This possibly has already been posted. Some food for thought. We had a really good medical cannabis industry here. Almost anyone could get a medical mj card. Things have changed drastically here. Not really for the better IMO.
I do like the fact that many people will be released from prison due to the new laws but that should happen anyway. It's crazy to keep someone in prison for life due to cannabis. I like the idea of legalization but not the way we did it here. Keep on top of what is going on so you don't get screwed over and not realizing it. There was nothing the medical cannabis advocates could do.
The legal Cannabis lobbyists had the money and the lawmakers ruined the medical csnnabis here. They voted in something the medical cannabis community didn't want. Many of our fav dispensaries were forced to shut down or get arrested. My fav dispensary was raided because they refused to shut down. They were protesting the new law. These really nice people still need to go to court. They could end up in prison and with a big fine.
From my experience buying at the state stores in Oct 2016 a cost of a gram is up by about $3. You can still get the $10 grams but those are generally low in THC or it's been on their shelf awhile. My cannabis now is somewhat drier than the dispensary days. Still is kickass though and good flavor from what I've bought so far. It's weird though everything is prepackaged and sealed up. You can't smell it beforehand. Sorry so long of a post.
CK
This week, hundreds of marijuana dispensaries will be shuttered. How did that happen? Wed Jun 29th, 2016 1:30am
This week, hundreds of marijuana dispensaries will be shuttered. How did that happen?The evening of November 6, 2012, will live long in the memories of many progressive Seattleites. It was a night of raucous celebration in the heart of Seattle as a singular mass of bodies danced at the corner of Pike Street and 10th Avenue.
In the tide of humanity, a middle-aged man with a gray beard and a plaid blue shirt sprayed the crowd around him with champagne. People kissed and danced, screamed and cheered, laughed and exchanged high-fives. A Barack Obama impersonator made the rounds, allowing celebrants to take pictures beside him. Musicians with various horns crawled through the crowd as well, trumpeting their joy to the skies. The pungent scent of cannabis faded in and out.
The celebration was on account of three things: Barack Obama, gay marriage, and legal pot. On this election night, the nation’s first African-American president had just won re-election, and Washington state voters had chosen, through ballot initiative, to legalize same-sex marriage and recreational cannabis. Each of those victories would have been unthinkable even 10 years before, so it makes sense that people took to the streets to mark the occasion.
But not everyone was celebrating. While Washington’s vote to legalize recreational marijuana—along with a similar measure in Colorado that passed on the same night—was a watershed moment in our country’s retreat from the War on Drugs, it was also the beginning of the end of the state’s medical-marijuana (MMJ) culture. That culture had existed for 14 years, made legitimate by another unlikely political victory and fostered by the medical-marijuana dispensaries that dotted the state. Those dispensaries were gray-market affairs, but the new recreational system of pot stores would be more regimented than a Marine on a diet.
MMJ advocates warned that sooner or later the recreational system would replace the patchwork system of medical providers, potentially making it harder for patients to get their medicine. In 2015, the state legislature proved them right by passing the Cannabis Patient Protection Act, or CaPPA, which grants a small minority of dispensaries I-502 licenses while requiring that the rest, at long last, close their doors.
“I don’t like the prices I’m seeing, and I particularly do not like what’s happened to the patients… . They’re screwed. If you’re a real patient for whom this is a life-changing medicine, you probably can’t afford it unless you hung onto your old connections, which has been my advice all along: ‘Don’t burn your connections, you’re going to need him or her pretty soon.’ ”
For many, pretty soon is Friday, July 1. On that day, the vast majority of the state’s dispensaries will be forced to turn out the neon marijuana light and close up shop, ending an era that helped thousands of cannabis patients.
“I like the part about nobody having their life fucked up,” says lawyer and pot advocate Jeff Steinborn, looking back on I-502, which he opposed at the time. “I do not like the way the market’s been controlled—they’re regulating it like plutonium.
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Compost is our only recourse!
