4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2016
Weed: Marijuana industy has grown under three presidents
level rules. When states began
pushing the marijuana exper-
iment beyond the medical
realm, former Attorney Gen-
eral Eric Holder urged them to
keep the drug away from crim-
inals, kids, federal lands and
other states where it remains
illegal.
Marijuana activists say
the pot experiment is too far
along for anyone to stop, but
the industry is anxious. When
Sessions was announced as the
attorney general nominee, the
pro-legalization group Drug
Policy Alliance didn’t mince
words.
“This,”
the
group
announced in an urgent email
to supporters, “was our worst
nightmare.”
Continued from Page 1A
Department could file lawsuits
on the grounds that state laws
regulating pot are unconsti-
tutional because they are pre-
empted by federal law.
Something similar hap-
pened in 2010, when the Jus-
tice Department successfully
sued Arizona to block an immi-
gration law that conflicted with
federal immigration law.
Federal courts can also
compel action, not just block it,
as in Kentucky last year, when
a county clerk was ordered
to issue marriage licenses to
same-sex couples following
a landmark Supreme Court
ruling.
Twenty-eight states and
Washington, D.C., allow mar-
ijuana for medical or recre-
ational purposes. The govern-
ment has yet to sue any of them.
Raid pot businesses: The
government could avoid court
entirely if it doesn’t mind a
more expensive option: law-en-
forcement raids.
The Drug Enforcement
Administration retains the
legal ability to shut down any-
one selling or growing pot, but
there has been no coordinated
federal attempt to close pot pro-
ducers in multiple states. The
agency has said repeatedly that
it does not have the resources to
pursue ordinary pot users.
Any change in that
approach would likely require
more money from Congress,
which just saw many of its con-
stituents vote in favor of legal-
ization. And a federal agency
probably will not spend limited
resources busting people grow-
ing pot for personal use, said
John McKay, a former U.S.
attorney in Washington state.
“Who is going to stop peo-
ple from smoking pot in a res-
idence in Denver? Federal
agents?” he said. “They are
going to stop doing terrorism
investigations and start arrest-
ing people for pot? That, to me,
is crazy.”
Still, a series of raids could
upend the marijuana landscape
and chill investment in the
fledgling industry.
Financial hurdles
It’s the biggest complaint in
the weed business: taxes.
Businesses selling mari-
juana cannot use tax breaks
or incentives offered to other
small businesses, and some
of them say they pay 80 per-
cent or more of every dollar on
taxes and fees. They have lim-
ited access to banking because
many financial institutions are
leery of the paperwork they are
required to file on clients work-
ing with marijuana.
Colorado officials tried last
year to ease the banking burden
by setting up a special credit
union to safely handle pot-
shops money, only to see the
Federal Reserve Bank and fed-
eral courts block the effort.
As long as Congress and the
new administration leave those
hurdles in place, the marijuana
business will grow haltingly.
Voters may generally support
pot legalization, but few have
sympathy for a pot entrepre-
neur unable to become a multi-
millionaire because of banking
obstacles.
AP Photo/Brennan Linsley
AP Photo/Brennan Linsley
The morning sun rises behind a row of maturing pot
plants at Los Suenos Farms in Avondale, Colo.
Farmworkers transport newly harvested marijuana plants
at Los Suenos Farms in Avondale, Colo.
ington state spent more than a
year mulling rules for the pot
business.
dents, each opposed to legal-
ized weed.
The Obama administration
Anxious industry
The marijuana industry
has grown under three presi-
has generally shied away from
pursuing commercial opera-
tors who comply with state-
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