Medical marijuana a challenge for legal pot states

SEATTLE, USA (AP) — A year into America’s experiment with legal, taxed marijuana sales, Washington and Colorado find themselves wrestling not with the federal interference many feared, but with competition from medical marijuana or even outright black market sales.

In Washington, the black market has exploded since voters legalised marijuana in 2012, with scores of legally dubious medical dispensaries opening and some pot delivery services brazenly advertising that they sell outside the legal system.

Licensed shops say taxes are so onerous that they can’t compete.

Colorado, which launched legal pot sales last New Year’s Day, is facing a lawsuit from Nebraska and Oklahoma alleging that they’re being overrun with pot from the state.

And the number of patients on Colorado’s medical marijuana registry went up, not down, since 2012, meaning more marijuana users there can avoid paying the higher taxes that recreational pot carries.

Officials in both states say they must do more to drive customers into the recreational stores. They’re looking at reining in their medical systems and fixing the big tax differential between medical and recreational weed without harming patients.

And in some cases, they are considering cracking down on the proliferating black market.

“How can you have two parallel systems, one that’s regulated, paying taxes, playing by the rules, and the other that’s not doing any of those things?” said Rick Garza of the Washington Liquor Control Board, which oversees recreational pot.

The difficulty of reconciling medical marijuana with taxed recreational pot offers a cautionary tale for states that might join Washington and Colorado in regulating the adult use of the drug.

While legalisation campaigns have focused on the myriad ills of prohibition, including racial discrepancies in who gets busted for weed, the promise of additional tax revenues in tight budget times was in no small part of the appeal.

Weed sales have so far brought in some revenue, though less than officials might have hoped.

Colorado brought in more than US$60 million in taxes, licenses and fees for recreational and medical marijuana combined through October of this year, and more than half of pot sold was of the lesser-taxed medical variety.

In Washington, where supply problems and slow licensing hampered the industry after sales began in July, the state collected about US$15 million in taxes this year.

The latest states to legalise marijuana — Oregon and Alaska — have different concerns, but officials there are nevertheless paying attention to Colorado and Washington as they work on rules for their own industry.

Alaska doesn’t have commercial medical dispensaries, so licensed stores there won’t face direct competition. And in Oregon, taxes on recreational pot are set at just US$35 an ounce, which officials hope will minimise competition from the medical side.

In Seattle, however, six licensed recreational stores face competition from medical pot shops that are believed to number in the hundreds.

“Am I afraid about medical marijuana dispensaries taking my business? They have all the business. They are the industry,” said James Lathrop, the owner of Seattle’s first licensed pot shop, Cannabis City.

He said the dominance of medical marijuana and the black market is obvious in his clientele: It’s mostly tourists and professionals who use pot occasionally and don’t mind spending a little extra at a legal store.

Regular pot users have stuck with their old dealers or continue masquerading as patients, he said.

Reining in medical marijuana will be a top priority when the legislative session begins in Olympia next month.

The question, lawmakers say, is how to direct people into the regulated system — maximising state revenues — without hurting legitimately sick people who use marijuana.

Ideas under discussion include reducing pot taxes to make recreational stores more competitive and eliminating medical dispensaries, which have been largely tolerated by law enforcement even though they aren’t allowed under state law.

The state could lift its cap on the number of recreational stores and license dispensaries to sell pot for any purpose.

Seattle officials have signalled that they intend to start busting delivery services that flout the law and recently sent letters to 330 marijuana businesses warning them that they’ll eventually need to obtain state licences or be shut down.

Tacoma has also announced plans to close dozens of unregulated pot shops.

Officials have less leeway to alter the medical marijuana system in Colorado, where it was enshrined in the state constitution in 2000. But lawmakers are nevertheless set to review how it is regulated next year because the state’s 2010 scheme is expiring.

Taxes will be a large part of the discussion. Medical pot is now subject only to the statewide 2.9 per cent sales tax, one-tenth of the taxes levied on recreational pot.

Colorado’s medical marijuana registry has grown from 107,000 people in late 2012 to about 116,000, though marijuana patient advocates dispute that the growth is tax-driven.

State health officials, who oversee the registry, are planning to better scrutinise doctors who recommend large numbers of medical pot patients or who recommend more than the baseline of six plants for a patient.

The challenge for lawmakers will be countering perceptions that they’re trying to squeeze sick people for cash.

“I don’t want to wind up cracking down on people abusing the system in a way that negatively impacts the patients and the people who help them,” said Teri Robnett, founder of the Cannabis Patients Alliance.

