Ganja growers: If you can't beat 'em, tax 'em

Local governments in California and other Western states have tried to clamp down on medical marijuana, but Oakland has taken a different approach.

If you can't beat 'em, tax 'em.

After becoming the first US city to impose a special tax on medical marijuana dispensaries, Oakland soon could become the first to sanction and tax commercial pot growing operations. Selling and growing marijuana remain illegal under federal law.

Two City Council members are preparing legislation, expected to be introduced next month, that would allow at least three industrial-scale growing operations.

One of the authors, Councilman Larry Reid, said the proposal is more of an effort to bring in money than an endorsement of legalising marijuana use - although the council has unanimously supported that, too.

The city is facing a $42-million (about R321.6-million) budget shortfall. The tax voters approved last summer on the four medical marijuana clubs allowed under Oakland law is expected to contribute $1-million to its coffers in the first year, Reid said. A tax on growers' sales to the clubs could bring in substantially more, he said.

"Looking at the economic analysis, we will generate a considerable amount of additional revenues, and that will certainly help us weather the hard economic times that all urban areas are having to deal with," Reid said.

How much money is at stake isn't clear because the tax rate and the number of facilities the law would allow haven't been decided. A report prepared for AgraMed Incorporated, one of the companies planning to seek a grower's license, said its proposed 100 000-square-foot (9 290-square-meter) project near the Oakland Coliseum would produce more than $2-million in city taxes each year.

Given their likely locations in empty warehouses in industrial neighbourhoods, the marijuana nurseries under consideration would have more in common with factories than rural pot farms.

Dhar Mann, the founder of an Oakland hydroponics equipment store called iGrow, and Derek Peterson, a former stock broker who now sells luxury trailers outfitted for growing pot as a co-founder of GrowOp Enterprises, have hired an architect to draft plans for two warehouses where marijuana would be grown and processed year-round.

Their vision includes using lights, trays and other equipment manufactured by iGrow and creating an online system that would allow medical marijuana dispensaries to see what pot strains are in stock, place orders and track deliveries.

"We are emulating the wine industry, but instead of 'from grape to bottle,' it's 'from plant to pipe,"' Mann said.

"Or seed to sack," offered Peterson.

The pair say they intend to operate the pot-growing business they have dubbed GROPECH - Grass Roots of Oakland Philanthropic and Economic Coalition for Humanity - as a not-for-profit. They anticipate gross sales reaching $70-million a year. After paying their expenses, they'd funnel the money to local charities and non-profits through a competitive grant process.

The discussion in Oakland comes amid a statewide campaign to make California the first state to legalise the recreational use of marijuana and to authorise cities to sell and tax sales to adults. Another Oakland pot entrepreneur, Richard Lee, is sponsoring a ballot measure voters will consider in November.

Lee, who owns two of Oakland's four dispensaries as well as Oaksterdam University, a trade school for the medical marijuana industry, hopes to secure one of the cultivation permits, but he thinks the city should opt for having more, smaller sites instead of a handful of large ones.

"We need to legalise and tax and regulate the production side as well as the retail side," Lee said. "It's a natural step."

Other supporters say licensed growers would create hundreds of well-paying jobs. The local branch of the United Food and Commercial Workers union already has signed up about 100 medical marijuana workers, and the growers are expected to have union shops as well, said Dan Rush, special operations director of UFCW Local 5.

"I think Oakland's intention is to make Oakland the leader and the trendsetter in how this industry can be effective in all of California," Rush said.

Allowing medical marijuana to be grown openly also could give patients a better idea of where their pot is coming from. Now, many growers hide their identities to avoid federal prosecution.

Oakland has already developed a reputation as one of the nation's most pot-friendly cities. Legislation on the city's books includes a declaration of a public health emergency after federal crackdowns on marijuana clubs and a ballot measure instructing police to make marijuana their lowest enforcement priority.

Self-described "guru of ganja" Ed Rosenthal, a popular writer of pot-growing how-to books, lived in Oakland for 25 years before moving recently to a more affluent borough nearby. He credits the city's positive attitude toward marijuana to a critical mass of activists who have flocked there since the 1970s.

"The whole population of Oakland is just very progressive," Rosenthal said. "It's the radicals who couldn't afford Berkeley or San Francisco who all moved to Oakland."

