Of the 33 states that have passed some form of lenient marijuana-use legislation, 10 of those, most recently Michigan, have legalized marijuana for recreational use. The District of Colombia is also in both groups of states.

In Michigan, beginning next month, persons over 21-years of age may purchase,possess and use recreational-use marijuana. The era of prohibition, although not over, is deteriorating rapidly.

Coincidentally, one of the collateral consequences of President Trump’s brusque dismissal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week removes from the USDOJ -at least temporarily- an outspoken opponent of pot legalization. In the "old days" of the Obama Administration, the USDOJ's official policy was set forth in the so-called Cole Memo where United States Attorneys were instructed not to pursue federal prosecutions for marijuana possession in states that had some form of lenient marijuana legislation.

Mind you, having just returned from California last week [a state that is a half-decade ahead of Michigan relative to dispensing product] this is not your father’s marijuana; the products are diverse, potent, cheaply and locally produced.

Michiganders must keep in mind that, despite the new recreational marijuana law, it still remains illegal: a) at the federal “Schedule 1” level; b) to smoke marijuana in public places; and c) to drive under the influence of active THC in your bloodstream.

Highlights of Recreational Use of Marijuana

The new recreational marijuana law allows:

• Persons 21 and older to purchase, possess and use up to a dozen plants;
• Keep up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana in a locked container at one’s residence;
• The promulgation of regulations for all aspects of the marijuana business [i.e. growth, testing, dispensing, and transportation];
• Commercial sales of marijuana-infused products via state-licensed dispensaries; and
• Municipalities to promulgate ordinances to ban, restrict or otherwise regulate the distribution of marijuana.

Content has exploded across the local press with all sorts of useful tips on how to ride the recreational pot wave. Here are examples from the Freep [which even went so far as publishing a handy stoner's glossary of sorts] and the Detroit News.

Here Come the Regulations

If the regulations accompanying last year’s expansion of medical marijuana licenses are any example, you can expect similar recreational-use state regulations and local ordinances that: a) favor heavily-capitalized producers; b) segregate different phases of the process [i.e. testing, growth, dispensary and transport]; and c) tax the hell out of the still-cash-only revenue stream; a very healthy revenue stream predicted to be on the par with liquor and tobacco combined.

If Colorado, California and the State of Washington are comparable examples, Michigan can expect well-run, fun stores that adopt the Apple mode of retailing their in-demand products. It’s as if a “50-Shades of Grey” mentality has taken over the populace now that these goods are so smartly distributed at the retail level. Just as you can browse for a fine –and expensive- cigar in a smoke-friendly cigar store environment, you can now browse the isles and wall display units for a $25 doobie. With taxes, you’ll part with nearly $30 for a high-quality joint.

Michigan’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs [LARA] seems proactively positioned to utilize what our state government has learned from the medical marijuana regulations for this next quantum leap. LARA certainly recognizes the revenue potential to such the cash crop that is marijuana, whether medicinal or recreational.

Expungement of Prior Marijuana Convictions

Now that both medical and recreational use of marijuana are legal in Michigan, some county circuit court judges may favorably consider petitions to remove marijuana-based convictions from a person’s criminal record. Currently, the state legislature has a bill pending to require judges to consider such expungements. Also, governor-elect Gretchen Whitmer has already indicated her willingness to utilize her clemency powers to expunge low-level marijuana-based convictions and remove scores of inmates doing prison time for such offenses.

Here is a link to the Law Blogger post detailing how a twice-convicted marijuana possessor and distributor is serving a life-sentence in Missouri.

This must come as good news to the 3600 marijuana-based felons and the nearly 50,000 people convicted of marijuana-related misdemeanors over the past 5-years.

Getting Off Schedule 1

Getting off Schedule 1 will be complicated. There will have to be a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress for the stars to align for this prospect. Some Republican legislators acknowledge the job-growth and tax revenue attributes to a strong marijuana industry. So far, however, the political will to make this happen has not been exhibited.

Complications, no doubt, arise in the context of the war on drugs which has its roots back to the 1971 Controlled Substance Act which listed marijuana on Schedule 1 in the first place. In the decades since, many of the United States' multilateral treaties have marijuana prohibition as one of its central policy planks. A few referendums spread across a few states are not -yet- strong enough to derail these long-standing treaties.