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Medical marijuana a challenge for legal pot states

More than a dozen states plan to cancel health care policies not in compliance with ObamaCare - OPINION: ObamaCare is gift that keeps on giving - VIDEO: Many ObamaCare cancellations expected

More than a dozen states plan to cancel health care policies not in compliance with ObamaCare in the coming weeks, affecting thousands of people just before the midterm elections.

“It looks like several hundred thousand people across the country will receive notices in the coming days and weeks,” said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

The policies are being canceled because states that initially granted a reprieve at the request of President Obama are no longer willing to do so.

In coming weeks, 13 states and the District of Columbia plan to cancel such policies, which generally fall out of compliance with the Affordable Care Act because they don’t offer the level of coverage the law requires.

Virginia will be hardest hit, with 250,000 policies expected to be canceled.

And because federal law requires a 60-day notice of any plan changes, voters will be notified no later than November 1, right before the Nov. 4 midterms.

Many of those forced out of their current plans and into ObamaCare may not be able to keep their doctors. They also could face higher deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses, making ObamaCare an election issue on the eve of voting.

Obama had originally unequivocally promised that underhis health care plan, everyone could keep their doctors and plans.

In 2009, he told the American Medical Association, “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period.No one will take it away. No matter what.”

The president later was forced to admit that any plan without the additional benefits required under ObamaCare faced cancellation.

But that unleashed a nasty political backlash, forcing him to back down and call for states and insurers to extend those policies forthree more years.

Some said he didn’t have much choice. “There were some five or six million people who were at stake here and the federal exchange was in no condition to even process a few hundred thousand people much less millions,” said Joe Antos of the American Enterprise Institute.

Many states flatly refused to extend and now comes the new round of states that plan to cancel policies.

Jim Angle currently serves as chief national correspondent for Fox News Channel (FNC). He joined FNC in 1996 as a senior White House correspondent.

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More than a dozen states plan to cancel health care policies not in compliance with ObamaCare - OPINION: ObamaCare is gift that keeps on giving - VIDEO: Many ObamaCare cancellations expected

Porn scandal involving former staff puts Pa. governor on defense in already-tough race - VIDEO: Porn scandal puts Pa. gov on defense - Senate races trending GOP in battleground states - Full Coverage: Midterm Elections

Porn scandal involving former staff puts Pa. governor on defense in already-tough race - VIDEO: Porn scandal puts Pa. gov on defense - Senate races trending GOP in battleground states - Full Coverage: Midterm Elections

Cuba-United States – Something is moving

A nationwide poll in February 2014 by the Atlantic Council research institute, found that 56 percent of U.S. respondents favour changing Washington’s policy towards Cuba. (Credit: Caribbean360 / Bigstock)

Ignacio Ramonet

PARIS, France, Monday July 7, 2014, IPS - In ‘Hard Choices’, her new book about her experiences as Secretary of State during U.S. President Barack Obama’s first term (2008-2012), Hillary Clinton writes something of prime importance about Cuba – she says that late in her term in office she urged Obama to reconsider the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

“It wasn’t achieving its goals, and it was holding back our broader agenda across Latin America.”

For the first time a U.S. presidential hopeful has publicly stated that the blockade imposed by Washington on the Caribbean island – for over fifty years! – is “not achieving its goals”.

In other words, the embargo has not subdued this small country in spite of the amount of unjust suffering it has caused for its population.

The essence of Hillary Clinton’s declaration is two-fold: first, it breaks the taboo on saying out loud what everyone in Washington has known for some time: that the blockade is useless.

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And second, and more importantly, her statement comes at the moment when her campaign is being launched for the Democratic Party nomination to the White House; that is, she is not afraid that her affirmation – in opposition to all of Washington policies towards Cuba over the past half century – could be a handicap in the electoral battle she faces up until the elections of November 8, 2016.

If Hillary Clinton takes such an unorthodox position, it is because she is aware that public opinion on this topic in the United States has changed, and that the majority today is in favour of ending the blockade.

Indeed, a nationwide poll in February 2014 by the Atlantic Council research institute, found that 56 percent of U.S. respondents favour changing Washington’s policy towards Cuba.

Contrary to hopes that arose after U.S. President Barack Obama was elected in November 2008, Washington’s relations with Cuba have remained on ice. Just after taking office in April 2009, Obama announced at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago that the United States was seeking a “new beginning” in its relationship with Havana.

