cannabisnews.com: A Place for Pot Growers
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A Place for Pot Growers
Posted by CN Staff on February 21, 2010 at 05:14:02 PT
By Vincent Carroll 
Source: Denver Post
Colorado -- The e-mail landed in my inbox last Saturday morning, shortly after Coloradans learned of a federal raid in Highlands Ranch on a medical marijuana growing operation. It was a plea from another growera fellow whose operation I'd visited a few days before."Please don't use my name or our location," my correspondent wrote. "I don't believe it is a good idea to rub what we are doing in the feds' faces."
No kidding. Jeffrey Sweetin, the Drug Enforcement Administration's agent in charge of the Denver office, seems to take public declarations by medical marijuana growers as a personal affront. When Chris Bartkowicz invited KUSA-TV to his suburban home and clownishly bragged about how much money he hoped to make from his basement pot garden, Sweetin decided it was time to show Coloradans who was boss. His agents swooped in and arrested Bartkowicz, who has been charged with distributing illegal drugs and could face up to 40 years in a cell. "It's not medicine," Sweetin insisted after the Feb. 12 raid — except that in Colorado under certain conditions, marijuana is medicine, as declared by voters who put that judgment in their constitution. If Sweetin wishes to sneer at the opinion of a majority of his neighbors, so be it. But federal officials are usually well-advised to disagree respectfully when most law-abiding citizens dispute Washington's imperial wisdom.Sweetin was on a roll, however, and would not bite his tongue."Technically, every dispensary in the state is in blatant violation of federal law," he said. "The time is coming when we go into a dispensary, we find out what their profit is, we seize the building and we arrest everybody. They're violating federal law; they're at risk of arrest and imprisonment."What does he mean, "We find out what their profit is"? What business of Sweetin's is the profit so long as a dispensary sells to patients on the state registry and is able to document as much? Every dispensary that complies with those standards meets the rules laid down by Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden last year when he said federal agents should not target such establishments.  Snipped   Complete Article: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_14429858Source: Denver Post (CO)Author: Vincent Carroll Published: February 21, 2010Copyright: 2010 The Denver Post CorpWebsite: http://www.denverpost.com/Contact: openforum denverpost.comCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
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Comment #13 posted by FoM on February 23, 2010 at 16:00:47 PT
Denver Pot Dispensary Applications Low
Denver Pot Dispensary Applications Surprisingly LowBy Kirk SieglerFebruary 23, 2010DENVER, CO (KUNC) - The city of Denver has been bracing to process new licensing applications from nearly 500 existing or planned medical marijuana dispensaries. But with an application deadline looming this Friday, city officials say barely a fraction of those have applied.485 sales tax licenses have been issued to dispensaries in Denver. Many are open already, some planning to open. But a slate of new, tougher regulations enacted last month now require all dispensary owners to pay a $5,000 application fee and, among other things, submit to background checks.The deadline for the new applications is Friday. But as of Tuesday afternoon, the city had processed only 75 applications. Sue Cobb, spokeswoman with the Office of Community Planning, expects things will pick up."But I wouldn't expect we'll see another 300 or 400," Cobb says. "But people should know that for those who are operating dispensaries now that do not apply by Friday, they can still apply, but as of March 1st, they'll have to cease operation until they have their license."Cobb says the city expected a lot more applications by now. As in many Colorado cities, dispensaries have become nearly ubiquitous in Denver in recent months. It's prompted public pressure for a crack down. But some of the more up-market dispensary owners have predicted that the gold rush would soon end, because they say some people are getting in the game without any business experience.Copyright: 2010, KUNC
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Comment #12 posted by Storm Crow on February 22, 2010 at 09:10:42 PT
I wonder....
Are his kids such out of control "low-lifes" that he worries that they are busy breaking into basements on the way home from school and stealing people's medicine? 
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Comment #11 posted by MikeEEEEE on February 21, 2010 at 12:31:35 PT
typical idiot
"I don't want this guy growing marijuana in his basement near my kids' school."Is a wine cellar okay you stupid jerk?
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Comment #10 posted by The GCW on February 21, 2010 at 09:02:37 PT
Is this poll off topic or on?
