Karen Strand didn’t think she’d get in trouble for having a small container of medical marijuana when she went hiking in Olympic National Park this summer. President Barack Obama, she remembered, had said the federal government had “bigger fish to fry” than people who follow state marijuana laws, and Washington state had just legalized pot. […]
Category: 420 Magazine
Feds in Talks With Banks Over Marijuana Business
The government is in talks with bank regulators to see whether financial institutions in states that have approved recreational marijuana use can do business with drug dispensaries there, a top Justice Department official said Tuesday. The announcement came nearly two weeks after the Justice Department decided it won’t take legal action against Colorado and Washington, […]
Conservatives Fight Marijuana Taxation
In front of the U.S. Capitol Thursday, two congressmen discussed H.R. 2240, the Small Business Tax Equity Act, a little known bill introduced in June by Oregon Democrat Earl Blumenauer to allow deductions and credits relating to expenditures for marijuana sales conducted in compliance with state law. The bill, according to GovTrack.Us, has a 0% […]
Answers Sought for When Marijuana Laws Collide
A deputy attorney general told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that the Justice Department had begun working with Treasury officials and financial regulators to clarify how it legally deals with banks and other businesses that serve marijuana dispensaries and growers in states that have legalized the drug for medical or recreational use. The deputy […]
Fans of Legal Marijuana Cheer
The pros and cons of marijuana will take center stage Tuesday in Washington, D.C., when the Senate Judiciary Committee holds a landmark hearing on legalization. Requested by committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the hearing was triggered by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement last month that federal authorities no longer will interfere as states […]
NJ Assembly Approves Changes To MMJ Law
A two-year-old Scotch Plains girl and other sick children who qualify for medical marijuana moved closer to getting the treatments they need after the New Jersey Assembly overwhelmingly approved changes in the regulations on Monday. Vivian Wilson, a toddler who suffers from a severe, rare form of epilepsy, was issued a card to obtain the […]
Coming Soon: 334 Pot Stores in Washington State
The state would license 334 pot stores, including at least 21 in Seattle and 61 in King County, under revised state rules for a recreational marijuana system. Total pot production would be capped at 40 metric tons next year in rules approved Wednesday by the state Liquor Control Board. The cap is intended to meet […]
MJ Industry Prepares for 2014, is Colorado Ready?
In four months, adults in Colorado will be able to walk into a store, plunk down cash and leave with a drug that used to land people in prison. No one, though, is sure what the future holds. Will the new industry damage the state’s reputation, grow the drug culture, spread marijuana into neighboring states, […]
Bowing To The Inevitable On Pot
Justice Dept. Right Not to Challenge State Laws Legalizing Marijuana Bowing to changing times and admittedly limited prosecutorial resources, the Justice Department announced last week that it would not seek to block state laws legalizing marijuana for medical and recreational use. The declaration represented a major reversal from the department’s previous position that marijuana is […]
Feds Say They Will Go Easy on Banks
During the groundbreaking phone call on Thursday, August 29 in which U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told the governors of Colorado and Washington the federal government would not attempt to intercept regulated legal marijuana in their states, he also said the Department of Justice (DOJ) is “actively considering” how to oversee the relationship between banks […]