Joint Ventures: Inside America's Almost Legal Marijuana Industry

273 Pages·2011·1.14 MB·English

by  Trish Regan

ffffiirrss..iinndddd iiii 22//1166//1111 66::4400::5599 AAMM
Joint Ventures

ffffiirrss..iinndddd ii 22//1166//1111 66::4400::5588 AAMM
ffffiirrss..iinndddd iiii 22//1166//1111 66::4400::5599 AAMM
Joint Ventures
Inside America’s Almost Legal
Marijuana Industry
Trish Regan

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
ffffiirrss..iinndddd iiiiii 22//1166//1111 66::4400::5599 AAMM
Copyright © 2011 by Trish Regan. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of
the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission
of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee
to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978)
750–8400, fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the
Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748–6011, fax (201)
748–6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author
have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or
warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book
and specifi cally disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fi tness for a
particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives
or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be
suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate.
Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profi t or any other
commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or
other damages.
For general information about our other products and services, please contact our
Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762–2974, outside the
United States at (317) 572–3993 or fax [phone].
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that
appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about
Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Regan, Trish, date.
Joint ventures : inside America’s almost legal marijuana industry / Trish Regan.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-470-55907-9 (cloth)
1. Marijuana industry—United States. I. Title.
HD9019.M382.U67 2011
338.1'73790973—dc22
2010054050
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ffffiirrss..iinndddd iivv 22//1166//1111 66::4400::5599 AAMM
Contents
Introduction 1
1 Potholes: The Challenges of the Marijuana Business 5
2 The Mile High City: An Emerging Market of Pot 17
3 Purple Kush: Lessons from a Successful Business 30
4 Cannabusiness: Those Who Can, Teach 43
5 Green Rush: The Towns with Backyard Billions 56
6 Cash Crop: Moving from the Woods to
the Mainstream 68
7 Seed Money: Making Money Supplying Suppliers 82
8 Modern-Day Pirate: The Price of Prohibition 97
9 Wherever You Launder: How Prohibition
Drains Money out of the Country 115
10 Pot of Gold: Sizing the Potential Market 125
11 Downers: Not Everything Is Coming Up Roses 138
12 Free for All: The Great Portuguese Experiment 155
13 Getting the Treatment: How Decriminalization
Works 170
14 Law and Disorder: Navigating the Legal
Maze We’ve Created 184
v
TTOOCC..iinndddd vv 22//1166//1111 66::4411::4444 AAMM
vi contents
15 This Is Not Gay Marriage: Why Advocates
Can’t Turn to the Courts for Help 199
16 Smoke Free or Die: Changing Minds in a
Hard-to-Change State 215
Acknowledgments 241
Notes 245
Index 251

TTOOCC..iinndddd vvii 22//1166//1111 66::4411::4455 AAMM
Introduction
I

remember the story vividly. It ’ s one of those memories that
becomes etched in your mind; it’ s buried deep in your database,
but it ’ s there. I was maybe fi ve years old and had tagged along
with my mother, a journalist, on one of her fi eld reporting expedi-
tions.We were at her friend’ s home, and she told me to wait in the
living room on a yellow silk couch. Within seconds, she had disap-
peared down the hall. As I listened to hushed voices in the back-
ground, my eyes peered around the pale blue, wallpapered living
room. On the polished wood side table to my left were a series of

photos of a young woman with her small daughters, a woman
with her husband, a woman laughing. I didn’ t know or under-
stand it at the time, but the woman whom my mother was visit-
ing, the woman smiling in the pictures next to her husband and
children, was dying of lung cancer. I had met her once. I remem-
ber a white terry cloth turban tied around her head in an attempt
to disguise her hair loss. The woman— a forty - four - year - old
mother of four, a wife, and a close friend of my mother’ s — was
suffering through chemotherapy treatments in an effort to save
her life. She had lung cancer, and she was not going to make it.
1
cciinnttrroo..iinndddd 11 22//1166//1111 66::4455::3344 AAMM
2 joint ventures
C ould this woman’ s fi nal days have been made easier by having
access to quality marijuana to help her manage her c hemotherapy?
Might she have responded to treatment better had she been able to
regularly smoke cannabis?
That same year, my mother, wrote an article for the B oston
Globe on the efforts to legalize marijuana in our home state of
New Hampshire. It was the early 1980s, and a handful of states
had made efforts to decriminalize marijuana, although it would
be almost two decades before California would become the fi rst
state to legalize marijuana for medical purposes. But at that time,
the tiny northeastern state known for its “ L ive Free or Die” motto
was at the forefront of the medicinal use movement. A seventy-
nine - year - old legislator named Everett B. Sackett, a Republican
from the small town of Lee, had become the fi rst to introduce
a bill legalizing marijuana for state use. He told my mother, “ I t
seems that in a state where we do so much to promote alcohol, ”
referring to the state’ s monopoly on its well-publicized liquor
business, “ we should be willing to legalize a drug that could help
people in terrible pain and discomfort.” 1 Representative Sackett
championed the marijuana bill in response to his gut reaction that
prohibiting cancer patients from alleviating pain and nausea was
somehow just plain wrong. Sackett believed his seventy- t hree-
year - old friend, who was suffering from cancer, should not be
forced to break the law just to relieve the painful side effects of his
chemotherapy treatment. His friend, a former college professor,
who requested that his name not be published at the time because,

as he put it, “ I don’ t like to expose myself as a law breaker,” did
explain that his decision to experiment with marijuana for pain
came after his fourth chemotherapy treatment. “ H ave you ever
been on a cancer ward in a hospital? You can always tell from
those awful sounds coming from the room. All that vomiting and
retching, ” he said.
E ventually, Sackett’ s friend asked some young acquaintances
to obtain some marijuana and wrap it into cigarettes for him. By
smoking one joint one hour before his c hemotherapy treatment,
he said he was able to ward off huge bouts of nausea. And, he
cciinnttrroo..iinndddd 22 22//1166//1111 66::4455::3344 AAMM