Pot Was Flying Off the Shelves in Uruguay. Then U.S. Banks Weighed In.

AMiA

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"
By ERNESTO LONDOÑO
AUGUST 25, 2017



The pharmacies selling pot were doing a brisk business.

After Uruguay became the first country in the world to fully legalize marijuana sales for recreational use last month, some of the pharmacies struggled to keep up with the demand.

Then came the stern letters from American banks.

The letters immediately sent officials in Uruguay scrambling to make sense of the Patriot Act and other American laws that could doom an essential part of their country’s new marijuana market.

American banks, including Bank of America, said that they would stop doing business with banks in Uruguay that provide services for those state-controlled sales.

Afraid of losing access to the American banking system, Uruguayan banks warned some of the pharmacies over the last couple of weeks that their accounts would be shut down, potentially signaling a broader international impasse as other countries, including Canada, set out to legalize marijuana.


“We can’t hold out false hope,” President Tabaré Vázquez of Uruguay told reporters this week, adding that his administration was trying to come up with a solution.


The snag mirrors challenges that such businesses have faced in American states that have legalized medical and recreational cannabis. Under the Patriot Act, which was passed weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it is unlawful for American financial institutions to do business with dealers of certain controlled substances, including marijuana. The provisions were designed to curb money laundering and drug trafficking.


American banks, including Bank of America, said they would stop doing business with banks in Uruguay that provide services for the country’s state-controlled marijuana sales.
SPENCER PLATT / GETTY IMAGES
The Obama administration indicated in 2014 that banks were unlikely to face penalties for offering services to marijuana businesses in states where the trade is legal, as long they screened accounts for signs of money laundering and ensured that customers followed state guidelines. This enabled some of the businesses to get accounts at credit unions, but major banks have largely stayed away from the expanding industry, concluding that the burdens and risks of doing business with marijuana sellers were not worth the hassle.

“Banks are businesses, and they can pick and choose who they do business with,” said Frank Robison, a lawyer in Colorado who specializes in marijuana regulation. “From a banking industry perspective, the marijuana industry might be perceived as a flea on a dog’s back.”

Several pot businesses in states like Colorado and Washington — the first to legalize recreational marijuana — have opted to remain cash-only businesses. Others have found small banks willing to take a calculated risk.

But finding a workaround in Uruguay may be hard. Sales of marijuana represent a small share of business for pharmacies, which are currently the only merchants licensed to sell it, and the pharmacies say they need banking services to operate.


Similarly, bankers in Uruguay will probably find it much more important to remain in good standing with American financial institutions than to preserve the accounts of a small number of pharmacies.


The threat of losing their bank accounts has led some of the roughly 15 pharmacies that initially signed up to participate in the new market to give up on marijuana sales, said Pablo Durán, a legal expert at the Center of Pharmacies in Uruguay, a trade group. Twenty other pharmacies that were expected to join the market are holding off while the government explores solutions, he said.


The American regulations are counterproductive, supporters of the legal market in Uruguay contend, because they may inadvertently encourage, not prevent, illicit drug sales.

Fighting drug trafficking was one of the main reasons the Uruguayan government gave for legalizing recreational marijuana. Officials spent years developing a complex regulatory framework that permits people to grow a limited supply of cannabis themselves or buy it at pharmacies for less than the black market rate. Lawmakers hoped that legal structure would undercut illicit marijuana cultivation and sales.

“There probably isn’t a trade in Uruguay today that is more controlled than cannabis sale,” Mr. Durán said.

As a candidate, President Trump said that American states should be free to chart their own courses on marijuana, and he promised to pare back regulation in the financial sector. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, however, has been a sharp critic of legalization and has compared marijuana to heroin.


Now, some members of the cannabis industry wonder whether the United States government will resolve the conflict between its banking laws and the expanding patchwork of measures to legalize recreational and medical marijuana use around the world. The guidance from the Obama administration, issued by the Justice and Treasury Departments in a pair of memos in 2014, addressed the matter domestically but not for international banking.

