Marijuana money a growing problem in Colorado

If the government or banking systems make it hard to run a legal store, it will just be sold without the benefit of the legal stores. Why open a store if you cant use the money or accumulate it? The legal stores would drop out. It will become black market. So that you can have then a legal substance not sold through regulated stores but through the very same thugs you are trying to avoid in the 1st place. Something like that would make sense to the government. It's probably what will happen. It may well happen even if there is no pressures on the legal stores.

if the federal goverment doesnt like it it cant be all that bad

Follow the money.

Drug dealers are sheltering billions of tax free dollars overseas where the United States cannot touch it. Meanwhile these drug dealers continue to violate federal laws and are under investigation and indictment from the federal government. These drug dealers are knowingly putting dangerous drugs on the street with no regard to health and safety.

These drug dealers go by the names Pfizer, Amgen, AstraZeneca and others. You can find their literature strewn around the office of your local practicing medical physician.

"U.S. companies led by General Electric Co. (GE) and Pfizer Inc. (PFE) stockpiled an additional $187 billion in untaxed overseas profits over the past year, boosting their offshore holdings by 18.4 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-02/cash-horde-expands-by-187-billion-in-un...

"And here are some of the other egregious hoarders, according to the two analyses: - Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE): $73 billion in overseas nontaxed liquid assets in 2012, up from $48 billion in 2010.- Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE:MRK): $53 billion, up from $40.4 billion in 2010.- Johnson & Johnson"

http://www.ibtimes.com/ge-pfizer-microsoft-apple-other-major-us-corporations-are...

"Report: GE, Pfizer leaders in storing cash overseas"

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/health/GE-Pfizer-leaders-in-storing-cash-overseas.h...

And the willful deception to push these drugs is egregious.

Novartis

"Federal Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Investigative Division ("FBI"), announced that the United States has filed a civil healthcare fraud lawsuit against Novartis."

"Novartis caused the public to pay tens of millions of dollars for kickback-tainted drugs that were dispensed by pharmacists who were in cahoots with the company. Novartis, as we allege, is a repeat offender, having settled healthcare fraud charges based on kickbacks less than three years ago."

Amgen

"Amgen On April 16, 2013, Amgen inc agreed to pay the United States $24.9 million to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act"

- See more at: http://www.policymed.com/2013/07/summary-of-recent-settlements-novartis-amgen-an...

Amgen Agrees to Pay $762 Million for Marketing Anemia Drug for Off-Label Use

"Amgen was "pursuing profits at the risk of patient safety," Marshall L. Miller, acting United States attorney in Brooklyn, said in a telephone news briefing on Tuesday."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/business/amgen-agrees-to-pay-762-million-in-dr...

Great business, right?

Despite prosecution from the federal departments of justice, the FBI and other government agencies financial institutions are more than happy to accept the money gained from these nefarious activities. The dope peddled by these criminals is often dangerous but they do not care and neither do the banks.

On one hand we have drug companies lying, sheltering tax free money and knowingly harming citizens in the name of profits while on the other we have the fledgling cannabis industry who is trying to do the right thing in paying taxes and using the highly regulated banking system for legal transactions.

The current price of clean, decent quality cannabis in McCook is $100.00 per quarter ounce, the exact same price as legal medical grade recreational cannabis in Colorado. Mexican sourced marijuana -- street name "brick weed" as it is compacted into bricks using a trash compactor before being smuggled out of Mexico is everywhere and sells for around $40.00 per quarter ounce. Both are readily available in McCook.

These illegal cannabis sellers have no problem at all accepting cash and most are willing to trade for pharmaceuticals such as the highly addictive opioid pain medications Fentanyl, Hydrocodone, Vicodin, OxyContin and Percocet as well as the benzodiazepine drugs such as Xanax and Ativan. If you simply visit your doctor and get a prescription you can then trade these drugs for illegal cannabis in McCook.

Nothing can be done about the availability of cannabis and many including myself believe nothing should be done as it is arguably a benign and sometimes beneficial plant that grows naturally all over the world and has been safely used for thousands of years.

Many who argue against it do so while swigging the liquid drug called alcohol down their gullet or popping a feel better pill given to them by their doctor. To be fair many opponents of legal cannabis are drug free abstaining from alcohol and prescribed feel better pills.

