LEGAL MARIJUANA SHOP SELLS OUT OF POT
By
Betty Freauf
July 18, 2014
NewsWithViews.com
Voters in Washington and Colorado approved recreational marijuana legalization laws in the fall of 2012. Colorado’s law went into effect earlier this year and Seattle’s only marijuana dispensary called Cannabis City was one of a few dozen across the state to receive a license to sell marijuana legally in Washington and after only three days, it was sold out. Washington’s legal marijuana sales raked in nearly $150,000 in excise taxes after only three days and that didn’t include state and local taxes and there are only about a dozen stores opened statewide thus far. Isn’t it the height of hypocrisy when the federal government still finds it illegal but will also tax it?
LOOKING FOR MORE POT GROWERS
And dispensaries are looking for more growers so Michael Boyer, 30, of Spokane, Washington, who proudly boasts the honor of being the first legal customer, hopes his newfound fame can help him get into the marijuana grow business. To him, it’s all been an “adventure.” He wanted to be the first guy to buy legal weed in Spokane but his notoriety caused him also to be the first to be fired from his job when he failed to comply to a drug test because he knew he couldn’t pass. Still craving publicity, the story went viral after the tie-dyed-shirt-wearing cannabis connoisseur posted his resume to Craigslist, claiming he was fired after being seen on TV buying pot. Referring to his status as the first recreational marijuana customer in Spokane, he added he was “still #1!” Later it was revealed he got his job back because the whole affair was a misunderstanding. How many readers would want this guy flying your airplane or operating on your body?
MARIJUANA CROP PROVES ONE RISK TOO MANY IN THE NINETIES
After learning that one can now legally become a marijuana entrepreneur in the State of Washington without fear of arrest, I recalled a teenager with whom I once attended high school who decided in 1992 to go into the marijuana growing business. He was a married man with children and a cattleman who also providing bucking bulls for rodeos.
If my memory serves me correctly he’d ran into financial problems so he decided to grow marijuana. He planted his marijuana and around the perimeter, he planted corn to hide the plants; however, being an amateur, the marijuana grew faster than the corn and it wasn’t long before someone tipped off authorities who discovered an unusual amount of traffic to and from the ranch at all hours of the day and night. The marijuana crop proved to be one risk too many. The good reputation his deceased parents had built over many years of hard work was now gone and the 59-year old was saying, “I’m damn sorry…”
The U.S. Attorney’s office said the agents had broken up the biggest marijuana growing operation in Eastern Washington. In January 1993 he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to grow and sell marijuana and failure to pay taxes on his drug profits. Because of liens against the property, the federal government could not easily seek forfeiture of the ranch so under a plea agreement he agreed to pay $190,000 cash for his interest in the ranch and his sons continued to run it. In exchange for a shorter sentence than the mandatory 10-year term, he agreed to testify against some of the eight others involved including a 71-year old and a 67-year old who were also indicted in the conspiracy.
CAPITALISM’S SUPPLY AND DEMAND
So now that all these years have passed and he’s about 80 years old, I can’t help but wonder if he may be considering going back into the marijuana business. You know how capitalism works – supply and demand. It is being reported shortages in the few licensed retail shops was leading to erratic business hours but the good news was the price of a gram at $25 was already coming down to $20. Democrat President Grover Cleveland was always a limited-government conservative but he understood clearly that a free market required a foundation in moral principles and without them, we would have a growing threat to justice and freedom and felt some government intervention under these circumstances was possible. What a dilemma for the federal government. If my former high school classmate was thinking at his age to go back into the business, he probably couldn’t get a license to grow the pot because he has a previous criminal conviction for doing just that – growing pot! Now, isn’t that an oxymoron? Now, if you think this is all confusing, think about the chaos involved in administering the laws by the judicial system, the police and the costs to the taxpayers to treat all the problems that will be involved including destroying the minds of young people through addictive substances. Once gold was no longer considered necessary as backing for our money, these states and the federal government itself has so mismanaged budgets over the years causing them all to be bankrupt, but can they now sell their soul to the Devil without consequences? I think not! A Colorado website: www.legalizationviolations.org documents the fallout.
AROGANT POT ENTHUSAISTS ARE PROUD TO BE A PART OF HISTORY
Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, one of the biggest backers of Washington’s legal marijuana initiative, like the Spokane man above, showed up at Seattle’s only legal pot store to be one of the first Seattlelites to make a purchase. But while the marijuana law has changed, “the workplace rule has not changed” and he apologized for taking his legally bought pot to the office thereby violating the city’s drug-free workplace policy. The federal government says it is illegal and yet they collect taxes. And yes, you read that right. The City Attorney violated the city’s drug free workplace policy. I don’t know if that could be considered arrogance or arrested development. These folks have no shame.
