Month: December 2013

The world’s very first sale by a
government-licensed recreational pot store is
scheduled for 8 a.m. tomorrow at 3D Cannabis Center in Denver.
Somewhat confusingly, the buyer, designated by the leaders of
Colorado’s legalization campaign, will be someone who would
ordinarily be considered a medical user: Sean Azzariti, an Iraq war
veteran “who can now legally use marijuana to alleviate the
symptoms of post-traumatic disorder,” a condition that was not
covered by Colorado’s medical marijuana law. But recreational
consumers will be the main source of new business for outlets like
3D Cannabis Center, which is conveniently located at 4305 Brighton
Boulevard, on the way into town from the airport. (The “3D” refers
to the shop’s former designation: Denver’s Discreet Dispensary.)
When I interviewed 3D’s owner, Toni Fox, about a year ago, she said
she hoped her proximity to Interstates 25 and 70 would help attract
business. “I would think that I would be able to sell out of the
cannabis that I had every day,” she said, “because the demand is
going to be so great.”

Over the short term, Fox and other dispensary
owners expanding into the recreational market stand to benefit from
the shortage
that is expected to last at least until marijuana from the first
plants grown for general consumption is harvested this spring. “The
medical marijuana prices have been cut unfairly in the for-profit
market, because of the competition,” she said. “When recreational
opens up and there’s a limited supply, I don’t have a problem
resetting my prices to street value and hopefully making a profit
finally.” Under state law, dispensary owners have a three-month
head start in the licensing process. Denver, which is where most of
the pot shops will be located, has
banned new competitors until February 1, 2016, so the existing
dispensaries have a lock on the market until then. So far 102
retailers in Denver have
received state licenses.

Although the Justice Department has
indicated that it will leave the pot shops alone as long as
they are strictly regulated, banks continue to worry about the
legal consequences of accepting deposits from cannabusinesses,
which could be viewed as money laundering. When she opened her
dispensary, Fox persuaded the bank she had used for her
construction business to serve her new venture, but most marijuana
retailers are not so lucky. Many are forced to deal exclusively in
cash. “I cannot help but be concerned about the safety and security
threats caused by outdated federal banking regulations,” Fox says
in a
press release from the National Cannabis Industry Association
(NCIA). “The widespread perception that cannabis retailers hold
large amounts of cash, despite top-notch security and monitoring,
creates an inherent danger for businesses owners, employees, and
communities alike.”

Deputy Attorney General David Cole has said the
Justice Department is talking to officials at the Treasury
Departmentment’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
(FinCEN) about how to address this problem, but so far no
solution has emerged. “Members of Congress, state regulators,
community leaders, cannabis business professionals, and even many
local banks are calling for reform to the absurd interpretations of
law that inhibit banking services for cannabis-related businesses,”

says Betty Aldworth, the NCIA’s deputy director. “There is
absolutely no justifiable reason to allow this threat to public
safety to continue in those states where the regulated sale of
marijuana has been made legal. A lack of access to banking services
is, quite frankly, the single most dangerous thing about the legal
sale of marijuana for medical or social use. It is long past time
for FinCEN and the Justice Department to catch up with the American
public and answer the call for safe, regulated markets by allowing
banking services.”

Despite all the hardships involved in growing and selling a
product that the federal government continues to treat as
contraband, Fox is excited about Colorado’s pathbreaking
experiment. “I am so grateful to be a pioneer and to be able to
change people’s perceptions of this plant and change the world,”
she says. “We’re going to change the world by ending
prohibition.”

More on what to expect when the pot shops open here.

The world’s very first sale by a
government-licensed recreational pot store is
scheduled for 8 a.m. tomorrow at 3D Cannabis Center in Denver.
Somewhat confusingly, the buyer, designated by the leaders of
Colorado’s legalization campaign, will be someone who would
ordinarily be considered a medical user: Sean Azzariti, an Iraq war
veteran “who can now legally use marijuana to alleviate the
symptoms of post-traumatic disorder,” a condition that was not
covered by Colorado’s medical marijuana law. But recreational
consumers will be the main source of new business for outlets like
3D Cannabis Center, which is conveniently located at 4305 Brighton
Boulevard, on the way into town from the airport. (The “3D” refers
to the shop’s former designation: Denver’s Discreet Dispensary.)
When I interviewed 3D’s owner, Toni Fox, about a year ago, she said
she hoped her proximity to Interstates 25 and 70 would help attract
business. “I would think that I would be able to sell out of the
cannabis that I had every day,” she said, “because the demand is
going to be so great.”

Over the short term, Fox and other dispensary
owners expanding into the recreational market stand to benefit from
the shortage
that is expected to last at least until marijuana from the first
plants grown for general consumption is harvested this spring. “The
medical marijuana prices have been cut unfairly in the for-profit
market, because of the competition,” she said. “When recreational
opens up and there’s a limited supply, I don’t have a problem
resetting my prices to street value and hopefully making a profit
finally.” Under state law, dispensary owners have a three-month
head start in the licensing process. Denver, which is where most of
the pot shops will be located, has
banned new competitors until February 1, 2016, so the existing
dispensaries have a lock on the market until then. So far 102
retailers in Denver have
received state licenses.

Although the Justice Department has
indicated that it will leave the pot shops alone as long as
they are strictly regulated, banks continue to worry about the
legal consequences of accepting deposits from cannabusinesses,
which could be viewed as money laundering. When she opened her
dispensary, Fox persuaded the bank she had used for her
construction business to serve her new venture, but most marijuana
retailers are not so lucky. Many are forced to deal exclusively in
cash. “I cannot help but be concerned about the safety and security
threats caused by outdated federal banking regulations,” Fox says
in a
press release from the National Cannabis Industry Association
(NCIA). “The widespread perception that cannabis retailers hold
large amounts of cash, despite top-notch security and monitoring,
creates an inherent danger for businesses owners, employees, and
communities alike.”

