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As observers of the industry have probably noticed, the legal
marijuana market is exploding. As observers have likely also
noticed, its spectacular growth has been seriously hindered by the
federal government’s enforcement of prohibitionist policies in
states where medical marijuana is legal. A recent study by ArcView
Research, a “leading national network of investors looking to
capitalize on the legalization of marijuana,” details predictions
for just how much the market will continue to expand, which states
will legalize it next, and the specific ways in which the federal
government is stomping out growth.

The group’s researchers
surveyed hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries, ancillary
business operators, and independent cultivators, in addition to
analyzing publicly available data. According to the Executive
Summary of the report, which was made available for download
earlier this week, the marijuana market looks promising to
investors, but still faces some significant challenges from the
Feds.

Legal Marijuana Market is Huge and Growing
Fast

Currently, the U.S. national legal marijuana market value is
assessed at $1.44 billion. It’s projected to grow by 64% to reach
$2.34 billion in 2014. By comparison, the smartphone market
grew 46.5% from 2012 to 2013.

According to the
Huffington Post:

“Cannabis is one of the fastest-growing industries,” said Steve
Berg… editor of the report. “Domestically, we weren’t able to find
any market that is growing as quickly.”

While it’s important to note that smartphones surged in
popularity long before medical marijuana became a viable industry,
and global sales numbers for 2012-2013 don’t offer a direct
comparison to 2013-2014 domestic estimates, Berg said his goal was
to illustrate just how rapidly the cannabis market is expanding by
offering familiar data points. 

The report also claims that the five-year national market has
the potential to balloon to $10.2 billion—a more than 700% increase
above the current value. This growth will come from both increased
demand in existing state markets and new venues in the 14 states
that are expected to have legalized recreational marijuana sales by
then. Specifically, the report predicts that within five years
Alaska, Oregon, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maryland,
Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, Massachusetts, Nevada, Arizona, California
and Delaware will have legalized marijuana for adults.

Federal Policies Are Curbing Growth

According to the report, “around $500 million was shifted back
to the illicit market from legal channels following federal
enforcement actions against certain operators in legal marijuana
states in 2011 and 2012.” In California alone, the Feds have helped
to shut down at least 150 dispensaries since 2010.

The report is optimistic though—based on the DOJ’s
recent memo and expert testimony—that the Obama administration
will scale down or even cease federal raids on legal marijuana
businesses in states with tight regulatory systems.

Additionally, the report lists business risks stemming from lack
of access to banking services (due to
a federal law that prohibits banks from doing business with
controlled substances distributors) and tax accounting
restrictions.

CBS
News’ Lara Logan
apologized today for a 60 Minutes report on the September 11,
2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi. The report’s primary
source, a security contractor going by the pseudonym Morgan Jones
and revealed to be named Dylan Davies, claimed he was at the US
mission the night of the attack, that in fact he scaled a wall and
fought one of the attackers, who told him they were there
“to kill Americans.” CBS News’ retraction comes after
reports that the Davies’ statement to the FBI (that he wasn’t
there that night) did not match what he told CBS, and wrote in a
book about the experience. According to The New York
Times’ Julie
Bosman, Simon & Schuster is now suspending publication of
the book.

The story would suggest that the US government could have
responded more quickly to the ongoing incident in Benghazi than it
had, as some critics of the administration have argued. The attack
in Benghazi involved two separate assaults over a seven hour
period, at the US mission, and then at the CIA annex in Benghazi.
 According to
some sources, the White House and State Department never
authorized military assets to cross over into Libya even as they
were being mobilized.

Leon Panetta, then the defense secretary,
admitted to Congress he had only had one conversation about the
attack on Benghazi with President Obama the night it happened, and
that the president did not ask for specifics on the kind of
response that would be possible. General Martin Dempsey added at
the time that the standard protocol was to keep White House aides
informed, not necessarily the president himself. Nevertheless, that
story is at odds with the president’s claims he’s “more
deeply involved” in intelligence operations than any president
before him. Not on September 11 he wasn’t.