- Sapa-AP

Moms enlisted to help legalise dope

Denver - Moms got tougher drunk-driving laws on the books and were directly responsible for passing and then repealing alcohol Prohibition.

Now marijuana activists are trying to enlist the nation's mothers in legalisation efforts with a sales pitch that pot is safer than booze.

The nation's largest marijuana legalisation lobby recently started a women's group. The Moms4Marijuana website draws thousands. And just in time for Mother's Day, a pot legalisation group in Denver has created a pink-carnation web card asking moms to support legalisation.

These marijuana moms argue that pot is no worse than alcohol, that teens shouldn't face jail time for experimenting with it and that marijuana can even help new mothers treat postpartum depression.

"I know so many mothers who support this but aren't willing to come out and say it," said Sabrina Fendrick, head of the Women's Alliance at the Washington-based National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.

Marijuana activists say they need more moms to publicly back pot use if they are to succeed with public officials.

"The mother is the first teacher, who you turn to for direction in life," said Serra Frank, a 27-year-old mother of two, who founded Moms4Marijuana in 2005. It has no formal membership, but Frank says its website has had more than 12 000 visitors.

Pot activists say both genders sometimes find it easier to attend protests or lobby lawmakers about pot than to tell their mothers they smoke weed. So legalisation groups hope that if moms, arguably the nation's most powerful lobby, get on board with making pot legal, laws will change in a hurry.

"All the things moms get behind, people listen," said Diane Irwin, 48, a medical marijuana grower who also is a mother of two.

There's still a marijuana gender gap. According to an Associated Press-CNBC poll released last month, women opposed legalisation in greater numbers than men. Just under half - 48 percent - of male poll respondents opposed legalisation to 63 percent of women.

"We have enough problems with alcohol. I feel if we legalised it, it would make people say it's okay," said 37-year-old mother Amanda Leonard, one of the poll respondents

Trying to soften moms up a bit, Denver-based Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, or SAFER, is asking members to "come out" about their pot use this Mother's Day and argue that pot is safer than booze. The group says it has about 20 000 members nationwide.

SAFER's online Mother's Day card has a typical start - "Thank you for raising me to be thoughtful and compassionate" - then transitions to: "I want to share some news that might surprise you, but should not upset you: I believe marijuana should be legal."

For $10 (about 70), card senders can add a book for their moms titled "Marijuana is Safer." The book, published last year, argues that marijuana is healthier than booze. SAFER says several thousand copies have been sold, and group members handed out free copies as Mother's Day gifts to Colorado's 37 female lawmakers last week.

There's no good national count of how many mothers use pot, but anecdotal evidence suggests plenty do. Moms from Florida to Washington are facing criminal charges for using marijuana or supplying it to their children.

In February, 51-year-old Alaska mom Jane C. Cain was arrested along with her 29-year-old son for allegedly growing pot in the house. Cain says she initially feared reprisals from neighbours and didn't answer the door.

"But it turned out people were just coming by to bring homemade food, casseroles and cakes and such," Cain said with a laugh. Her case is still pending, but Cain says that even conservative neighbours say she's not wrong to use marijuana for her frequent migraines, though medical marijuana isn't legal in Alaska.

"Now I go wherever I want and hold my head up high," Cain said. "Five or 10 years from now, people who oppose marijuana will be considered old-fashioned. It's a benign substance, so why shouldn't we have it?"

Irwin, the Colorado medical pot grower, said mothers who use marijuana face a stigma men don't. Irwin says she secretly used marijuana while pregnant to fight morning sickness and after giving birth to battle postpartum depression. Since she started growing pot, Irwin said she's run into many moms who admit to using the drug. She argues that even children could benefit from marijuana use, though Irwin never gave either of her kids pot nor smoked it in front of them.

In fact, she remembers flushing her son's pot down the toilet when he was a teen. But last year, after her now-grown son started a Denver marijuana dispensary, Irwin sold her hair salon, bought a greenhouse and started raising pot for him.

"I look at the kids now who are so medicated, on Ritalin and all the rest, and I'm wondering why we don't explore what's natural, and that's marijuana," said Irwin, who is moving to Denver to work full-time at her older son's dispensary.

- Sapa-AP