I’m sure some readers are wondering how we got to this deplorable morally corrupt condition where in Salem it was recently reported that two women at a licensed day care facility are being allowed to smoke their medical marijuana while children in their care are playing on the swings and on the slides.
THE I.R.S. CREATED TO HARASS
The June 2014 Schwarz Report had an article by Kelly Riddell called “George Soros and Marijuana.” Billionaire philanthropist George Soros hopes the U.S. goes to pot and he is using his money to drive it there. With a cadre of like-minded, wealthy donors, Mr. Soros is dominating the pro-legalization side of the marijuana debate by funding grass-roots initiatives that begin in New York City and end up affecting local politics elsewhere. Through a network of nonprofit groups, Mr. Soros has spent at least $80 million on the legalization effort since 1994, when he diverted a portion of his foundation’s funds to organizations exploring alternative drug policies, according to tax filings.
The year 1994 was one year after my former high school friend spent time in prison and lost control of his family ranch because he was caught growing and selling marijuana and not paying taxes on the sales. It is currently being exposed in Congressional hearings that the I.R.S with Lois Lerner in charge decided who would be allowed tax-exempt nonprofit groups. Obviously while she was zeroing in and delaying the conservative groups requesting such a nonprofit status, she’s been gladly allowing such scoundrels like Soros and his friends to have theirs.
In the Schwarz Report article, Riddell said spending by Soros has been supplemented by Peter B. Lewis, the late chairman of Progressive Insurance Co. (see their ads on T.V.)and an unabashed pot smoker who channeled more than $40 million to influence local debates, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. The two billionaires’ funding has been unmatched by anyone on the other side of the debate.
Mr. Soros makes his donations through the Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit he funds with roughly $4 million in annual contributions from his Foundation to Promote an Open Society. Mr. Soros also donates annually to the American Civil Liberties Union, which in turn funds marijuana legalization efforts, and he has given periodically to the Marijuana Policy Project, which funds state ballot measures.
GEORGE SOROS PERPETRATES THE FRAUD
Lewis, who died in November, donated to legalization efforts in his name and through the ACLU and the Marijuana Policy Project, on which he served as the chairman of the board. Lewis’ estate declined to comment for this article, said Riddell who wrote “the pro-legalization movement hasn’t come from a groundswell of the people. A great deal of its funding and fraud has been perpetrated by George Soros and then promoted by celebrities ,” said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under George W. Bush. “The truth is under attack, and it’s an absolutely dangerous direction for this country to be going in. “
Mr. Soros’ Open Society Foundation have annual assets of more than $3.5 billion, a pool from which he can dole out grants to pet projects, according to 2011 tax returns, the most recent on file for his charitable organizations.
Readers may remember Democrat Senate Leader Dirty Harry rail on and on with his cockamamie about the Koch brothers. It should be noted that David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who often are cited for their conservative influence, had $308 million tied up in their foundation and institute in 2011 compared to the $3.5 billion for Soros.
State after state decided to end the prohibition of alcohol and forced the federal government to change federal law. The same thing will happen state by state accepting the use of marijuana until the federal government follows suit. It’s the old communist axiom – two steps forward one step backward until the goal is achieved. While lacking in common sense, the Obamanization of America has caused us to become so open minded our brains have fallen out.
CONSPIRATORIAL HANDS TO BLAME
So how did it happen that we have been allowing this gradual destruction of our inheritance to take place? And when did it start? The two questions are closely related. For not only every democracy, but certainly every republic, bears within itself the seeds of its own destruction. The difference is that for a soundly conceived and solidly endowed republic it takes a great deal longer for those seeds to germinate and the plants to grow. The American republic was bound – is still bound – to following in the centuries to come the same course to destruction as did Rome. But our real ground of complaint is that we have been pushed down the demagogic road to disaster by conspiratorial hands far sooner and far faster than would have been the results of natural political evolution. These conspiratorial hands first got seriously to work in this country in the earliest years of the twentieth century.[1]
LIBERTY DEPENDS ON A STRONG FOUNDATION
From the very beginning the whole drive to convert our republic into a democracy was in two parts. One part was to make our people come to believe that we had, and were supposed to have, a democracy. The second part was actually and insidiously to be changing the republic into a democracy. The first appreciable and effective progress in both directions began with the election of Woodrow Wilson.[1]
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He was opposed to the structure imposed on the government by the constitution, for instance, the separation of powers because it impedes what he calls progress. He argued that progress and evolution had brought human beings to a place where they didn’t have to worry about limited government. But James Madison wrote in the Federalist 51: What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In other words, human nature is such that human beings need to be governed. We need government if we are not to descend into anarchy. But since human beings will make up the government, government itself must be limited or it will become tyrannical as we see today. President Barack Obama is running the government by executive orders admitting he will circumvent Congress whenever necessary.
So what can we do restore liberty.
Footnotes:
1. 2/1/1999 New American (P.30)
� 2014 Betty Freauf - All Rights Reserved
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