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The Los Angeles Cannabis Task Force, one of the leading cannabis organizations in California's largest city, has announced a call-to-action for citizens to appear at The City of Los Angeles Planning Department's Hearing on the City of LA Proposed Land Use Regulations associated with cannabis legalization and Voice Opposition to the Proposed Regulatory Structure. The Hearing will occur at the City of Los Angeles Planning Department Hearing on Thursday June 29 at 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon in Room 1010 of Los Angeles City Hall. The LA City Hall is located at 200 N. Spring St, Los Angeles CA 90012. The LA Cannabis Task Force is urging its members and the public to CONFRONT THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT ON FOLLOWING ISSUES: Issue 1). The City should issue licenses, not "certificates of compliance with limited immunity." Rationale: All other cities and counties in California regulating cannabis are issuing licenses Under the proposed draft regulations, City will not issue licenses for commercial cannabis businesses. Instead, the City will issue “Certificates of Compliance” and give cannabis businesses limited immunity from enforcement. "Limited immunity" does not mean lawful, or licensed. The City’s proposed regulations perpetuate the failed limited immunity of Proposition D. It is not clear whether the State of California will recognize a "Certificate of Compliance". In California, cannabis businesses are required to secure local licenses before applying for a state license. Gov. Brown’s administration has alreadyrejected limited immunity as a licensing structure. All other cities and counties in California regulating cannabis are issuing licenses. Issue 2). The proposed regulations go against the will of California voters, Los Angeles voters, the Legislature, and the Governor. Rationale: Medical and recreational cannabis use is legal in California. Californians have spoken again…and again…and again: Medical cannabis has been legal in California since 1996. Governor Brown signed the Medical Cannabis Regulation Act in 2015. 64% of California voters approved Proposition 64 in 2016. 80% of LA voters approved Measure M in 2016. ISSUE BUSINESS LICENSES NOT CERTIFICATES OF COMPLIANCE Issue 3). 800 feet between dispensaries and from sensitive uses is too restrictive and will limit the retail market. Distances should be measured from building to building, not property line to property line. Rationale: State law calls for 600 feet. The City of LA should follow State law, and not create a more restrictive environment in the largest cannabis market in the world. This proposed regulation will drive up illicit operators, increase public safety issues, and not allow the City to properly deal with real demand. Issue 4). Volatile Manufacturing (Type 7 License) must be an allowed use in the City of Los Angeles. Rationale: Volatile Manufacturing is recognized by the State of California as an allowable use. It is already used in products that we use and consume every day. Hydrocarbon Extraction is an U.S. FDA approved extraction method used to make common household vegetable oils, fish oils, perfumes, dessert flavorings, and more. We consume these products every day. It is as safe as a backyard propane grill. Certified operators work in OSHA compliant facilities, following safety standards established by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) - all to handle petroleum gases no more dangerous than the propane found in backyard grills and apartment kitchens all across the city. It is best for consumers and the environment. Hydrocarbon extraction is the most efficient production method by an order of magnitude, keeping product prices affordable for citizens. It produces the best tasting products, which are more resistant to microbiotic growth & molds found in other extracts. In a regulated lab, it generates no toxic waste, making it ideal for the local environment.

Well before the day in 1937 that the US Congress effectively voted to make cannabis illegal, barrels of ink had been spilled demonizing the fast-growing plant with vast potential for industrial use and limited negative health effects when used recreationally. The 1937 Marijuana Tax Act came just four years after the prohibition of alcohol was ended with the 21st Amendment. Like the prohibition of alcohol - the only true outcome of which was the establishment of organized crime in the US - the Prohibition of cannabis has created international drug cartels, has cost US taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, while the potency and availability has increased, and price has gone down. The end of Prohibition created another actor in the everyone-hates-cannabis game: the Alcohol Industry. The industry has enormous economic impact and therefore, power. So when we read headlines like: "The Beer Industry Could Lose $2 Billion From Legal Marijuana" it's only natural to think of the situation in economic terms.* (Of course, it's only a short jump to recognize that the "$2 Billion" the beer industry claims would NOT be lost to the US economy, it would simply move to another industry. And if any jobs were lost, they could follow the same path. AND, if the beer industry really has a $350 Billion total economic impact on the US economy, then the $2B loss predicted to cannabis would equate to .006% - boo hoo!) But LET'S NOT FORGET that alcohol does not only equate to stock prices and jobs. It equates to a great deal of pain, suffering, and even death. According to the US Center for Disease Control almost 22,000 people die from alcohol poisoning the US each year "On average, six (6) persons, mostly adult men, die from alcohol poisoning each day in the United States" And according to the National Institute of Health: An estimated 88,0009 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the fourth leading preventable cause of death in the United States. In 2014, alcohol-impaired driving fatalities accounted for 9,967 deaths (31 percent of overall driving fatalities). More than 10 percent of U.S. children live with a parent with alcohol problems, according to a 2012 study. Drinking alcohol increases the risk of cancers of the mouth, esophagus, pharynx, larynx, liver, and breast. If cannabis use makes a dent in alcohol use in the US, how can this be considered a bad thing? image source: http://www.fullthrottlebottles.com/images/beer-bottles.jpg