If I'm correct, I think I've read about 50% of people in cages are there w/ some link to assorted "drug" crimes. With that in mind, there are too many women in cages that shouldn't be there and then while in there, they are abused.Poll:Should women in prison be shackled when in labor and giving birth? Absolutely not Yes, they are flight risks The idea itself is absurd It should be handled on a case-by-case basis I´m unsure
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Comment #9 posted by The GCW on February 21, 2010 at 08:53:20 PT
And another thing:
Often when prohibitionists denounce cannabis being in close proximity to schools it is also listed with residential neighborhoods and CHURCHES.I think cannabis should be allowed to be cultivated and used IN churches if that's what they wish.
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Comment #8 posted by kaptinemo on February 21, 2010 at 08:40:07 PT:
But our side has a problem, too
And it's expressed by the very same source mentioned in the article:""I think marijuana should have a place in our society but it shouldn't be everywhere," he added. He objects, for example, to one of his residential neighbors growing marijuana."I don't want this guy growing marijuana in his basement near my kids' school. And I do believe the people of Colorado are better off buying marijuana from the likes of me than they are buying it from the Mexican drug cartels or stuff grown in basements around town, by guys like my neighbor."and"If we're going to allow medical marijuana in Colorado, doesn't this sort of growing operation — efficient, secure and subject to potential inspection by government officials — make sense? In recent months, I've come to believe that any scheme to regulate medical marijuana ought to ensure that it is produced right here, mainly by serious authorized growers, rather than provided by a mix of local amateurs and blood-soaked kingpins.If you listen carefully, you can hear the hypocrisy dripping from the words.I suppose, then, that he has no objection to liquor stores being in close proximity to his kids' school?Relegalization means that anyone has the right to grow. Anyone. Just like tobacco. Just like alcohol. Want to make your own? Fine. Go ahead. But don't tell me I can't and you can because you've got a (State-sanctioned) monopoly. This just goes to show that MMJ is just the logical step - but not the final one - towards legalization, by showing the public that MMJ laws and all the insane regulations proposed for its manufacture are totally pointless and irrelevant in a completely legal milieu. One of the reasons for relegalization is not only to get the LEO jackboot off of our necks, it will also be to keep some our own honest, too.
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Comment #7 posted by The GCW on February 21, 2010 at 08:27:22 PT
The DEA’s dartboard
The DEA’s dartboardhttp://www.boulderweekly.com/article-1744-the-dearss-dartboard.html
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on February 21, 2010 at 08:08:05 PT
runruff
I wish you the very best.
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Comment #5 posted by runruff on February 21, 2010 at 08:00:17 PT
Hope
I will.
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Comment #4 posted by Hope on February 21, 2010 at 07:27:30 PT
Runruff
The thought of tomorrow there fills me with dread.Please be posting to us tomorrow evening.
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Comment #3 posted by The GCW on February 21, 2010 at 07:19:06 PT
Is the DEA an enemy or a friend of My children?
"""To add to the travesty, Bartkowicz's days as a grower were almost certainly numbered anyway, since state lawmakers will never authorize large growing/dispensing operations in residential neighborhoods when they decide in upcoming weeks on a regulatory framework. Nor should they."""Comment: """Sweetin (DEA) know this, and they don't want their salaries or their power to seize property disrupted (you know they're about to be the proud owners of a $600,000 Highlands Ranch house, don't you?), so they'll fight this to their dying breath.""" cont.-0-One of the comments from the Post story indicates another bust (see link) and the owners also own 8 Rivers Restaurant -We should consider supporting that restaurant to help them pay for their legal expenses, -this case is again being discribed as a precedent....
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Comment #2 posted by runruff on February 21, 2010 at 07:05:15 PT
Be a part of history!
If for your own self satisfaction and no other reason step it up!In the War on Drugs, shoot a vote torpedo into the ship, USS Prohibition!Better yet, be a hero in the war for freedom and collect vote torpedoes to be fired at the USS Prohibition!There is not a dreadnought afloat that cannot be sunk by a strong public front!But there is a trade off! For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction......Who's in?
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Comment #1 posted by runruff on February 21, 2010 at 06:29:08 PT
"what we are doing in the feds' faces." 
I know what needs to be rubbed in the feds faces......but spring is here and most of "that" is being used to grow the biggest cash crop in America, at the moment.
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