Felt Like A Speakeasy
I got invited to a different kind of event this week. Won’t tell you which night, I want to stay in line with the black-ops theme of the get-together. It was about cannabis. The first email came in and let me know I was recommended as a recipient of an invitation of like-minded individuals who are out front on the transition from black market to legal recreational use of cannabis. I sent in my email address, and a few days later I was “registered”. Next I got a code I had to use to get the formal invite. When I opened the invite it RSVP’d me and gave me time and place, and an optical download to be used as my ticket.
Security
Who will be there I wondered? Out of respect for the organizers and the attendees the rest of this post is pretty cryptic. I will tell you we were in Seattle, and we were asked for donations mid-evening. It seemed funny that the thing started well after the dinner hour. I flashed my phone pad at security at the door, they looked or scanned it or something and in we went. It was an old building, a really old building. One of those contemporary funky metro-area buildings where the developer said to herself, “It would be a lot cheaper to just sand-down the beams and old lumber plank floors than to tear out or refinish the place. Yeah, that’s what we will do, it will look so…metro.” So there we were. All these people standing around talking. I was guessing they all had some role in Washington’s unprecedented development of a recreational cannabis business. And I was right.
Business Yes, Out-going, Not So Much
I will say that for my style, most folks were a little shy. I ended up working the room, introducing myself and asking each what their role or interest was. Most the folks were engaging. Others were a little uneasy with my outgoing interaction. But they were there in spades: elected and appointed local and state officials (unofficially of course), growers, processors, retailers, MMJ and recreational sector, and cooks. Well, chefs or whatever. I met more people who created and produced “eatables” then I believed were possible. Of course right now they must be creating for the MMJ market. One guy was exceptionally discrete. He was a money man. A venture capital type. Finance is an interesting aspect of this upcoming and existing business. We all know the feds/IRS allow no business deductions, no write-offs for any part of this business; if you are honest. And borrowing money to get something up and running is an art. Think about it, your business is loaning money to people who are, regardless of state laws, in violation of federal law. Your collateral for the loan needs to be unrelated. I mean, you need to give them a car or a house. You hardly can pledge your lease of a warehouse, or ten thousand square feet of weeds growing in various stages of development. He was fascinating.
Food, Consumables
Food? We had a fancy salad bar and free hotdogs. (didn’t see the hotdogs coming) You could grab a glass of wine, or some apple cider. My wife asked me if there was consumable cannabis there? Next question please!
This Is The Group To Stay Close To
It was a sort of a high-end networking kind of place. Lots of folks were watching the LCB for their slot to apply for one of the new licenses for I-502. Some large MMJ growers were asking questions about the future of their operations. It was the week of introduction of Senator Rivers’ and Tom’s almost complete rewrite of the state’s MMJ law. The 800 pound brownie in the room always has been the possible, necessary, maybe-combine, of the state’s twelve year-old MMJ law with the new, highly regulated I-502 platform. Colorado is going to a single platform if their legislature agrees with it’s blue ribbon task force report and suggestion.
So there we were, talking, drinking, eating hotdogs, (smoke’in and joke’in with the kid next door…never mind) and discussing the production, processing, and retailing of every sort of human cannabis consumption. I found out first hand that growing is as precise as I have heard. I learned that you can eat, smoke, spray, rub-into-skin, put under tongue, powder and snort, and drink cannabis, or its derivatives. Get ready for fancy, high-end retailers that will make our present dispensaries look like 7-11’s or seedy pawn shops.
A Personal Observation
Unique? This little soiree is probably one a many, and the start of something big. But, I want to close with a personal observation. For a person who was in college in the 60’s and 70’s this is a surreal time. It is impossible to explain to folks who have grown up in a metro area where cannabis enforcement, has by local law/resolution, been the “least important” task. As I mentioned to anyone with a touch of gray in their hair, if they have hair, it is a little eery to be thinking about open possession and use of cannabis outside of the MMJ program. Some of the people in the room had friends or acquaintances who had been arrested for possession of small amounts. One guy I talked to said he had been arrested but not convicted. Oh yes, we still have the 20th century federal law hanging over our heads, but if the state does this correctly, Washington and Colorado will be set up soon for full, regular retail purchase of cannabis for recreational use.
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