Applications for cannabis business licenses are now available in the State of Arkansas, via the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission website. Two types of applications are currently available: cultivation and dispensaries. Applications will be accepted from June 30 to September 18, 2017. During this initial launch of the Arkansas program, five (5) licenses will be awarded for cultivation, and thirty-two (32) for dispensaries, with 4 licenses allocated for each of 8 geographic zones identified by the commission. The Rules and Regulations for applications appear to be generally similar to those of other states with recently release applications. See the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission's Rules & Regulations HERE. Arkansas voters last year approved a measure to allow the use, cultivation and sale of medical cannabis, then passed an amendment making it easier for physicians to recommend medicinal cannabis. Image source: Vidiani.com (map)

After raking in $1.7 Million in non-refundable application fees from 177 companies for the State of Pennsylvania, the Department of Health has awarded 12 licenses for grow operations throughout the state. This is the first round of cannabis business licenses in the state. Next week, results for the dispensary applications will be released. Twenty-seven (27) dispensary licenses are anticipated to be awarded in this round. The 12 cultivation licenses were made available in each of 6 geographical regions - 2 licenses per region. Interestingly the state's largest city - Philadelphia - was shut out for grow operations. The cultivation license decision caused a bit of a stir, as one of the winners was led by a former senior state government official. However the DOH quickly replied its procedures were designed to be objective and allow no favoritism. According to Philly.com, the winner in question, John Hanger, had served as former Governor Wolf's policy chief, in addition to previously serving as secretary of Department of Environmental Protection under Gov. Rendell, and he ran for governor himself on a platform to legalize cannabis. Hanger and his applicant team seem quite qualified to have won the license fair and square. He is chairman of the board of Franklin Labs LLC, which is already operating in Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, where it was the highest scorer to get a license. The Round 1 Pennsylvania Cannabis Cultivation permit winners are: — Prime Wellness of Pennsylvania LLC, Sinking Spring, Berks County. — Franklin Labs LLC, Reading, Berks County. — Pennsylvania Medical Solutions LLC, Scranton, Lackawanna County. — Standard Farms LLC, White Haven, Luzerne County. — Ilera Healthcare LLC, Waterfall, Fulton County. — AES Compassionate Care LLC, Chambersburg, Franklin County. — Terrapin Investment Fund 1 LLC, Jersey Shore, Clinton County. — GTI Pennsylvania LLC, Danville, Montour County. — AGRiMED Industries of PA LLC, Carmichaels, Greene County. — PurePenn LLC, McKeesport, Allegheny County. — Holistic Farms LLC, New Castle, Lawrence County. — Cresco Yeltrah LLC, Brookville, Jefferson County. Image source: Vidiani.com (map) and the PA Department of Health Twitter feed.

