DOJ Letting Colorado and Washington MMJ Laws move forward.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/eric-holder-marijuana-washington-colorado-doj_n_3837034.html

So how does this effect us and our California Laws already in Place?

I am guessing this means less fed threats to dispensaries etc..??? God I hope so. Im in Socal and Damn near ALL the brick n morter shut down. Only one is still open and staying on the DL. Everything else is delivery at this point. We need to be the next "legal" state imo.

Only for the right reasons.

My guess is that this means no more DEA raids, but cities still have the right to ban dispensaries and delivery services. So illegal dispensaries will still get raided but by which agency I don't know.

What I am concerned about and desperately trying to figure out is when legalization comes, and it will, where do I need to be in order to open a legit growing business, or dispensary. I just hope prices don't fall too far.

There will still be raids.
Any time they think they broke any other federal law, they will raid them. They also did not say anything about filing your taxes illegally. It is illegal in tax code to claim any income from selling pot, or from a dispensary. So there is still this loop hole in the law and letter the DOJ sent out.
The IRS will not do a audit until the DEA clears the building.

HTP said:

There will still be raids.
Any time they think they broke any other federal law, they will raid them. They also did not say anything about filing your taxes illegally. It is illegal in tax code to claim any income from selling pot, or from a dispensary. So there is still this loop hole in the law and letter the DOJ sent out.
The IRS will not do a audit until the DEA clears the building.

Click to expand...

I found your Tax Code comment interesting, as I had not thought about it.. And then wonder how Harbor Side has been paying their taxes? I dont believe they are up on any Tax evasion charges?

Also caught some people talking about it on TV the other night, and one mentioned how the DOJ's job is to enforce the Law and not Create or Change it,, That's Congresses job. Thought that was an interesting comment as well.

If they are a non-profit they do not pay taxes.
But lets just say they do pay taxes, claiming income from illegal sales is still illegal sales. This is how the they have been doing a lot of the raids in cali. Claiming tax fraud.
When Obama said he would leave states alone, the DEA got mad. A lot of in fighting broke out so to speak. They came up with the above plan from the inside.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f3949a.pdf
Any one can fill that form out and start the ball rolling on a raid on any one who is filing there taxes.

And it takes one more Step!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/30/banks-marijuana_n_3842526.html

Now they are going to let Banks work with MMJ Businesses, so the Businesses can get off the Cash Only model.

They are thinking about it, its not 100% yet. But getting there.
However I would also like to point out that, VISA, MastCard, AMEX, and the never used Discover card, are private businesses. They can block a sale from any business they wish.
I.E. AMEX Will not let you buy any porn. Visa will not let you buy gaming chips, but you can get a cash advance. How wants to bet they jump on the wagon and say no to pot also?

I know you are asking about how this can or will affect california. IDK, because we do not have recreational laws yet. But I will say this: I do not trust the feds. I think they are setting wash and colo up for a downfall so they can keep it schedule 1 for all eternity. They are frustrated, because the American people are saying we know better than the govt. They repealed prohibition on alcohol, and now look at all the problems we have that go along with it. They don't want history to repeat itself. I just don't trust them.

What problems go along with alcohol that means is should still be prohibited ? If your talking about abuse and DUI/accidents it is the person for not being responsible.

HTP said:

There will still be raids.
Any time they think they broke any other federal law, they will raid them. They also did not say anything about filing your taxes illegally. It is illegal in tax code to claim any income from selling pot, or from a dispensary. So there is still this loop hole in the law and letter the DOJ sent out.
The IRS will not do a audit until the DEA clears the building.

Click to expand...

Not exactly. It's legal to claim income and pay taxes on a federal crime, it's just illegal to take any deductions on it. That's the harborside issue. The IRS says it's ok for them to claim income, but they can't claim payroll deductions on budtenders.

Either way, I don't think we will see the IRS being used as a weapon any longer. They got in some trouble with that. Republicans complained about Tea Party organizations being unfairly targeted by the IRS but when they looked into it a little more they also noticed that collectives were being unfairly targeted. Complains were made by congressional democrats.

I think we've seen an end to the raids for the most part. Since the election ended no new letters have been sent to landlords and a lot of the letters that were sent out right before the election got ignored and there were no penalties. I know of several dispensaries that got letters from the DEA saying that they needed to close or face a prison sentence but continued to stay open. Nothing happened.

There weren't actually a whole lot of prosecutions that came out of this last round of DEA letters. BPG, Richard Lee, and Harborside got in some trouble, but not many more than that. There weren't actually very many raids. Most of the clubs that got raided were the high profile ones who decided they wanted to put themselves on TV.

If there is more DEA action, IMO they will be limited in scope to dispensaries who run their mouths off on TV or are within 1200 ft of a school. Other than that I think dispensaries are pretty safe in Cali. I think Colorado and Washington can expect a round of similar actions where most of the DEA letters will be empty threats but they'll single out a couple high profile clubs to make an example out of them.

I think it's going to be nearly impossible for the DEA to target medical dispensaries in California while allowing for profit non-medical businesses to exist in two states.