“Uruguay may be the tip of the iceberg,” said Mr. Robison, the Colorado lawyer who specializes in marijuana regulation.


Pharmacists in Uruguay were incredulous to learn that their bank accounts could be shut down, considering the years of study and planning that preceded the start of retail marijuana sales last month. The country’s marijuana law was passed in 2013.


“We can’t understand how the government didn’t have the foresight to anticipate this,” said Gabriel Bachini, a pharmacy owner in the coastal city of Colonia.


Buying marijuana in a pharmacy in Montevideo.
ANDRES STAPFF / REUTERS
Since sales began, the number of registered buyers in Uruguay has more than doubled. As of Aug. 15, more than 12,500 people had enrolled in a system that verifies customers’ identities with fingerprint scanners and allows them to buy up to 40 grams per month (at a price of about $13 for 10 grams, enough for about 15 joints, advocates say). Under the law, only Uruguayan citizens and legal permanent residents are allowed to buy or grow marijuana.

“Demand has been very strong,” Mr. Bachini said. “People are thrilled that they no longer have to go to private homes or venture out into neighborhoods” to get marijuana.


In emailed statements, the Treasury and Justice Departments said that their earlier guidance was still being applied. But banking and legal experts say the Trump administration has yet to lay down clear markers on this area of policy.

Officials in Uruguay are hopeful that American lawmakers will pass legislation allowing banks to do business with marijuana sellers in states and countries where it is regulated. Representative Ed Perlmutter, Democrat of Colorado, introduced a bill in April that would do that, but marijuana advocates say they do not expect a prompt legislative change....

Source:https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/2...nyt-classifier

 

AMiA

Well-Known Member
@AMiA I just could not like your post... that news fucking sucks- what sucks worse is the 2 % thc cap on sales in Uruguay... they capped at two percent thc = WTF...

No problem brother,i "like"your post ;-)

Yeah,freaking US to just put their nose in every freaking thing they can..Money talks right...I just hope that they have balls enough to find around this BS crap stemming from US.

Have an awsome day everyone..
 

chris 71

Well-Known Member
What ?!?! Really ?!?! Is this for real??

how does a bank in another contentant take orders from a bank in another contentant lol

What will the bank of canada do when we legalize next year . should the bank of canada really be called the bank of america?

This just sounds fucked up
And ya wow i seen that cap on thc lol
Oh well i guess growing your own is the only real way to do it . im glad we in canada are supossed to beable to grow our own too when we go full legal .

But for real ? Is this gonna hamper canada with the bank stuff ? Is this artical even for real ? Lol

Edit. I pay online now using my visa debit when i buy fro tweed and did the same when i was a tilray clinet hows that ??
Tilray is even actully owned by american privteer holdings
 
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Tranquility

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@AMiA I just could not like your post... that news fucking sucks- what sucks worse is the 2 % thc cap on sales in Uruguay... they capped at two percent thc = WTF...
Does it really matter?

Part of our country's drug warriors' scare tactics has to do with how strong cannabis is today as compared to the past. The horror! It is almost like they're trying to claim a person who uses 10%THC flower is going to get 10 times more stoned than a person who uses 1%THC flower.

And, if an individual used the same amount of each, (within all the possible variations of high) they might be right. But people don't just use by amount (except for the mighty micro-doser) but by effect. People titrate usage. They take enough to be where they want to be and then stop. While this is a problem for those who use edibles (Just look at all the reports of people who ate too much.), for the vaper/smoker, not so much.

Over time I would hope Uruguay would see it is better to not have people use large amounts of flower when smaller amounts with higher percentages of THC would introduce less by products from the use. It just does not seem a "WTF" type of issue to me.
 

C No Ego

Well-Known Member
What ?!?! Really ?!?! Is this for real??

how does a bank in another contentant take orders from a bank in another contentant lol

What will the bank of canada do when we legalize next year . should the bank of canada really be called the bank of america?