But he made only limited, largely symbolic, gestures, permitting Cuban Americans to visit the island and send small amounts of money to their families. Later, in 2011, he adopted further measures but these were still of limited scope: he allowed religious groups and students to travel to Cuba, authorised U.S. airports to handle charter flights to Cuba, and increased the limit on remittances Cuban Americans could send to their relatives. Not much in comparison with the huge disputes that divide the two countries.

One of their differences – the case of ‘the Cuban Five’ – has caused an international commotion. Five Cuban intelligence agents, engaged in the prevention of anti-Cuban terrorism, were detained in Florida in September 1998. They were convicted in a Cold War style political trial – a real courtroom lynching – and sentenced to long prison terms. The injustice of their treatment is clear from the fact that they had committed no acts of violence, nor spied on U.S. security secrets, but had risked their lives to prevent attacks and save human lives.

Washington is inconsistent when it claims to combat “international terrorism” yet continues to back anti-Cuban terrorist groups on its own soil. For instance, in April 2014 the Cuban authorities arrested another group of four people arriving from Florida with intent to commit attacks.

Washington’s attitude towards Cuba is still reactionary, typical of the Cold War era which has been over for a quarter of a century. Its archaic stance is in sharp contrast to the position taken by other governments.

For example, all Latin American and Caribbean states, whatever their political orientations, have recently improved relations with Cuba and denounced the blockade. This was proved in January at the summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) held in Havana.

Washington was snubbed again in May at the general assembly of the Organisation of American States (OAS) in Cochabamba, Bolivia, when Latin American countries, in a fresh show of solidarity with Havana, threatened to boycott the next Summit of the Americas scheduled for 2015 in Panama if Cuba is not invited.

For its part, the European Union decided in February to abandon its so-called “common position” on relations with Cuba, imposed in 1996 by José María Aznar, the then Spanish prime minister, to “punish” Cuba by rejecting all dialogue with the island’s authorities. But the policy proved fruitless and it failed. Brussels has recognised this and has reinstated negotiations with Havana to reach agreement on political and economic cooperation.[related_articles]

The European Union is Cuba’s biggest foreign investor and its second most important trading partner. Reflecting this new spirit, several European ministers have already visited the island.

In contrast with Washington’s immobility, many European foreign ministries are observing with interest the changes President Raúl Castro is promoting in Cuba in the framework of “updating the economic model” and the line taken at the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in 2011, which are highly significant transformations of the economy and society. The recent creation of a special development zone around the port of Mariel, and the approval in March of a new foreign investment law, in particular, have excited great international interest.

The Cuban authorities see no contradiction between socialism and private enterprise. According to some estimates, private enterprise, including foreign investment, could expand to take up 40 percent of the country’s economy, while 60 percent would remain in the hands of the state and the public sector.

The goal is for the Cuban economy to be increasingly compatible with those of its major partners in the region (Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia) where public and private sectors, the state and markets coexist.

All these changes highlight by contrast the stubbornness of the U.S. Administration, painted into the corner of an ideological position dating from another era, even if, as we have seen, more voices are raised day by day in Washington to acknowledge the error of this position and the need to abandon international isolation in terms of its Cuban policy. Will President Obama listen to them?

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Cuba-United States – Something is moving

Brazilian states hit by power cut

28 August 2013 Last updated at 20:19 ET A major power cut in Brazil has left nine states in the dark for nearly three hours.

All the state capitals in the north-east of the country were hit by the blackout, including four cities that will be hosting the 2014 World Cup.

More than two-and-a-half hours later power was restored to the state capitals, but smaller cities remained without electricity for longer.

Tens of millions of people across the region were affected.

The government said a fire in Piaui state had caused several transmission lines to go down.

The mines and energy minister, Edson Lobao, said this led to the entire north-eastern region being disconnected from the national grid.

The cause of the fire is unknown.

A spokesman for the country’s electricity regulator Aneel, reportedly said that officials had focused on restoring power before trying to determine what caused the blaze.

The states affected were Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio Grande do Norte, Piaui, Alagoas, Ceara, Paraiba, Sergipe and Maranhao.

Power cuts in Brazil are less frequent than in the past, but still happen a few times a year, particularly in the north-east.

Two major power cuts hit the region in 2012 despite recent improvements in energy infrastructure.

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Brazilian states hit by power cut

States deal with gay marriage aftermath

31 July 2013 Last updated at 19:16 ET By Kate Dailey BBC News, Washington DC The Supreme Court ruled in June that Edie Windsor should not have had to pay tax on property she inherited after her wife’s death In June, the Supreme Court issued two rulings favourable to marriage equity for gay couples. Now, US states must work through the consequences of those rulings.

