Pubdate: Wed, 04 Sep 2013
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Authors: John Ingold and Eric Gorski
Page: 1A

POT SPILLING OUT OF STATE

Legalization of the Drug in Colorado Will Only Increase Its Export,
Police Say.

Marijuana is flowing into the black market and out of Colorado in
greater quantities than ever before, law enforcement officials say.

It's going by car and by bus. It's being packed up and shipped through
the mail. It's being found, in small amounts and large bundles, as far
away as Illinois, New York and Florida.

Earlier this year, 42 pounds of high-grade, vacuum-sealed marijuana
was flown into Atchison, Kan., in a small red-and-white airplane.
Acting on a tip, a team of law enforcement officers pounced on the
plane immediately after it landed, seized the marijuana and put four
Colorado residents in handcuffs.

"I think they thought they were going to sneak in," Atchison's police
chief, Mike Wilson, said recently.

The movement of Colorado marijuana into neighboring states has
scarcely escaped the attention of police in those states, who say they
have started tracking it more closely and believe Colorado's
legalization of pot will only increase the influx.

"It's already got a reputation in Oklahoma because of how strong it
is," Mark Woodward, the spokesman for Oklahoma's Bureau of Narcotics
and Dangerous Drugs, said of Colorado marijuana. "No question, the
more access you have, the more demand you're going to have for this."
To be sure, cross-border marijuana trafficking has long occurred, and
marijuana grown in Colorado for out-of-state distribution remains
illegal under state law. Mason Tvert, one of the advocates behind
marijuana legalization in Colorado, said the state's new laws will cut
down on black-market demand within the state, allowing officials to
focus on the out-of-state traffickers.

"It's still illegal," Tvert said. "Our government should be focusing
its time on preventing illegal cultivation and sales."

It is also uncertain exactly how much pot is leaving the state's
borders - or how much the activity has increased.

Seizure numbers are an imprecise measurement of activity, in part
because law enforcement agencies and drug traffickers constantly
change tactics in their cat-and-mouse game. Reporting seizure numbers
to the Drug Enforcement Agency is voluntary. And investigators rely
many times on interviews with suspects - who may be unreliable-in
determining that the marijuana originated in Colorado.

"Right now, I don't think anyone knows how much marijuana is leaving
Colorado," said Sam Kamin, a University of Denver law professor who
has studied marijuana policy issues.

Still, Colorado pot is clearly moving into neighboring
states.

The DEA's El Paso Intelligence Center reported that, for 2012, 3 1/2
tons of Colorado marijuana that was destined for other states was
seized by law enforcement agencies across the country. That's up more
than 300 percent from 2009, when a little over three-quarters of a ton
of Colorado marijuana was seized.

Likewise, U.S. postal inspectors have seen a jump in seizures of
packages containing marijuana mailed in Colorado to other states -
from 15 in 2010 to 209 through the first five months of 2013.

"We're seeing a substantial increase in domestic cannabis that
originates in the Denver area over the last three or four years," said
Kansas Highway Patrol Lt. B.K. Smith.

That's a problem for Colorado officials, and not just because it makes
the neighbors angry.

In a memo released last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced
it would allow marijuana legalization, including recreational
marijuana stores, to go forward without federal interference. If
Colorado fails to keep its marijuana within its borders, the Justice
Department memo said federal prosecutors may decide to intervene.

But regulators and law enforcement officials in the state say stopping
diversion will be difficult. Even with tightly regulated marijuana
stores, there are simply too many ways for pot to flow into the black
market and out of Colorado for officials to be able to halt the
current flow entirely.

The incentives to illegal growers are clear: Marijuana that sells in
the black market in Colorado for as little as $2,000 a pound can go
for $4,000 a pound just across state lines and perhaps $6,000 a pound
on the East Coast, said Denver police Sgt. Andrew Howard.

"It's simple market forces," said Howard, who is on the department's
marijuana task force. "People (here) think it's legal. People think
the cops don't care about it being unregulated, so let's take
advantage of the system."

Diversion from marijuana stores has received the most attention from
regulators, but that is perhaps the least likely source, experts say.
Licenses for legal pot shops will be expensive and hard to get.

"I would be very surprised if people growing legally under a state
system are also growing illegally for export," said Mark Kleiman, a
professor at UCLA who was helped Washington state write its rules for
recreational marijuana stores. "Those licenses are valuable."

There are still plenty of ways, though, for pot in Colorado to move
across state lines. Medical marijuana patients, caregivers or people
growing at home can move small amounts. Shoppers can buy up marijuana
bit by bit at stores and then resell the whole sum in another state.
And, perhaps most worrying for officials, black marketers can try to
hide beneath Colorado's laws to run explicitly illegal operations.

Tom Allman, the sheriff of Mendocino County in California, long a
hotbed of illicit marijuana growing, said Colorado should be prepared.
He predicted the state's new marijuana laws would lead to more illegal
growers trying their luck in the state.

"I think they just roll their dice," Allman said. "We have been told
by growers they are leaving California and they're going to Colorado."

Tvert said it wouldn't make sense for black marketers to move to a
state so concerned about marijuana regulation. But it's that
possibility that most concerns Colorado Attorney General John Suthers.

With a good enough tracking system, the state may be able to stop
marijuana from leaking out of commercial growing operations, Suthers
said. Plugging all sources, though, in what could become the nation's
cannabis heartland may prove impossible.

"Our legal system gives you a kind of cover," he said. "I think that's
going to become the view: As far as marijuana is concerned, this is
the Wild West."
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