Marijuana is here and abundant and that will never change. Simply peruse online auction sites and view the astounding amount of grow lights and systems being sold that allow citizens to grow high quality cannabis in their closet without much fuss.

All this hoopla regarding Colorado borders on the ridiculous. Of course we are seeing more cannabis showing up from Colorado here in Nebraska. If you are a cannabis consumer would you prefer a highly regulated medicine grown without chemicals, lab checked, labeled and sealed or would you prefer to buy Mexican brick weed from people and parts unknown grown outdoors with pesticides, herbicides and who knows what else.

The only real question in this ongoing saga over a green plant from the ground is as a society should we legalize, tax and control cannabis or do we continue to let the underground economy profiting cartels and drug dealers continue to do business as they have for decades.

Legal in one state and not leqal in another--and federally-causes problems in the states that enforce the federal law.

All this sales tax / no sales tax is the smaller issue. My company has offices in Nebraska, South Dakota, Kansas and Colorado.... over the past five years our offices were all rather consistent, now in the last ten months, our Colorado offices have found it excruciatingly difficult to find anyone that wants a full time (40 hrs per week) job. Gaining on sales tax, but loosing on income tax, which is in the range of 3 time the amount of sales tax. State income, lets look at Colorado's bottom line and see if they are indeed making money or loosing money. Yes, they may tout the extreme income that they are receiving from the sales tax from marijuana, but as any manufacturer knows, in order to produce more interest, you focus on the strength of your product and avoid the it's weaknesses. Is if coincidence that Colorado is the only ones that see a strict decline in a willing workforce or is it the result of something else?

When a majority of available workers decide that work isn't their cup of tea, and yet need money to procure their coveted "Feel Good" product of choice, what happens? I might venture a guess that one or both of two scenarios will occur...... State Aid goes up or crime does. Neither is good and both works against the nation as a negative.... or am I wrong?

Nick Mercy

1. Colorado's unemployment rate is the lowest its been in five years at 6.2% - slightly better than the national average.

2. Crime rates are down

3. Colorado gives more money to the federal government than it takes.

4. Colorado has one of the lowest percentages of people receiving SNAP (Food Stamps)

More people are working in Colorado now so perhaps your pool of applicants is simply smaller since people already have jobs.

Colorado unemployment rate falls to 6.2 percent

The Associated Press

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25008494/colorado-unemployment-rate-falls-6-2-...

Study: Marijuana legalization doesn't increase crime

"According to data from the Denver Police Department, violent crime (including homicide, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault) fell by 6.9% in the first quarter of 2014, compared with the same period in 2013. Property crime (including burglary, larceny, auto theft, theft from motor vehicle and arson) dropped by 11.1%."

http://www.msnbc.com/all/does-marijuana-lower-the-crime-rate

Colorado has one of the lowest percentage of SNAP (Food Stamp) users.

http://www.governing.com/gov-data/food-stamp-snap-benefits-enrollment-participat...

Colorado is a "net giver" in regards to Federal money. In fact with the exception of Nebraska; Colorado and New Mexico (legalized Cannabis staets)are both net givers and every state surrounding them are 'net takers' receiving more federal money than they give.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/02/is-your-state-a-net-giver-or-taker-of-feder...

I apologize for all these facts. I realize many on here prefer conjecture, guess work and bias.

Diatheke, I'm sure you're right. Statistics don't lie..... then again, time will tell. This is still in it's infancy. It's been my experience that those that prescribe themselves "Medicine" to calm their nerves and take the "Edge Off" tend to be a bit laid back in the work force. But really, if they weren't, then what's the purpose of spending money to calm the nerves and take the edge off.

People go to the Doctor all the time to get these types of medications, BUT the expense is much more as they not only have to pay for the prescription, they also have to pay for the appointment, and answer uncomfortable questions that may cause them to be judged by others. This is a bit easier to just pick up a baggy or what ever dispensary packaging it comes in, much like you'd pick up a loaf of bread, among other shoppers picking up the same items, no guilt or judgment.

I suspect that the reason our Colorado branch has a hard time finding help is due to the fact that we require a mandatory drug test, and our advertisement for employment states it.