Search Results: news/ (2454)

Immigrants who’ve worked in the cannabis industry remain at risk of having their citizenship applications automatically denied if they reveal their work history, according to a new announcement by the federal government.

On April 19, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released a policy guidance document reiterating that work in the marijuana industry is generally grounds for automatic denial of a citizenship naturalization application based on a lack of “good moral character…even if such activity has been decriminalized under applicable state laws.”

Neal Levine, a longtime member of the Colorado marijuana industry who’s now the CEO of the national Cannabis Trade Federation, sees the case for THC potency limits on marijuana concentrates recently made in this space as a Trojan horse for gutting the industry.

“When you start talking about potency and it’s not based on science, it sounds like reefer madness, the next generation,” Levine says.

A recent report from a Colorado organization devoted to keeping children away from marijuana advocates for potency limits on cannabis products, which continue to get stronger and stronger.

“This is very different from marijuana in the 1980s,” says Rachel O’Bryan, co-founder of Smart Colorado, whose mission statement notes that the outfit “engages and informs Coloradans on the risks that marijuana poses to youth.” As a result, she maintains, “it’s a fundamentally different game.”

A lawsuit filed by two Colorado landowners who claim that a nearby marijuana grow has reduced their property values in part because the smell makes horseback riding less pleasant goes to trial in Denver federal court today. And the repercussions of the suit’s strategy, based on federal racketeering laws, could have far-reaching effects on the cannabis industry in Colorado and beyond.

The case was filed in February 2015 by Safe Streets Alliance, a national anti-pot group, on behalf of two members, Phillis Windy Hope Reilly and Michael P. Reilly. Early on, the effort didn’t seem particularly professional: Note that the organization misspelled marijuana as “marajuana” in its initial press release on the subject. But SSA’s success in court over the past three years-plus has overcome this gaffe.

Since 2013, the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federally funded law-enforcement organization, has been issuing highly critical, persistently biased reports about the impact of marijuana legalization in Colorado.

But beyond a few scattered stories and a brief reference in U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer’s unexpectedly strident September 28 anti-pot op-ed in the Denver Post, the group’s latest salvo, released this month, has gotten comparatively little traction, especially compared to its earliest offerings.

The Marijuana Industry Group has helped the Colorado cannabis business develop into an awesome revenue machine that generates sales measured in the billions. But behind the scenes, MIG is embroiled in dueling Denver District Court lawsuits that pit the organization against Michael Elliott, its former executive director, in a fight that’s witheringly nasty.

Elliot’s complaint maintains that he was fired from his gig in June 2016 due largely to fallout from his rejection of sexual advances from a contract employee with the group. A few months later, he filed discrimination charges against the group with the Colorado Civil Rights Division — a prerequisite to a lawsuit, which was eventually filed in September 2017. But by then, MIG had already sued Elliott, arguing that he’d been sacked for misappropriating funds, among other things, and later retaliated by cooking up a fictional sexual harassment story that he then used in an unsuccessful effort to extort as much as $300,000.

A Miami man flew to Denver International Airport on a quest to buy a specific BMW, but he didn’t find a car. Instead, a lawsuit alleges, he was extorted for $50 by an Advantage Rent A Car employee and given a rental car with forty pounds of marijuana in the trunk.

The lawsuit, filed in Colorado district court by Woodrow & Peluso LLC on behalf of Nang Thai, is seeking damages as a result of Advantage’s “fraudulent conduct, theft and serious breaches of conduct.” The lawsuit accuses Advantage of violating the Colorado Consumer Protection Act and committing civil theft, false imprisonment, breach of contract, fraudulent concealment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Recent Colorado Department of Transportation figures show that stoned-driving fatalities went down from 2016 to 2017 for those over the legal intoxication limit but up in fatal crashes involving drivers who tested positive for any marijuana in their system, whether above the line or under it. Such mixed results are typical according to a new report, which acknowledges that getting firm answers about the risks involved with driving high remains an enormous challenge.

And there are plenty of reasons why.

The number of fatalities involving at least one driver over the legal limit for marijuana impairment in Colorado went down from 2016 to 2017. However, such fatalities are up during the same period for those testing positive for cannabis use at levels either above or below that limit. And the inconsistencies in regard to the collection of the information makes the scope of the issue unclear.

Those are among the revelations contained in new data from the Colorado Department of Transportation. But while CDOT spokesperson Sam Cole acknowledges that its digits leave plenty of room for interpretation, he doesn’t see any ambiguity when it comes to the bottom line.

More evidence that the economic impact of marijuana goes far beyond the sale of cannabis products: A Denver-metro company is now marketing a brand of paint specifically designed to cover up the smell of pot smoke.

The label wrapped around cans of OdorDefender Paint, created by ECOBOND, a company based in Arvada, sports a green-suited cartoon superhero and text that boasts that the product offers “DEFENSE AGAINST … Marijuana & Odor-producing Drug Fumes.”

1 2 3 246