How Recreational-Marijuana Legalization Is Screwing Medical-Marijuana Access.

Washington continues to take one step forward and seven steps back in our legalization experiment. With new laws rapidly eroding the voter-approved Medical Use of Marijuana Act of 1998, the cannabis community is deeply divided between the "haves" (recreational retailers, growers, and processors) and the "have-nots" (medical-marijuana patients and dispensaries). What does this grave new world look like?

No-Man's Land

Dispensaries and collective gardens are being shut down across Washington, leaving the state's estimated 175,000 medical patients to wonder how in the hell they're going to get their medicine. They aren't likely to find it at recreational stores, which have little incentive to sell medicinal items such as low-THC edibles, transdermal patches, topicals, or cannabis suppositories.

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Both use and approval are down.

Houston, we have a problem (with marijuana). No, it's not that youngsters are getting stoned on the wacky weed and crashing cars or dropping out of school.

It's that they're starting to dislike the stuff.

A report released last week in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse shows that not only has cannabis use decreased among teens, but disapproval of marijuana is up. (They could have said that approval was down, but the media is so opposed to putting a positive spin on drug use, even academic news is twisted.) Taking data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the survey is stunning for both its duration, from 2002 to 2013, and breadth, with 500,000 kids across the nation polled.

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A federal judge rejected the medical marijuana defense of a member of the so-called "Kettle Falls Five" growing family and sentenced Jason Lee Zucker on Friday to 16 months in prison.

"There is no such thing as medical marijuana," U.S. District Court Judge Thomas O. Rice said. "There is no such thing in federal law."

Zucker is the first to be sentenced in the case. He pleaded guilty the day before trial began in March and testified for the federal government against Rhonda Firestack-Harvey, Rolland Gregg and Michelle Gregg, saying he twice brought more than 70 plants from his home in Seattle to the Harvey property in rural Stevens County in 2011 and 2012. Assistant U.S. Attorney Caitlin Baunsgard said Friday Zucker's testimony was "integral" to obtaining convictions against his co-defendants and urged the lighter sentence. He could have been sent to federal prison for five years.

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Legislative action reconciling marijuana markets too new to appeal, modify

In addition to a slate of candidates for local offices, it's likely that Washington voters this fall will decide two citizen initiatives. One, sponsored by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, would ban trafficking of endangered species and their parts. The other, from initiative king Tim Eyman, deals with his favorite subject: taxes.

What voters won't see on the ballot is Referendum 76, which would have overturned Washington's new medical marijuana law. The proponents notified the secretary of state's office this week that they wouldn't be submitting signatures to get it on the ballot. That clears the way for the law to go into effect Friday.

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Generating tax revenue and saving money on prosecutions-what's not to love?

The numbers for the first year of legal cannabis sales in Washington are in, and it's a bong-half-full situation. Headlines about the tax revenue from weed have ranged from "Rakes in Millions" to "predicted bonanza not materializing." The fact is, sales brought $70 million dollars to the state's coffers (off $260 million in sales, through June), which, while perhaps not what analysts had hoped for, isn't a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, either.

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Seeks Council Input

Citations Still Skew Toward Blacks in Latest Report That Made News

After another round of tickets for public pot use skewed disproportionately toward black people, a frustrated Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole asked City Council members if they want her cops to stop issuing the $27 fines.

With 72 such tickets generating national news, O'Toole said Monday she didn't want to report to the council every six months, as is the policy, about tickets written by officers responding to complaints from the public.

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PRESIDENT Obama has seized on the righteous issue of mass incarceration for the final lap of his presidency. This one has a broad ideological and bipartisan coalition behind it, with Republican senators, governors and funders (including the Koch brothers) linked with the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP.

But Obama is not going far enough.

Since the start of the war on drugs decades ago, the population in state and federal prisons has exploded by more than 500 percent. This is ruinously expensive - states' prison budgets tripled since 1990 - and explicitly unfair. The lifetime likelihood for a white male to go to prison is 1 in 17; for black men it is 1 in 3. The U.S. rate of incarceration is six times greater than China's and nearly 10 times greater than Germany's.

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Second Study

More Than Half of the 85 Tickets Issued in Downtown Parks

The second study of marijuana-use tickets issued by Seattle police looks much like the first: Blacks are disproportionately cited for marijuana use, men received about 90 percent of the tickets and downtown parks are again popular places for officers to hand out tickets.

Results of the police department's study, which is required by city ordinance, will be discussed at 9:30 a.m. Monday during a City Council briefing.

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An Afghanistan/Iraq vet faces a life sentence for less than an ounce. Thanks, Oklahoma.

The Good

Oregon has joined Alaska, Colorado, D.C., and our own great state in the Brotherhood of Ganja, officially legalizing marijuana on July 1. In several ways, the Oregonians are doing it better than us, allowing home grows (four plants each), setting the tax at 17 percent (as compared to our newly lowered but still obnoxious 37 percent excise tax), expunging the records of those with cannabis convictions, and even letting citizens fly with weed within the state. Oregon also allows the most pot per person of any of the legal states: up to half a pound of Grade A herb (eight ounces) as compared to our paltry single-ounce (or 28-gram) limit. Adults 21 and over can carry up to an ounce of cannabis and have a pound of edibles in their homes, as well as 72 ounces of cannabis-infused liquids. To get a sense of how much weed you can possess, the Portland Police Bureau's handy reference guide compares chronic quantities to the city's famous Voodoo donuts.

