“In 2012, Washington passed a ballot measure legalizing the sale of marijuana for recreational use. Finally adults could get high without a medical excuse. The initiative established a tax and licensing regime for pot growers, processors, and retailers overseen by the Washington State Liquor Control Board, which mandates extensive product testing and package labeling for marijuana products. That’s made recreational pot about 50 percent more expensive than medical marijuana. “Those are all extra costs that are incurred under the law that medicinal pot doesn’t have,” says Lynsee Swisher, director of Nine Point Growth Industries, a licensed grower of strains such as Opal OG Kush.
Now the new retailers are hiring lobbyists to push state legislators in Olympia to regulate medical cannabis. They want medical marijuana to meet the same safety standards as recreational pot and say customers who aren’t true patients should have to buy the high-tax retail product. Some dispensaries are bringing in their own lobbyists to make sure they don’t get squeezed out. Amber Lewis was hired in November by an alliance of medical and recreational businesses that want to figure a way that’s fair to both sides. “I’ve learned that in the cannabis industry, things are very loose, until they’re not,” says Lewis.”
Read more here: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2015-01-15/pot-sellers-lobby-against-medical-marijuana-in-washington-state
Cenk Uygur (http://www.twitter.com/cenkuygur), Ana Kasparian (http://www.twitter.com/anakasparian), Jimmy Dore (http://www.twitter.com/jimmy_dore) and special guest Maz Jobrani (http://www.twitter.com/MazJobrani) discuss on The Young Turks. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.