Yes, it is very complex. To the North, Canada has legalized marijuana across all nine of her provinces. In Central and South America, to our South, multilateral treaties have provided the framework for the decades-long war on drugs, with military style interdiction of drug manufactures and couriers.

Until marijuana is off schedule 1, the industry has certain distinct risks. For example, do not look for marijuana-based business transactions to be conducted within banks for the next half-decade or so. Same for insurance.

Therefore, in the short term, marijuana will continue to be a strictly-cash business. This will slow down its growth. Some people don't think this is a bad thing.

We Can Help

Marijuana prohibition is a thing of the past. The new law in Michigan, and the general decriminalization process, will create some interesting opportunities for those individuals who have been burned by now-outdated laws.

If you or someone you know has a marijuana-based conviction, simply click on the link below and give our office a call to schedule a free consultation to assess your options under the new landscape.

Post #621
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For the past 10-years, the marijuana legalization process has gained traction in the United States and other Western countries. Canada and California went legal last week; 8 states have legalized recreational use of marijuana; another 20 states have legalized medical marijuana.

Yesterday, however, the other shoe fell in Washington D.C., with the United States Attorney General reversing USDOJ policy and instructing United States Attorneys to begin prosecuting marijuana violations of the Controlled Substance Act. Attorney General Jeff Sessions' policy statement rescinds the Obama-era Cole memo; a memo that included a series of enforcement directives designed to leave policing marijuana dispensaries to the individual states.

AG Sessions' personal animus against pot is well known. He has gone on record saying that marijuana users are "not good people".

Sessions' pronouncement sends a fledgling billion dollar industry into an era of uncertainty. For the past decade, banks, insurance companies and capital investors took baby-steps into the massive marijuana industry; an industry that, until the past decade, operated solely within the Wild West of the black market.

This policy shift will chill the macro moves of the major industry players. The combined markets of California and Washington, both recreational use states, were expected to eclipse the revenue of the alcohol industry. That's some big money folks.

And because it's such big money, you can bet some of the money will be spent to deploy lobbyists in a full-court-press on Congress to, once-and-for-all, remove marijuana from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act. We here at the Law Blogger are not holding our breath, as this has been tried before, and the efforts, of both lobbyists and litigants, have failed.

Unfortunately for the marijuana industry, Congress' attitude toward marijuana seems influenced by the hubris of a failed 30-year "war on drugs" that involves a series of mutual prohibition treaties with many of our trading partners to the South. This attitude does not take into account that the ganja smuggler is a thing of the past; today high-quality pot is produced in a 2x2 closet with a grow lamp and some TLC.

Seriously, it is now time to end marijuana prohibition. Marijuana should be removed from Schedule 1 and placed into its own category; a category most-closely related to alcohol. Yes there are problems, health and otherwise, that arise from chronic marijuana use.

Prohibition, however, is not the answer. Regulate the weed; tax the revenue generated from weed; just stop the prohibition of the weed.

Post Script: Some U.S. Attorneys have made ominous statements promising aggressive prosecution for pot distributors, Massachusetts, while others, Colorado, have said they will not prosecute federal marijuana cases.

Post #613
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While the federal government turns its back on recreational marijuana, Michigan is prepared to blow the lid off medical marijuana production and dispensation. Government's relationship to the plant continues to evolve.

This blogger recalls when medical and recreational marijuana laws began to sweep the country nearly ten years ago. Back then, a key USDOJ memorandum indicated that President Obama's Attorney General directed the corps of United States Attorneys not to devote resources to marijuana prosecutions in states that legalized the controlled substance for either medical or recreational use.

The Trump Administration, especially through Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has signaled an end to the hands-off approach of its predecessor relative to recreational use of marijuana. This poses a huge roadblock to continued industry growth.

In Detroit, only two of over two hundred applications to operate medical marijuana "centers" were recently approved. The City has taken rigorous actions to shut down the unlicensed -and heretofore thriving- dispensaries. One of our clients reported that a cease and desist letter was tacked onto the door of his shop last month.

Meanwhile, just across the Detroit River, Canada is considering nation-wide legalization in all 9 of its provinces. This is the equivalent of removing marijuana from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act.