A military response may have been impossible in any case—former
Bush and Obama defense secretary Robert Gates
told CBS’ Face the Nation in May that the idea that a response
was possible was based on a “cartoonish” view of the US military.
Cartoonish it may have been, with a price tag for US defense at
nearly $2 billion a day, it may not have been such a far-fetched
expectation.

None of this, of course, diminishes the bigger scandals in
Benghazi; in the immediate aftermath, administration officials and
their supporters sought
to blame an otherwise obscure YouTube clip on a “spontaneous
demonstration” that actually appeared, again
almost immediately, as a coordinated terrorist attack, putting
the First Amendment in the spotlight instead of the attackers. The
Obama Administration has also continued to avoid holding anyone
substantively accountable or providing any kind of real
transparency on the issue, going so far as to call it a “sideshow”
and asking
what difference at this point the details even make.

Friday fun link: “The
Lost Cow Tunnels of New York City,” in which Gizmodo
explores a forgotten chapter in the history of American
infrastructure, markets, and food. Here’s the opening:

Like every other major metropolis, New York City has
tunnels for people, tunnels for cars, and lots of tunnels for
trains. But it also has something rather more unique: tunnels for
cows. Or does it? This is the story of New York’s lost, forgotten,
or perhaps just mythical subterranean meat
infrastructure.

Read the rest
here.

• Health and Human Services
  Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the government wants to help folks
  who have had their plans cancelled, but they have
  no actual options right now.
• Pakistan’s Taliban is warning of
  revenge killings in response to the death of their former chief
  in a U.S. drone strike.
• President Barack Obama promises he’s
  heavily involved in intelligence operations, despite reports
  that he didn’t know that the United States was engaging in direct
  surveillance of foreign leaders.
• The U.S. is trying to get
  Syrian rebels to come to the table to talk peace, but it’s all
  just a great big mess.
• A British group wants to
  test people at the workplace to see if they’re
  boozehounds.
• GOP Rep. Darrell Issa has not forgotten about the IRS targeting
  tea party nonprofits and has
  issued a new subpoena for his investigation.

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There
are many reasons Christie may never be president, but his manner is
not one of them. One liberal columnist claimed that Americans will
be turned off by Christie’s “famous bullying of ordinary citizens.”
This was exactly what liberals were telling us would happen in New
Jersey. It never did. Maybe, writes David Harsanyi, that’s because
what he’s really famous for is confronting political adversaries as
an ordinary citizen would—or wishes he or she could.

View this article.

There
are many reasons Christie may never be president, but his manner is
not one of them. One liberal columnist claimed that Americans will
be turned off by Christie’s “famous bullying of ordinary citizens.”
This was exactly what liberals were telling us would happen in New
Jersey. It never did. Maybe, writes David Harsanyi, that’s because
what he’s really famous for is confronting political adversaries as
an ordinary citizen would—or wishes he or she could.

View this article.

At
this point the problems that individuals have had shopping for and
enrolling in coverage through Obamacare’s exchanges are widely
known.

But the federally run system operating in 36 states is also a
mess on the insurer side. Here, for example, is glimpse into what
it’s like for the largest health insurer in North Carolina, as
noted by the Charlotte, N.C. affiliate of
CBS News:

Internal emails obtained by WNCN-TV show
that Blue Cross Blue Shield show that only 1,000 people had filled
out applications as of October 15th.

In fact, only one person was able to successfully use
Healthcare.gov to enroll in the new exchange.

But even that single person has not paid, which means the
enrollment is not complete.

The emails suggest the “payment re-direct option” on government
servers isn’t working.

Blue Cross Blue Shield found the entire system is so filled with
glitches that the company decided not to upload data because it was
afraid false information might enter its computer system.

That’s how bad it is. The payment system is apparently
non-functional, which probably won’t make insurance companies
particularly happy. And the overall system is such a disaster that
at least one insurer is refusing to send in its data out of fear
that doing so would create even more problems.

You can see all the leaked emails,
via WNCN,
here.