Weed Between the Lines
Public consumption takes a giant step in Alaska
On Nov. 20, Alaska’s Marijuana Control Board voted to allow consumption of cannabis at licensed retail dispensaries. Alaska was the fourth state to legalize cannabis, and if signed into law, it would become the first to allow consumption outside of residential homes ...
Could Boulder price itself out of the pot market?
I support taxes on sales of marijuana, but I’m scratching my head a little over the latest proposal before the Boulder City Council to place a 15 percent city excise tax on grow and infusion facilities and a 10 percent city sales tax on marijuana on the November ...
After a year, it appears that legalization might just work
It’s hard to believe that it’s been one full year since retail cannabis shops opened, and two full years that cannabis has been legal in Colorado. So much has happened, but the best news of all is that, all things considered, the experiment seems to be working...
The state can’t protect us from ourselves
While the Colorado legislature struggles with ways to make marijuana look different from other food products, another tragic death has been blamed on edibles by the family of an Oklahoma man who shot himself March 21 while on a skiing vacation in Keystone...
A sane, sensible approach to public cannabis consumption
One of the conundrums surrounding the implementation of Amendment 64 is that while you can buy marijuana in Colorado, there aren’t many places where you can legally use it in a social setting. Citizens are pretty much limited to their homes or a friend’s house or ...
Country music, mainstream media and pigs on dope
I don’t pay much attention to “trend” stories, but one that currently amuses me is the “new” inclination among country music artists to feature cannabis in their songs. Yes, it appears that some of the current generation of major country-music hitmakers are smoking a...
We need to change the cannabis dialogue
There were a lot of national news stories about the long lines of people standing outside the world´s first adult retail cannabis shops in Colorado. It wasn´t really that difficult to decipher — there were only a small number of shops open on a historic day whipped ...
Is it really this hard to come up with retail cannabis...
The city is now close to passing rules and regulations that will govern the sale of retail cannabis in Boulder. A revised set of staff recommendations returns to City Council this Tuesday, Nov. 12, for a “second” third reading. That follows an often tense “first” ...
New schools or a cup of coffee?
In 2013, Colorado voters passed proposition AA, permitting the state to charge a retail marijuana tax as a follow-up to 2012’s Amendment 64, which legalized marijuana in Colorado. The passing of Amendment 64 and the subsequent passing of Proposition AA were enticing ...
Heading for a showdown on cannabis and banking?
Almost within minutes of the official announcement, headlines last Friday proclaimed that the Department of Justice and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, in separate issuances, had finally given banks a green ...
Cannabis is all the style and now on the floor of...
Among the most surprising things I’ve witnessed in writing Weed Between the Lines for two years now is how quickly the cannabis debate is evolving in Congress. Back then, a small group of representatives, including Colorado’s Jared Polis, were trying, with little ...
Coats decision leaves it up to the legislature
The Colorado Supreme Court Monday dealt the final legal blow to a Colorado man’s plea to keep his job after failing a random drug test administered by his employer in 2010...