This just sounds fucked up
And ya wow i seen that cap on thc lol
Oh well i guess growing your own is the only real way to do it . im glad we in canada are supossed to beable to grow our own too when we go full legal .

But for real ? Is this gonna hamper canada with the bank stuff ? Is this artical even for real ? Lol

Edit. I pay online now using my visa debit when i buy fro tweed and did the same when i was a tilray clinet hows that ??
Tilray is even actully owned by american privteer holdings

It is called the UN Drug Treaty... the entire drug war operates through that and that treaty floats abroad on Uncharted Open waters if you know what I mean... in other words, A country has no unconstitutional laws about what people put in their bodies or scheduling ruling etc...... those laws are enforced through that treaty floating abroad

Does it really matter?

Part of our country's drug warriors' scare tactics has to do with how strong cannabis is today as compared to the past. The horror! It is almost like they're trying to claim a person who uses 10%THC flower is going to get 10 times more stoned than a person who uses 1%THC flower.

And, if an individual used the same amount of each, (within all the possible variations of high) they might be right. But people don't just use by amount (except for the mighty micro-doser) but by effect. People titrate usage. They take enough to be where they want to be and then stop. While this is a problem for those who use edibles (Just look at all the reports of people who ate too much.), for the vaper/smoker, not so much.

Over time I would hope Uruguay would see it is better to not have people use large amounts of flower when smaller amounts with higher percentages of THC would introduce less by products from the use. It just does not seem a "WTF" type of issue to me.

It's WTF to people having to smoke 6 joints of 2% to even get a buzz!?! more like a headache LOL...What are they breeding? ditchweed? Black market will do Just Fine in Uruguay .. .
 
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Tranquility

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It's WTF to people having to smoke 6 joints of 2% to even get a buzz!?! more like a headache LOL...What are they breeding? ditchweed? Black market will do Just Fine in Uruguay .. .
Coming of age in the 70's where we might dream of getting some 2% brick weed, the four musketeers (We four high school buddies who were together most all our time.) would still share a single joint for effect. If someone rolled a "pinner" (very thin joint almost more paper than weed), we might bitch a bit and do another.

I don't believe I am getting any more stoned today; even though I'm using the finest available (And, concentrates!) through the finest technology. Why that is, is uncertain. That it is, is not. (There seemed to be a lot more giggling back in the day.)

StrongerWeedChart.jpg
 

C No Ego

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@OldNewbie I have heard of low thc % ( 5 to 8 %) land race varieties that are stronger and last longer than 25% indicas... those are rare though and probably found on site in that Country it originated in
 
C No Ego,

chris 71

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I my self dont belive the chart you posted being acurat oldnewbie.

First it says from confiscated material from 1993 to 2008 but the scale starts from 1960 . probably designed to appear more dramatic.

Secound since when have they be testing for potenacy using percise tools like mass spectrometers or what ever they use ? Do you think this was normal practice or even avalible tecnolagy ?

Third , Also keep in mind that thc degrades and faster then you may relise .i read an artical somewere cant recall at the moment but thc fall by as much as half in the firat year. After harvest even if stored well

Also there were more seeded female plants back then if you did find some that maybe sencimlie as in someone knowing that it was key to potency you could have had some very potent stuff indeed. I remember starting to see this around the early 90 's and it was potent way more potent then what this graph is letting on. .
 

howie105

Well-Known Member
With commercialization you get international, national and local influence on the market. As an alternative there are often other markets or the grow your own route.
 
howie105,

Tranquility

Well-Known Member
I my self dont belive the chart you posted being acurat oldnewbie.
OK. Since the vast weight of evidence seems to fall into the camp that potency has markedly increased from the 70s, I'll believe differently.