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Washington state took in $65 million in tax revenue from the recreational marijuana market during the first 12 months since it became legal to produce and sell, according to data released by state regulators last week. The revenue was generated by cannabis sales of more than $260 million from June 2014 to June 2015, according to data released by the Washington State Liquor Control Board.

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Wash. State: Still No Useful Data on Usage, Effects After Yearlong Legal Sales Initiative

Washington state's first year of legal pot sales has brought in millions in new tax revenue, but critics have raised concerns over how that money's been spent, and what effect legalization could have on public health.

The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs opposed the legalization initiative from the outset, and at the close of the first year of legal sales, executive director Mitch Barker still says it's "bad public policy."

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WASHINGTON STATE: Tax Revenue Hits a Whopping $65 Million on Sales of $259 Million, but Critics Have Concerns About the Public Health Toll

BELLINGHAM, Wash. - A year ago today, Zack Henifin packed more than 10 pounds of marijuana - about $28,000 worth - into a pickup truck and drove in the small hours of the morning from Bremerton to Whatcom County, a state trooper following him as he headed into his place of business.

When the cop, off-duty at the time and there for Henifin's security, and Henifin, manager of Top Shelf Cannabis in Bellingham, arrived at their destination around 3 a.m., customers were already lined up outside the store.

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"It's either understanding one another, or destruction!"

Ricardo, it turns out, is Honduran, but he looks black to me. We've known each other for several years in passing; he plays percussion in Faith Beattie's jazz trio at the Queen City Grill, where I frequently drink heavily. We've exchanged smiles and nods, and I've thrown a few quid into the tip jar on nights I feel flush.

Last week we sat outside at adjacent tables to beat the heat and smoke, Ricardo sucking on a cigar and me with my Firefly vaporizer (both illegal, as we were too close to the entrance). I noted Ricardo's swank Panama hat, and we started in on small talk. Eventually we got around to the issues of the day in a week that had some doozies: The Confederate battle flag had come down and same-sex marriage had been approved by a venomously divided Supreme Court, along with key rulings supporting national health care and fair housing. Marijuana, too, had had a major victory thanks to the White House, which lifted a longstanding restriction on research on medical marijuana by eliminating the Public Health Service review imposed in 1999 and allowing scientists to legally investigate the health benefits of cannabis.

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WHAT HAPPENED? The revenue bonanza predicted by some for recreational marijuana hasn't materialized in the first year; nor have the horrors imagined by opponents.

Before Washington voters could decide on legal weed, finance whizzes in state government had to project its tax bounty.

The forecasters looked into their Excel tables and shrugged.

The state's take, they said, from pot taxes in the first year of sales could be nothing - or could be as much as $249 million. That was the uncertain future facing an untested state-regulated system operating in defiance of the federal ban on all marijuana.

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Two New Laws Aim to Give Some Relief to Farmers, Processors and Retailers

SEATTLE (AP) - Washington launched its second-in-the-nation legal marijuana market with just a handful of stores selling high-priced pot to long lines of customers. A year later, the state has about 160 shops open, tax revenues have soared past expectations and sales top $1.4 million per day. And, who knows - the industry might even start making some money.

Washington pot farmers, processors and retailers have complained all year that heavy state and federal tax burdens, along with competition from an unregulated medical marijuana market, have made it difficult for them to do business.

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EVERETT - For the first time since the legal marijuana shops opened a year ago, the city of Everett is moving toward a permanent ordinance regulating how and where the new businesses will operate.

Everett has been operating under six-month temporary ordinances since November 2013.

Since then, three retail stores have opened in the city, but no marijuana production or processing businesses have opened. Businesses and residents have been waiting and lobbying the city to adopt a permanent measure.

The current ordinance expires July 27.

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Five shows commemorate a decade each for the Grateful Dead.

In this era of fly-by-night fame, one-hit wonders, and lame-ass reality "stars," any group of artists who can create a true following over half a century needs to be recognized and respected.

The Grateful Dead, the legendary improvisational stoner band, is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a five-show "Fare Thee Well" tour, which started June 27 in Santa Clara, Calif., and will wrap up July 5 at Soldier's Field, Chicago. The long-sold-out shows (which will be streamed on YouTube) offer a chance to reflect on what makes this band so unique and beloved.

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NEARLY two-thirds of Americans now live in a state that allows medical marijuana in some form. Just this year, five Southern states, including Texas, allowed limited access to therapies based on cannabis. The revolt against the blanket federal marijuana prohibition has now spread to at least 29 states.

Yet using marijuana as medicine - and it clearly can be useful medicine - can get you fired in most of those states (and the District of Columbia), even if the use is off the clock. The Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed that last week, echoing similar cases in Washington, Oregon and California, where there are no mandatory workplace accommodations for therapeutic use of cannabis.

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The Launch of the the National Cannabis Bar Association, and More Good News.

Sooner or later, everything winds up in court. You spilled a scalding cup of java on your nads at the McDonald's drive-through; the insurance company refuses to pay for "water damage"; you're tired of arsenic in the drinking water; ya feel like suing Costco . . . just because. And now that cannabis is entering the mainstream, it's time to lawyer up, in this week's legal round-up.

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Seattle Dispensaries Included in Study

Items From Here Had Less THC Than Indicated

Yet another sampling of marijuana products has found inaccurate labeling of potency.

A new article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reports that all but one of the 23 edible products bought in Seattle medical-marijuana dispensaries last year were improperly labeled. Most of the baked goods, beverages and candy contained less THC than their labels said. THC is the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana.

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