Some of America's best cannabis writers performed bodyslams against the federal prohibition of cannabis last week, and some of America's more respected publications published them. The research, reasoning, and writing quality on display here are REALLY worth your time: Read "Jeff Sessions’ Medical Marijuana Memo is Not What America Needs" in Salon.com Read "Pot Activists Have Been Holding Their Breath for Months on Jeff Sessions" on CNN.com Read "Medical Marijuana Bill Aims to Fight Jeff Sessions' Renewed War on Drugs" on RollingStone.com Read "Jeff Sessions' War on Medical Marijuana Gets Public Health All Wrong" on Wired.com Read "Jeff Sessions's Reefer Madness" at Forbes.com Photo credit: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg/Getty @ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/medical-marijuana-bill-aims-to-fight-sessions-war-on-drugs-w488311

Say what you will about Roger Stone's politics, but in the launch video for his US Cannabis Coalition, he makes a number of compelling arguments. WATCH THIS VIDEO: BUT... considering the website is so wonky (let us know if you can make the Subscribe Box go away once it's been utilized) it seems fair to ask: is this legit, or a high tech fishing expedition for intel on the cannabis community?

No one was surprised when Oregon Senators Ron Wyden (D) and Earl Blumenauer (D) paired up to write the "Path to Marijuana Reform", a bipartisan package of three related bills that address issues such as taxation, banking, civil forfeiture, descheduling, decriminalization, research, individual protections and regulation. And no one was (too) surprised when the US Attorney General announced a counter attack on cannabis. Nor when he recently redoubled his attack. But eyebrows are certainly raising lately around pairings in the cannabis legalization dance. In the latest installation of political "Now what?", allow the American Cannabis Report to present: Roger Stone & Jesse Ventura: Stone announced on Friday at the Cannabis World Congress and Business Expo in New York the formation of the bipartisan United States Cannabis Coalition, an advocacy group with the express purpose of protecting state's rights to legalize and regulate [cannabis]." Rand Paul and Al Franken: (and Cory Booker & Lisa Murkowski) (and Mike Lee & Kirsten Gillibrand)... "...are supporting a bill that would protect states that allow medical marijuana from any federal interference. This legislation would also remove current obstacles to medical marijuana research." The Senate Bill is "a new version of the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States Act of 2015 (CARERS) originally introduced by Sen. Booker two years ago and that was also sponsored by the bipartisan group of senators pushing the new legislation." Image source: GQ

Nora D. Volkow, M.D., is the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Paraphrasing from her professional bio, while in college at the National University of Mexico in Mexico City, she received the Robins Award for Best Medical Student of her Generation. Her psychiatric residency was at New York University, where she earned the Laughlin Fellowship Award as One of the 10 Outstanding Psychiatric Residents in the USA. Dr. Volkow has published more than 600 peer-reviewed articles and written more than 95 book chapters and non-peer-reviewed manuscripts, and has also edited three books on neuroimaging for mental and addictive disorders." For her work, Dr. Volkow has acknowledged with multiple professional awards including being induction into the Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Hall of Fame; membership in the Institute of Medicine in the National Academy of Sciences, and the International Prize from the French Institute of Health and Medical Research for her pioneering work in brain imaging and addiction science. The media has taken note of her expertise and significance in the global medical community. Time Magazine has named her “Top 100 People Who Shape Our World”; Newsweek named her “One of the 20 People to Watch”; Washingtonian magazine has called her one of “100 Most Powerful Women” and U.S. News & World Report named her “Innovator of the Year”. With all of her training, experience, expertise, and international acclaim, it is baffling that Dr. Volkow uses the term "marijuana" when describing cannabis. Just goes to show the devastating power of a century of anti-cannabis propaganda.

The American Legion, representing millions of American military veterans, has come out strongly in favor of testing and availability of medicinal cannabis for veterans who are suffering from a variety of war-related injuries. "After 16 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, many Americans view post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and traumatic brain injury, or TBI, as the “signature” wounds of these conflicts. The Department of Veterans Affairs has spent billions of dollars to better understand the symptoms, effects, and treatments for these injuries. But despite advances in diagnostics and interventions in a complex constellation of physical, emotional, behavioral and cognitive defects, TBI and PTSD remain leading causes of death and disability within the veteran community." For many veterans, the results of devastating injuries, poor understanding of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, and a variety of onerous side effects caused by opioids, in particular, cause about 20 former service people to commit suicide each day. This disgraceful statistic must be solved. The American Legion continued: "The Trump administration should lead a new effort to combat opioid abuse, and it should include the elimination of barriers to medical research on cannabis." in press conference this week, VA Secretary David Shulkin, who is also a medical doctor, was asked “As a physician, what’s your opinion?” [on medicinal cannabis and the effects of federal prohibition]: To which Shulkin responded: “My opinion is, is that some of the states that have put in appropriate controls, there may be some evidence that this is beginning to be helpful. And we’re interested in looking at that and learning from that. But until the time that federal law changes, we are not able to be able to prescribe medical marijuana for conditions that may be helpful.” image source for David Shulkin photo: Susan Walsh, Associated Press WATCH THE VIDEO OF THE SPEECH:

