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Pot Industry Employs More Than 100,000

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By on News, Uncategorized

And that’s the low estimate.

The following is excerpted from the newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

The industry employs between 100,000 and 150,000 Americans according to the Marijuana Business Factbook. Ancillary businesses that don’t touch the plant account for about 40 % of jobs.

In Massachusetts, cities are awarding recommendations for state licenses to dispensaries that promise payments in return.

Canada’s Canopy Growth Corp. will list on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the first cannabis producer to trade on a major exchange. It also announced plans to start selling MED in Germany.

The IRS is auditing 30 Colorado pot companies, mainly related to large cash deposits. (Cannabis companies still struggle to find bank accounts.) Criminal charges may follow.

Lots from New Cannabis Ventures: Social network MassRoots is launching a dispensary finder to compete with Weedmaps and Leafly. Ackrell Capital, the investment bank, is starting a cannabis business accelerator called Cannavator in Oakland. Nationwide there are at least three others. Canadian grower Aphria raised $25M.

NCV founder Alan Brochstein is skeptical of Cultivation Technologies Inc. which has a big project planned in Coachella, Calif. A guest post at the site recommended that companies create budget brands for lower income customers.

Gateway incubator co-founder Carter Laren says start-ups still confront the “ghost of Nancy Reagan.”

Data firm Headset determined that the average user in Washington state spends $647 on legal cannabis per year. Marketwatch has more data from the study.

An investor is suing California edibles company Altai for spending his cash on private jets, luxury hotels and personal legal bills.

The publishing industry is putting out a slew of weed books, including the Complete Idiot’s Guide to growing.

Entrepreneur spotlights the industry in Boulder. Despite difficulties in Pueblo, Colo., businesses continue to invest big there.

A British Airways flight turned around shortly after departing London due to an unexplained cannabis smell.

Denver coroner questionably links balcony fall to marijuana consumption

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By on News, Say what?


In a highly unusual move, the Denver coroner’s says that marijuana intoxication was the major contributing factor in Levy Thamba’s death by jumping from a hotel balcony last month because the college student had eaten a marijuana edible before the incident.
The coroner’s office says the facts of the case explain why the decision to include information about marijuana was made, though the facts leave a lot of unanswered questions.

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Global Commission On Drug Policy To Meet In Poland

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By on Global, News
Global Commission Members, Including Four Former Presidents, To Gather in Warsaw Oct. 24-25
On Heels of Success in Latin America, Global Commission Will Strategize Next Steps for Global Drug Policy Reform
The Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP) will gather in Warsaw on October 24 and 25 to highlight the impact of the war on drugs on public health in Eastern Europe and prospects for change around the world.
The Global Commission was convened in July 2010 and has been working to establish a road map for change in drug laws and policies. It is currently composed of 22 international leaders, including seven former presidents.
The GCDP meeting in Poland brings the debate to Eastern Europe, in order to focus on the dramatic human and social consequences of the prevailing hardline approach to drugs in the region. The meeting will include a roundtable organized by the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza to allow interaction with key media and stakeholders.
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Study Suggests Low Hard Drug Prices Behind Crime Drop

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By on News

Curt Merlo/The Village Voice

​Violent crime has declined dramatically in New York City since 1990, the year when the Big Apple set a record for the most homicides in its history. A new study shows that the price of hard drugs has also plummeted in the past 20 years, and suggests the two phenomena may be linked.

The price of cocaine fell from $400-$460 per pure gram in the early 1980s to less then $200 by the early 2000s, reports Alexander Hotz at The New York World. Similarly, heroin prices dropped from $3,000 to $3,600 per pure gram in the 1980s to about $2,000 by the 2000s.
A team of anthropologists and economists at Manhattan’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York (CUNY) has suggested that the collapse of heroin and cocaine prices might be at least partially responsible for the reversal of crime rates.
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Shine On, Stoney: Making Pot Activism Even More Beautiful

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By on Culture

Photo Courtesy Stoney McStonerson
Stoney: “You can save yourself a ton of pain if you just SHINE.”

​Colorado’s Stoney Haze McStonerson is proof that not only can marijuana activists be intelligent and effective — they can also be quite easy on the eyes.

Stoney is many things, but shy isn’t one of them. A determined and influential ambassador for the movement, McStonerson is president and founder of the Colorado Chapter of American Cannabis.
Stoney’s the girl next door, if the girl next door were a beautiful, intelligent stoner.
“I am proud of my life and the wisdom I have gathered along the way,” Stoney told us. “I learned before most of the people I knew that changing who you really are inside to fit into the ‘normal box’ does not work!
“You can save yourself a ton of pain if you just SHINE,” Stoney said. “Whatever, whoever and however is not going to matter in the end if you are happy.”
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