As an industry, marijuana is poised to explode as state laws across the nation are relaxed and as decriminalization takes place. In most medical and recreational use states, industrial warehouse space is suddenly in high demand as skilled growers seek adequate space to produce marijuana.

Some prospective licensees are willing to spend over a million dollars to re-purpose a warehouse for high-output marijuana production. Investors are tripping over each other to prepare for the rare state licensing opportunities that will unfold in December.

Just 8-months before taking applications for 500 and 1000-plant grow licenses and dispensaries, the State of Michigan is poised to earn millions in tax revenues from this relatively new industry. The state's Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs [LARA] is gearing up for the new license applicants this December, creating the Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation.

The problem for legitimate industry growth continues to be inclusion of marijuana on Schedule 1. As long as marijuana is illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act, the banks and insurance companies, so vital to industry growth, will remain on the sidelines and marijuana will continue to be a predominantly cash-based industry.

This problem will not stop the artisans that have been growing high-quality marijuana over the past decade. Like craft beers, they will continue to produce a product for which demand seems high and insatiable.

If you need to explore your options regarding the acquisition of one of the several state licenses soon to be available from the State of Michigan, give our law firm a call to schedule a free consultation.

Post #588
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The push toward global legalization of marijuana has taken a few lurching steps over the past month, especially here in the Americas. Two steps forward; one step back.

The Supreme Court in Mexico just ruled that 4 individual plaintiffs could legally grow marijuana for their personal use; but the ruling fell short of outright legalization in that country. Legal experts suspect that the ruling could initiate a trend, however, that would make the cultivation and distribution of marijuana legal in Mexico.

To the North, newly elected Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has promised to make the legalization of marijuana one of his primary parliamentary goals; medical use of marijuana is already legal across Canada.

Here in the United States, however, pot legalization continues to struggle. For example, a legalization initiative for recreational use lost in Ohio on Tuesday.

Among the dozens of presidential hopefuls in the 2016 campaign, only Senator Bernie Sanders has called for the removal of marijuana from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act. Until pot is removed from the Act, legalization really has not chance to succeed here in the U.S.

Complicating removal of marijuana from Schedule 1 are the numerous eradication treaties the U.S. has signed with Latin American countries; a legacy of our failed decades-long "war-on-drugs". That war, relative to marijuana cultivation, has truly failed.

Legalization in California would move the needle significantly. Although the legalization measure on the Cali ballot failed in 2014, it will be on the ballot again in 2016.

In Michigan, two legalization initiatives are currently working their way onto the ballot for 2016. This choice could harm the legalization effort as voters attempt to sort their way through two separate complex proposals.

Our appellate courts have issued over a dozen published opinions interpreting the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act.

 Ever since its prohibition in the 1920s, the movement for legalization has been slow and painful. Also, there continues to be legitimate debate about the true palliative features of marijuana.

Sometimes, the justification for legalization simply comes down to the argument that it is less harmful than alcohol; alcohol is legal, ergo, marijuana also should be legal. This may not be good enough for the legislatures and the electorates called upon to vote on legalization measures.

Only time will tell...

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Post #505

With its power of the purse, Congress passed a vote today, 219-189, to cease funding the Justice Department, and the DEA within it, for enforcement efforts to shutter legal medical marijuana dispensaries, caregivers, and other types of legal marijuana growers.  This vote is consistent with Attorney General Eric Holder's pronouncements, issued earlier this year via a series of inter-office memos, that the DOJ was no longer prosecuting medical marijuana producers.

As we here at the Law Blogger announce this arguably historic vote from a few hours ago, it is important to keep in mind that marijuana continues to be listed on Schedule 1 of the federal Controlled Substance Act.  As we have opined in various posts to this blog, until it is truly legalized and removed from Schedule 1, pot will continue to be a grow-your-own fringe industry serving a largely homeopathic self-medicating population.

In other words, it may not live up to its true corporate potential.  Billions of dollars of inexhaustible demand await, that's for sure.  Taxes, regulation, banking with it's compliance laws, insurance with its compliance laws; everybody's happy in the professional world.

But the hippy farmers and the Latin American drug cartels would be out if marijuana were struck from Schedule 1.  Nevertheless, this vote could be the next step in what some see as the inevitable political process of decriminalizing and, eventually, legalizing marijuana.