As a $multi-billion business nationwide, the cannabis / banking conundrum bedevils industry professionals and regulators alike. Perhaps most simply put, cannabis is illegal on the federal level and banks - whose deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Company - will not (for the most part) accept cannabis-derived funds, even if those funds are generated in a state where cannabis is legal. UPDATE: Here's an even more recent example of banks-against-cannabis. One of the biggest challenges to cannabis businesses of this cannabis banking/ financing issue is the much higher cost of managing payments and cash. The COST of the security apparatus required to manage large amounts of cash dwarfs the cost of normal business banking. Another added cost to a cannabis business is insurance. "Generally speaking, cannabis businesses that do have insurance have been getting so-called surplus line insurance, meant to cover risks that are too high for a traditional insurance company to take on. Surplus line policies almost always tend to be more expensive and have stricter requirements than licenses carriers in most cases." According to this article in Leafly, "California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones wants to change that." READ MORE Image source: Rich Pedroncelli/AP

A hundred centuries ago, hemp (non-psychoactive variety of the cannabis plant) was first spun into usable fiber. It was a Tuesday in May, like today. That last sentence is only half true - the part about hemp being a key part of Ancient Asian and Mediterranean civilizations for 10,000 years, as well as European and American civilizations more recently. From our friends at Wikipedia: "Commercial production of hemp in the West took off in the eighteenth century, but was grown in the sixteenth century in eastern England. Because of colonial and naval expansion of the era, economies needed large quantities of hemp for rope and oakum." And from the hemp history site Hemphasis: "In 1619, because hemp was such an important resource, it was illegal not to grow hemp in Jamestown, Virginia. Massachusetts and Connecticut had similar laws. During the 1700's, subsidies and bounties were granted in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, North & South Carolina, and the New England states to encourage hemp cultivation and the manufacturing of cordage and canvas." Now, eighty years after anti-cannabis propaganda led to its prohibition around the world, hemp is once again legal in South Carolina. It's about time! image source: http://www.vidiani.com

A South Dakota jury on Wednesday cleared a consultant of drug charges after he helped an American Indian tribe grow marijuana for a pot resort that the tribe once hoped would include a nightclub, an outdoor music venue and bring in millions of dollars. It took the jury two hours to reject state charges against Monarch America CEO Eric Hagen of "conspiracy to possess, possession by aiding and abetting and attempted possession of more than 10 pounds of marijuana" Cannabis is illegal in South Dakota and the possession charge carried a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and $30,000 fine. The case involves a well-publicized plan for the Flandreau Santee Sioux tribe to increase its revenues by creating one of the nation’s first legal marijuana resorts where sales and consumption for adults 21 and over were to be permitted. The facility was located on tribal lands, and approved in tribal regulations. The tribe pursued the resort in 2015 after the Justice Department cleared the way for tribes to grow and sell marijuana under the same conditions as states that legalized pot. Regardless of that advice, the state and FBI threatened to raid the facility, forcing the tribe to burn a $1Million cannabis crop. Many believe that the case was never really about Eric Hagen, but rather that politically motivated State representatives, including Attorney General Marty Jackley who is running for governor in 2018, and Assistant Attorney General Bridget Mayer, brought the suit as a way to demonstrate State dominance over tribal authority. This is an notable maneuver considering the current governor, Dennis Daugaard, established the first Office of Tribal Relations in his cabinet, appointing J.R. LaPlante (Cheyenne River Sioux) as its Secretary. Also, American Indians, largely Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota (Sioux) are predominant in several counties. South Dakota [as of 1999] the third highest proportion of Native Americans of any state, behind Alaska and New Mexico.[13] Five of the state's counties lie entirely within Indian reservations. [Photo source: (Emily Spartz Weerheim/The Argus Leader via AP, File]