Deputy Attorney General David Cole has said the
Justice Department is talking to officials at the Treasury
Departmentment’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
(FinCEN) about how to address this problem, but so far no
solution has emerged. “Members of Congress, state regulators,
community leaders, cannabis business professionals, and even many
local banks are calling for reform to the absurd interpretations of
law that inhibit banking services for cannabis-related businesses,”

says Betty Aldworth, the NCIA’s deputy director. “There is
absolutely no justifiable reason to allow this threat to public
safety to continue in those states where the regulated sale of
marijuana has been made legal. A lack of access to banking services
is, quite frankly, the single most dangerous thing about the legal
sale of marijuana for medical or social use. It is long past time
for FinCEN and the Justice Department to catch up with the American
public and answer the call for safe, regulated markets by allowing
banking services.”

Despite all the hardships involved in growing and selling a
product that the federal government continues to treat as
contraband, Fox is excited about Colorado’s pathbreaking
experiment. “I am so grateful to be a pioneer and to be able to
change people’s perceptions of this plant and change the world,”
she says. “We’re going to change the world by ending
prohibition.”

More on what to expect when the pot shops open here.

Today, the New York
Times has published yet another article aiming to prove to
readers that genetic testing, especially direct to consumer
testing, is useless and perhaps even misleading. In her article,
“I
Had My DNA Picture Taken, With Varying Results,” by Kira
Peikoff, a bioethics graduate student at Columbia University, takes
genotype screening tests from three different companies is,
shocked, just shocked, to discover that the results do not
all agree.

This stunt has been pulled before, most notoriously by the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) back in 2010. In my article,
“A
Genetic Testing Dupe?,” reporting on the GAO’s study, I too
noted that I had received differing results from the two testing
companies I had used. Was I misled? Not at all.

I explained that the companies tested for different allele
variants related to disease risks, which they clearly explained in
their reports to customers. In my case the two companies I used
disagreed about my risks for colorectal cancer, melanoma, and heart
disease – all of which is explained by the way the companies select
research data for determing those variant alleles for which they
test.

Ms. Peikoff, to her credit, also explains this, but then
pretends that it is somehow confusing. She then goes to on explain
that environmental exposures also play a big role in future disease
risks. Please tell us something we don’t know.

As I reported in my article, I had already had a polyp removed,
suffered a second-degree sunburn as a child, and my parents died of
heart disease, so I would be taking those facts, as well as the
genetic information the companies supplied, into account as I
thought about my disease risks.  As I concluded:

The differential tests results do not bother me, and I would be
surprised if many gene testing pioneer customers find the
information they receive all that confusing. The results are
probabilistic calculations based on a selection of low risk
susceptibility alleles. The right way to think about the current
direct-to-consumer genotype screening tests is that they are a
preliminary technology. They offer supplementary, not dispositive
information about various health risks. The tests are not perfect,
but they are the beginning of the process through which consumers,
physicians, and purveyors will learn how to better interpret and
use genetic information over time.

We are in the Apple II era of genetic testing. It would have
been silly to ban the Apple
II just because it was not as easy to use or immediately
comprehensible as the MacBook Air. Standardization
of test results will come as more information about the interaction
between genetic variants and environmental influences accumulates.
The current tests function as training wheels for curious consumers
who will be using the whole genome and epigenetic screening tests
that will be widely and cheaply available by the end of this
decade. As one of those curious consumers, I don’t want or need
federal regulators to protect me from my own test results.

That’s still the case, although that has unfortunately not
stopped the
Food and Drug Administration from banning direct-to-consumer
genetic testing from
23andMe.

One
more story about a cop facing charges before 2013 comes to a
close.

From WTAE:

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Ernest Boatright is
charged with endangering the welfare of children and harassment
after police said he shot pepper spray into the bedroom of his
girlfriend’s 13-year-old son.

According to court papers, Boatright found the teen still in bed
when he was supposed to be in school, so he discharged his pepper
spray in to the bedroom.

The criminal complaint said that the boy immediately
began to cough, sneeze and suffer from runny eyes and nose. Police
said that the boy knew he had been pepper-sprayed because Boatright
had pepper-sprayed him before.

Boatright was suspended, without pay.

More Reason on police abuses here.

Follow these stories and more at Reason 24/7 and don’t forget you
can e-mail stories to us at 24_7@reason.com and tweet us
at @reason247.

Every December the Baltimore City
Paper publishes a feature called “People Who Died,” covering
some of the less-well-known-but-still-important figures who passed
away in the past year. This year and last year, unlike
previous years,
the obituarists have limited themselves to deceased people who
lived in the Baltimore area. That means a couple of bona-fide
celebrities, such as Tom Clancy and Richard Ben Kramer, slipped
onto the list this
time, but it also means the more obscure entries will be
really obscure for those of you who don’t live around
here, so it balances out. The 2013 edition’s highlights
include tributes to actor Robert Chew,
best known for playing Proposition Joe on The Wire, and
writer “Blaster”
Al Ackerman, an old-time zinester whose weird and funny tall
tales deserve a much wider audience than they got in his
lifetime.

Picking the year’s worst op-eds wasn’t easy in
2013. There’s the Slate writer who announced you’re “a bad person
if you send your children to private school”; the New York
Times piece arguing that conservative Dallas ”willed the
death” of JFK (by getting a communist to shoot him?); and the
fellow who worried that allowing more high-skilled immigration
would exacerbate “America’s Genius Glut.” If you’ve been losing
sleep over the genius glut in American punditry, writes Gene Healy,
rest easy. That threat’s a long way off.

View this article.