My interest in this subject was that I felt I had a possible investment opportunity, depending on how the rules for legal pot rolled out. I abandoned that idea when I saw that the risk factors exceeded my taste. But I still follow what is going on out of curiosity.
On Monday Washington state began accepting applications for cannabis businesses (grow, process, sell). Washington requires everyone involved to begin from scratch, while Colorado grants retail licenses to existing Medical Marijuana enterprises (MMJ). So in Colorado retail pot will be for sale on January 1, while in Washington the plants will have to start growing in January. No allowance for existing MMJ outlets in Washington will be granted.
Now, it’s important to understand something. The medical marijuana laws are a sham, complete BS. There is nothing to say it works for sick people, nor anything to say it doesn’t work. There isn’t anything out there that says how it works. The reason there is not any information is that it’s been illegal, so legit studies have been impossible.
Anecdotal evidence from sick people says they feel better when partaking. Well, that might well be true because anecdotal evidence from well people indicates they feel better, too. Evidence is strong that some people, both sick and well, feel better after consuming cannabis. And that is about the entirety of what we know, scientifically, about cannabis.
Colorado is taking the approach that since the MMJ outlets were bullshit anyway and operating in an extremely gray area of the law, it would be best to convert them over to a more regulated model. Washington is cutting off the flakey MMJ outlets arguing that the new retail model will be regulated and “patients” will have the same access to their “medicine” as anyone else.
The big question is what will California do after watching Washington and Colorado. My bet is that they’ll follow the Colorado model.