First it says from confiscated material from 1993 to 2008 but the scale starts from 1960 . probably designed to appear more dramatic.
If you read the study (I don't see a free full study available online.), it speaks of how it came to the conclusions in the discussion portion. You are correct in saying the chart is not only based on the cited study's data. There is reliance on other studies to give the earlier data. See also:
http://www.datia.org/datia/resources/potencytrends.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1995764516304266
(Not reporting a single study, but a fun chart too big for here.) http://herb.co/2015/09/30/modern-day-weed-vs-hippie-weed/

Secound since when have they be testing for potenacy using percise tools like mass spectrometers or what ever they use ? Do you think this was normal practice or even avalible tecnolagy ?
Depending on the study, by some accurately replicable method. Since the mass spectrometer was invented in the 20's, I suspect they had that resource available if wanted. One of the studies did the analysis by column chromatography as mentioned in the study.

Third , Also keep in mind that thc degrades and faster then you may relise .i read an artical somewere cant recall at the moment but thc fall by as much as half in the firat year. After harvest even if stored well
Since the same argument can be made on when the consumer gets the product in the first place, I'm not sure of the point.

Also there were more seeded female plants back then if you did find some that maybe sencimlie as in someone knowing that it was key to potency you could have had some very potent stuff indeed. I remember starting to see this around the early 90 's and it was potent way more potent then what this graph is letting on. .
I remember the first time someone got a hold of the magic sensimilla rumored to be from the north (California). It was the first time I'd seen a "bud" rather than shake, stick or brick with stems and seeds in the 80's or before. It was magnificent--even though I was past my youthful indiscretions at the time and did not smoke. Just by looking at it you could tell someone spent some time and effort in creating it. It makes sense such an improvement would increase the potency as well.

However, all that is just fluff around the main point. Pot used to be less potent from a D-9 THC perspective--probably even less than the 2% limit in Uruguay, and people still got plenty high.
 
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chris 71

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Its not fluff, it goes to prove that the plant it self has not incressed in potency its just the harvesting methods and reliazation of the consumer .

Hey if we take out all the stems , seeds and cut down all these males that its much more potent i doubt that when they test the old timy stuff they seperated all the trim seeds and stocks out .

and if they did providing the sample wernt 10 or 20 years old , i think ypu would be surprized to find it might reach simmalar potency of todays weed. I do agree though that along with the realization i spoke of , also would come a realization that hey this one plant here is especialy good . so maybe if i breed it i could get more of the same. But these extra good quality phenos were always there to begin with . and you could have found them in agmonst all the rest a long long time ago.

Potency has incressed but in the same way wild apples or other fruits have benifited from human ingenuity i dont think its a bad thing. I just think it get squed to meet the agend of whatever the squrers ideals are and the worst is when its because thwy fear it
 
chris 71,

Tranquility

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Its not fluff, it goes to prove that the plant it self has not incressed in potency its just the harvesting methods and reliazation of the consumer .

Hey if we take out all the stems , seeds and cut down all these males that its much more potent i doubt that when they test the old timy stuff they seperated all the trim seeds and stocks out .

and if they did providing the sample wernt 10 or 20 years old , i think ypu would be surprized to find it might reach simmalar potency of todays weed. I do agree though that along with the realization i spoke of , also would come a realization that hey this one plant here is especialy good . so maybe if i breed it i could get more of the same. But these extra good quality phenos were always there to begin with . and you could have found them in agmonst all the rest a long long time ago.

Potency has incressed but in the same way wild apples or other fruits have benifited from human ingenuity i dont think its a bad thing. I just think it get squed to meet the agend of whatever the squrers ideals are and the worst is when its because thwy fear it
Do you have any basis for your belief?
 
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chris 71

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Just logic and common sence i guess :tup:

I do agree that potency has incressed , but more so has become more common place then anything eles just through recognition of what is good quailty vs crap. I would bet that there have always been very potent plants that spring out amongst the crowd the most potent plant that has ever existed could well have been some freak pheno from a thousand years ago lol never to be seen again who knows lol
 
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Tranquility

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Just logic and common sence i guess :tup:

I do agree that potency has incressed , but more so has become more common place then anything eles just through recognition of what is good quailty vs crap. I would bet that there have always been very potent plants that spring out amongst the crowd the most potent plant that has ever existed could well have been some freak pheno from a thousand years ago lol never to be seen again who knows lol
Ahhh, evolution. While there may or may not have been a plant as potent in the past as there is today, I (nor anyone else I've talked to) didn't get it. For me, I suspect all the weed I could afford in the dime bag purchased was probably not from the higher-tiers of average.

