SEND LAWYERS, GUNS & MONEY

=| the shit has hit the fan.

The Legislature didn't have to do a thing; neither did the Governor.

What comes next? We know we have hearings coming up early in January which state Community Mental Health (of all people) will propose rules regarding their administriviation duties, and probably more. Michigan co-conspirators are concerned with privacy, of course, and with unwarranted restrictions on cultivation and horizontal transfer between producers. Unreasonable or unenforceable rules invite mock- and scoff-law responses, drive producers off-grid and out of the tax base, and will retard development of a supply system based on local production which is necessary to provide safe, effective, cost-efficient medical cannabis. Period.

The Initiative's victory was correctly rubber-stamped somewhere in the bowels of the Secretary of State's office and a clock somewhere started counting down toward the effective date, which came at 21:00 PST on the 3rd. It was duly noted in the relevant Michigan exchanges between co-conspirators, but no fireworks. By now it has settled in on most of the Cannabista that we're nowhere near done with this thing.

Michigan's Proposal 1 was a Marijuana Policy Project initiative ~ they paid to fund an infrastructure, file appropriate language, the massive task of gathering signatures, then assuring the ballot form was acceptable, and for the nominal campaign effort made by the Michigan Compassionate Care Coalition. Thanks to them all, they all got what they set out to accomplish, and they did it really, really well. The validity rate of the signatures was astoundingly good, their campaign filings were all spic & span & on-time, too, and if the Bottom Line is indeed what matters, well ... 63%, Bay-bee! Three Million Votes ! Every County and Legislative District in the state ... like Patton thru the Grand Duchy of Fenwick, it was.

Which isn't to say they didn't leave behind a bit of a mess. Years of local infrastructure building was put on hold or marginalized all around the MPP/MCCC effort. All the Cannabanista behaved like good little boys and girls who should Not Be Heard. I saw the nice pat on the head received by Michigan NORML, which took it in total silence without so much as a blink or any sort of acknowledgment. A state Administrative Rules procedure awaits early in January, and the Future beyond that is Tabula Rosa regarding the construction of a Production and Supply infrastructure. MPP is apparently terrified by the spectre of bad public relations coming along with any positive association or notice for California's system. The Initiative language avoided California's successful structure and is modeled on prior MPP actions in other states which are not so successful as California's citizen action, which was hoped to serve as a Model ... but what do the Fruits & Nuts know, eh ?

Anybody has a rational explanation not based on some level of the great Fear & Loathing, I'm ready for it. When asked why it was "silent" on supply, MCCC's primary spokesperson shrugged her shoulders, went palms up, and waxed rhetorically "Well, they get it, don't they?" referring, apparently, to cancer patients copping their Meds on street corners the requisite distance from a church or school. I was not surprised to hear this, given the source.

California has more or less learned the Value of proper regulation. One estimate of just the sales tax value from dispensary sales alone for FY '07 was $175m ... Most of that is up in the smoke of the DEA's fun & games campaign ~ you remember the spring fires in the historic Golden Triangle, more than 1000 fires springing up in a single weekend? Ask me how many people in the Industry have told me the DEA was up there buzzing around setting those fires ... I don't think that's so, but sure tells you where things stand in some parts.

Thus economically motivated (don't think for a moment it has anything with the enormous level of support the law enjoys here, despite what that poor man Bill Schuette wants you to 'think,' California has more or less arrived at a fairly stable basis for doing the Public's Business the Right Way, sans DEA meddling by the cadres of idiots running around like they're a collective Freddy Krueger, bent on terrorizing the Producer community. Got a note from friend under their gun for what is clearly lawful activity under state law. Piss me off ...

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"If you could hear the Special Agents approach to the dichotomy between state and federal laws and the resulting harassment of Caregivers, you would have been jaw-dropped by the Bushonian level of intelligence - of course they're only 'enforcement officers' but apparently the Fed Atty was cast of the same stone."
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This summer Attorney General Brown's office released Guidelines [PDF] which provide usable knowledge about regulatory parameters, and make clear that co-op and collective business forms are quite acceptable so long as they conform to the scope of state law.

Pretty simple, eh ?

Yes, but ... stay tuned.

Back at the Michigan ranch, the first evaluation clinic opened today in Southfield, not far north of 8-Mile.



= 04 Dec 2008