been forced to close or have been run out of business by red tape and regulations.

A decade after medical marijuana became essentially legal under Colorado law, legislatures enacted tough new laws that made owning a Medical Marijuana Center no more profitable than running a corner liquor store. In California, the effort remains primarily among local politicians, who are spending millions of tax dollars in ill-advised, shoot-from-the-hip attempts to regulate, tax, and force legitimate businesses to close.

If you want to see what could be in store, look at Colorado, where lawmakers have passed detailed surveillance requirements and inventory tracking systems and are considering a ban on edible marijuana products, like brownies. Typically, these bills are “sponsored” by an amateur politician who is seeking the limelight. In most cases, he or she knows next to nothing about the issues.

Colorado is the only state with a for-profit medical marijuana system. License fees can cost $18,000 and the rules require the shops to grow at least 70 percent of their own marijuana — leaving their survival susceptible to crop failure.
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OOPS!

Comic Ralphie May was detained on a flight from Los Angeles to Guam after petting a pair of drug dogs at a custom’s checkpoint while carrying medical marijuana in his bag, AHN reported.

Okay, it’s funny. And the incident was made laughable by the mild mannered Guam authorities, who permitted May to pay a small fine and continue on to several scheduled performances on the island. But it’s also a reminder that marijuana — medicinal or not — is illegal in much of the rest of the world. Our Los Angeles medical marijuana defense lawyers are often called upon to represent clients who ran afoul of the law, either because they operated outside the bounds of California’s medical marijuana law, or because they ran afoul of federal laws or the laws in another state.

May, who shot to fame as the runner-up on the first season of “Last Comic Standing” in 2003, has a medical marijuana card. He told TMZ that he didn’t realize he had pot in his bag went he went up to pet the drug-sniffing dogs at the custom’s checkpoint. The dog sat down, an indication to the handlers that marijuana is present. Pretty soon, another dog came up and sat beside May.

“I petted that dog, too,” May is quoted as saying. “I was thinking these dogs love me, they can tell I’m a dog person.”

The customs agents let him go on to perform a serious of shows on the island after paying a small fine. They told him they knew he was not trying to smuggle drugs into Guam because nobody would be stupid enough to walk up to the dogs and start petting them.
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