For US gay rights advocates, it’s been a good summer.

In June the Supreme Court allowed for federal recognition of same-sex marriages in states where such unions are legal. They also declined to challenge a lower court decision invalidating California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

But the fight for marriage equity is far from over. In the aftermath of the court decisions, battles have raged on a state level as advocates for gay marriage try to push ahead, while those who oppose it try to stand their ground.

“Thirty-seven states still have marriage restrictions, but there’s no question that it feels different this time,” says Jennifer Pizer, director of the law and legal project at Lambda Legal, a gay rights organisation.

“This is happening with a much bigger head of steam and a much stronger sense that while there’s much more work to be done, it’s just a matter of getting it done.”

Signs of hope Continue reading the main story

Though marriage equity was signed into law in England and Wales, there is still work to be done, says Andy Wasley, a spokesperson for Stonewall UK.

“The campaign for marriage equality is still very much continuing in Scotland,” he says. “The journey isn’t over.”

And while some countries, like the Netherlands, have seen support for gay-rights groups drop once marriage equity is achieved, Mr Walsey says marriage is not the only issue at hand.

“Thousands of LGBT people are still subjected to hate crime every year,” he says.

“Most people recognise that gay people deserve the exact same rights and opportunities of everyone else. What remains is a hard core of people that don’t get that. That’s something we’ll continue to battle.”

Much of that work is being done in the courtroom.

In Virginia, Lambda Legal is pairing with the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge the state’s ban on gay marriage, while a couple in Kentucky has filed suit against their state’s ban. A couple in Oklahoma did the same, citing the Supreme Court decisions.

Other activists are working through the legislative system. In Oregon, which banned same-sex marriage in 2004, gay marriage supporters are working to have the ban reconsidered through a 2014 ballot initiative.

“There are efforts in some states to put repeal measures on the ballots, and discussions in state legislatures to allow voters to remove some of the amendments” banning gay marriage, says Ms Pizer.

There have been signs of hope for those who favour same-sex marriage rights.

A couple who married in Maryland, where gay marriage is legal, appealed to a federal judge to have their union recognised in their home state, Ohio, despite that state’s gay marriage ban.

The judge agreed, ruling that the marriage should be recognised on the death certificate of John Arthur, who is ill and expects to die soon.

A ‘crafty’ decision

Not doing so, the judge ruled, would result in grievous harm to Mr Arthur’s spouse, Jim Obergefell. The judge noted that while his decision was limited to that couple, the state’s law denied to same-sex couples the “dignity and recognition” afforded to heterosexual ones.

These challenges, says John Aravosis, who runs the website AmericaBlog, will become more frequent in the wake of the Supreme Court case United States v Windsor.

In that case, the Supreme Court ruled Edie Windsor should not have had to pay tax on property she inherited after her wife’s death. She would not be subject to such tax had she married a man.

The ruling stated that the federal government needed to recognise marriages performed in states where same-sex marriage is legal.

“Looking at the decision, it almost is a very crafty way of legalising gay marriage,” Mr Aravosis says. “It didn’t legalise it nationwide, but the way they wrote it sounds like they are trying to say ‘good luck not recognising it’.

“In a way the court helped us, but it is still requiring us to go state-by-state through the process.”

To that end, some are testing the limits of the law and the new judicial tolerance for gay marriage in other ways.

‘Untenable’

In Pennsylvania, for instance, a local official has begun issuing marriage licences to same-sex couples despite such marriages being illegal in the state. Montgomery County Register of Wills D Bruce Hanes says the state’s constitution guaranteed gay residents of Pennsylvania equal protection under the law.

“When a statute is in opposition to the constitution, I’m going to follow the constitution,” Mr Hanes said on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Since then, Mr Hanes has been sued by the state’s department of health, which demands he cease issuing licences. But Pennsylvania’s attorney general says she will not defend the state’s gay marriage ban in court.

In Cincinnati, home of Mr Arthur and Mr Obergefell, the city’s solicitor also declined to defend the state’s same-sex marriage ban.

For those who oppose gay marriage, these decisions by state officials represent a dangerous encroachment.

“It’s not a case of overstepping their bounds,” says Chris Plante, a regional director for the National Organization for Marriage. “It’s a case of lawlessness.”

It is neither appropriate nor tenable for state officials to disregard laws on the books based on their own personal beliefs, he says.

“It’s not your job to be on the ‘right side of history’,” he says. “Your job is to be on the right side of the law.”

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States deal with gay marriage aftermath