How does that relate to titration? Do you believe people generally calculate dosage based on THC % or on how they feel when they use it?
 
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chris 71

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Yes i do by feel i mean , i think its learned though. for sure a very potent thc strain probably isnt going to be good for a new user or someone that is more sensitive to thc . as its to easy to take to much before you know it . but after some practice it comes more natural. I can attest to negitive effects of thc my self after taking a thc break i foud it difficult to use the more potent stuff. Im currently building my tolerance. Back up to were i used to be and at the moment do not enjoy they high thc stuff but im looking forward to getting there again
 

C No Ego

Well-Known Member
How potency increased in cannabis.....

CBD was the main original cannabinoid for a long time in cannabis/hemp.... hemp grew effortlessly on open land/ open planes with plenty of wind and fresh air to spread it's pollen gene pool all around... after a while birds started to eat the seeds of cannabis and shit those seeds out higher up in the mountains... once sprouted these new higher mountain plants lost that effortless wind flow and had to start coming up with ways to survive and spread the gene pool... well more plant trichomes were the result as female plants needed to make more to catch the lesser pollen up high on the hills...with these new chemicals required for survival thus started THC in a CBD only plant... some people call thc cbd's psychotic step brother... So, CBD was the OG noid with thc close behind in second place... Now thc is mostly bred etc....

trichomes are the female glandular essence or plant Desire
 
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Likes2vape

Well-Known Member
I think the whole increased potency thing is a farce made up by the government and media to scare the sheep into believing cannabis (they call it marijuana it sounds way scarier) has become stronger and can therefore do more damage to the people who use it. Total bullshit!! I have been smoking weed since 1987 and the potency has not changed at all. I have always had access to "KGB aka killer green bud" as we called it back than. I have smoked road kill skunk and chocolate tai and they could stand their own against any top shelf strain today. What has changed is that there is no more brick weed here in California and hasn't been since the 90's so of course the potency of the weed the test from busts has gone up since the quality being sold has up but if you knew where to look and had the right friends there has always been high THC weed available!
 

CarolKing

Singer of songs and a vapor connoisseur
Cannabis has gotten stronger over the years in the U.S anyway. I can't speak for Europe. Compared to the shit weed back in the 1970s. It depends what year you are comparing to. The year 2000? Over the years cannabis gradually got stronger. A special thanks to growers that were medical farmers.

Edit
Probably depended where you live. I live in WA state so good weed was able to come by in the late 1980s. Strains like Gorilla Glue were not around in the earlier days. I think strains have gotten stronger in my area. I don't think strains were as high as 28% THC 25 years ago. Just my opinion, I've used cannabis since the mid 1970s. Since back in the day when we bought whole oz for $50.
 
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Likes2vape

Well-Known Member
No 1987-1990 weed to today's weed. I have lived in California all my life so good weed has always been around since I started smoking. I guarantee the road kill skunk I used to get in 1988 was just as strong as Kush today.
 

chris 71

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ok so this is getting a little off topic with the discussion of thc and cbd and increasing amounts of thc and all that but ...

i have been trying to find the artical that i once read that explained how there are different chemotypes of cannabis . i once mentioned this in another thread . although i might have said pheno types . im not an expert in this or anything . just have done a lot of reading .

and even this artical im going to link i dont pretend to totally understand it all and its not the original one i read that explained it all in more layman's terms but its a good one . and i believe i have a pretty good idea of what there saying . in another thread i mentioned that there were 3 ratios in which a cannabis plant expresses thc and cbd and combination of the two

one is almost all thc and very little cbd another is mostly cbd and very little thc and the third is a more close ratio . i invite others to read this info and report how they interpret .