Well, we shall see what happens next.  But this vote sure makes former DEA agent Patrick Moen, whom we blogged about last week, look like a genius.

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By:  Timothy P. Flynn

Last year, former DEA Supervisory Special Agent Patrick Moen jumped from the federal law enforcement ship he was on his entire career.  He swam aboard Privateer Holdings, a Seattle-based private equity firm dedicated to the development of the emerging North American cannabis market, where he currently serves as the Managing Director of Compliance.

Readers of this blog will recognize the recurrent theme embedded in this post.  Put simply, although marijuana has become much less criminalized over the past decade, its persistence on Schedule 1 of the federal Controlled Substance Act significantly compromises the trajectory of the legalization process.

During his career at the DEA and the Department of Justice, former agent Moen was immersed in all aspects of the illicit drug industry.  He developed expertise in forensic accounting, electronic surveillance, undercover operations, and intelligence.

Recognizing the trend toward legalization of marijuana, Moen kept an eye on the industry players along the West Coast from his home in Portland, Oregon.  He was underwhelmed until he saw an interview with Brendan Kennedy, the Yale-educated CEO of Privateer Holdings.

As the compliance director, Moen navigates the network of money-laundering and conspiracy statutes and other state drug laws to maintain 100% compliance for Privateer.  Check out the firm's website, linked above; they truly have it going on as far as the pot industry is concerned.

We here at the Law Blogger have followed the federal court challenges the pot lobby has made to the Schedule 1 classification; we have followed the international relations involved with our sudden shift in the quarter-century "war-on-drugs", and the effect this recent about-face has had on Latin American regional treaty states that have accepted our international aid dollars for decades to eradicate pot and criminalize drug cartels.

As former agent Moen fully understands, state pot laws and medical marijuana acts are designed to facilitate the hippy farmer "grow-your-own" business model.  But enterprising profiteers are pushing the bounds.

The pot industry, however, need banks and insurance companies to get involved in the business plan for these, er, budding companies to take the next steps.  The big boys have shied away due to the continued federal illegality, leaving company owners to carry boxes of cash to banks every day, wasting time counting out paper money.

Neither are banks and insurance companies reassured by the present administration's "hands-off" approach to the federal marijuana laws.  AG Eric Holder will not hold his post forever; political winds can change overnight.

We here at the Law Blogger believe it is time to truly decriminalize marijuana by removing it from Schedule 1.  The case brought by the pot lobby currently under consideration by the SCOTUS will not get the job done; that is a task for Congress.

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In 1936, marijuana was vilified as the harvest of the Devil; the gateway drug to the hard stuff.  Reefer Madness was a propaganda campaign that swept the country in the years following prohibition.

Fast forward to the post-modern era of the second decade in the 21st Century, and we see marijuana legalized in a growing number of states, at least for its, er, medical use; the Justice Department ignores significant manufacturing and distribution operations, as directed by the U.S. Attorney General; and the SCOTUS is considering whether to hear a case this term to remove marijuana from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act.

While the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act has attracted much attention in the courts and the media all over Michigan, it has had a disturbingly polarizing effect on Dearborn District Judge Mark W. Somers.  The Dearborn judge has petulantly declared the MMA unconstitutional, and has referred to marijuana as: "Devil's weed", "Satan's surge", and "Satan's weed".

Judge Somers has lectured defendants wrongly convicted in his courtroom on the topic of Mexican drug-cartel-related child deaths and how the medical marijuana industry is directly related to this scourge.  In an infamous case, People -v- Brandon, Judge Somers ruled that, "the MMA is rendered unconstitutional in its entirety by operation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution."

Now he has been disqualified by the Michigan Court of Appeals from deciding any more cases involving the MMA on the basis that he has pre-judged individuals accused of marijuana possession and distribution, despite the availability of valid defenses.

We here at the Law Blogger find it disturbing indeed when a judge takes matters into his own hands, and substitutes his own world view for the law.  In disqualifying Judge Somers, we applaud the Court of Appeals that ruled the probability of actual prejudice at the hands of this rogue judge was too high to pass constitutional muster.

Perhaps it is time for the Judicial Tenure Commission to take a serious look at whether Mark Somers is fit and qualified to be a judge.

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