but i mentioned recently in another thread that the reason old world hash had more cbd in it was because it was made using a whole field of plants . this shows what i was talking about and why . its because in the field there is a mix of these three chemotypes .

this is a little bit i copied and pasted from the articular im going to link . but it explains it .
i think it also explains why the high thc chemotype would have been chosen for the production of marijuana as opposed to hash . its pretty simple actually . you need a ton of plants to make hash but you can chose more particularly when choosing flowers for harvest . you may have to read the artical to get the below copy and pasted bit but here it is


In contrast with the NLD biotype, the WLD biotype did not have a significantly higher frequency of BT than the hemp and feral biotypes of C. indica. This may be explained by the different products obtained from the two drug biotypes of C. indica. NLD strains are usually cultivated for the production of marijuana (pistillate inflorescences), and it is the product of a single plant that is utilized. WLD strains are traditionally cultivated for the production of hashish (detached glandular trichomes), which is the combined product of many plants. A marijuana plant with two CD alleles (chemotype III) would be ineffectual for its intended use, whereas hashish made from a population of chemotype I, II, and III individuals typically contains more THC than CBD and depending on the proportions of the different chemotypes is more or less psychoactive (Ek et al., 1972; Clarke, 1998). Thus, human selection is expected to favor chemotype I plants as seed sources for marijuana cultivation, whereas the chemotypes of individual plants cultivated for hashish production are usually unknown to the cultivator (Clarke and Watson, 2002).




further more because cbd does not have the psychoactive effect , it would make those types undesirable . i said it before on here some were , its not that people purposelessly knowingly chose the high thc plants for some evil conspiracy as some try to spin it for black market profits . we just chose the plants that had an effect that we liked . THC :razz: if it happens to flower faster that was better , for the reason of legality . but the high thc was not for this reason of profits , but more of pleasure i believe

also it appears to me that these chemotypes would have always existed since the beginning of time .
possibly proving my point that for all we know , the most potent plant ever to have lived on the face of the earth , could well have lived here a long long time ago :leaf:

so in the end yes potency has increased . but more so like i said earlier because of or recognition of what the good stuff is and choosing it for that reason .
not sure if anyone eles has noticed but the good stuff meaning smelling and looking good too usually just so happens to be potent as well . we chose the plants that looked good smelt good tasted good and most of all felt good simple as that they were here all along we just tweaked them as we did with all the good stuff apples oranges grapes bannas ect ect ....:2c::peace:

link to the write up
http://www.amjbot.org/content/91/6/966.full

edit ...just wanted to add i think its great that we are now starting to recognize the benefits of cbd and other canabinoids . even degradation canabiniods like cbn . and given the chance if the world was opened up to be able to import and export cannabis and cannabis products from around the world .

i for one and i suspect many others would chose to buy say , hashish made the traditional way from the traditional countries . and cannabis grown in the traditional cannabis countries around the world grown under the sun . and on the sides of mountains were it produces thcv and othet canabiniods that just dont happen indoors under lights what a world that would be :brow::leaf::peace:
 
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EmDeemo

ACCOUNT INACTIVE
The potential of a plant is whatever is already there. Selective breeding could have made a difference but its just as likely that a huge part of this is anecdotal based on the fact that most of us just now have more widespread access to better grown shit. Especially near any where semi legal, the likelihood of now being one connection away from a grower is pretty likely.
 
EmDeemo,

little maggie

Well-Known Member
I wasn't smoking during the period many of you are talking about:1980's on so maybe potency hasn't changed since then. And maybe there was some high quality available when I was younger but no one I knew had anything comparable to today's potency and I lived on the east coast, midwest, Colorado and Oregon during the time that I did smoke. The era between late sixties through late seventies. While a not so great quality cost about $150-$200 a pound, even the highest quality that was $40 an ounce wasn't comparable to today's potency.

In terms of the US interfering with other countries, which is not new, I think that this won't change until cannabis is legal at the federal level.
 
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