Reply to DC really needs to get pot “gifting” stores under control

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't care if they are gifting or officially selling - the real problem with these stores is that they are all cash operations and there have been muggings in the nearby areas because the customers have to carry cash. The feds need to make it straight out legal so that the stores can use banks/credit cards and can thus pay taxes to make up for all of the nuisance they bring into communities.

And I'm not anti-legalization. But these are barely businesses of any sort.[/quote]

Or, DC could enforce the law and close the illegal “gifting” shops. [/quote]

But the D.C. government and most people in D.C. don't actually want this. What most people want is for the shops to operate legally, paying taxes and under a regulatory regime. Andy Harris, a dude from Maryland who gets to decide what the D.C. government does because he's in Congress, doesn't want this. So we don't get that.

You want the city to look at a situation where we can have either this decidedly flawed gray zone or no legalization at all and opt for no legalization at all. The city has decided to opt for the gray zone.

It should all change a bit soon, anyway, though, since they're allowing the I-71 shops to get certified under the existing medicinal marijuana regulatory system. Do you have any complaints about how the medicinal shops have operated up to now? Maybe you'll like it better when ABRA is in charge of all non-black-market weed sales in D.C. (there will also still be plenty of totally illegal drug sales regardless, I suspect).[/quote]

The dubious people running the illegal “gifting” shops are not going to run out and get licensed as dispensaries. DC is still going to have to shut them down. DC isn’t pro prohibition, but we still shut down bars that don’t follow the rules. [/quote]

I don't get why anyone defends the gifting shops. They are more likely to provoke a backlash that makes pot use illegal again in the long run, because they are so poorly run, encourage/provoke crime, and often result in nuisance behavior on the street outside. Plus the issues with selling to minors. I think this is actually the goal of some people in Congress who are making it impossible for DC to set our own policy and prosecution strategies, because they benefit from being able to point at DC and say "see, legalized pot is terrible, look at all these problems it causes."

If you've ever lived in a place with actual legalized marijuana and a more developed industry around it, you'd see that the gifting shops are terrible. They are unaccountable, fly-by-night businesses just looking to make a quick buck and uninterested in long term viability or becoming a valuable part of the community in which they operate. In places like Colorado where the pot industry is totally legitimate, you don't have these issues because the industry is run by actual business people who have no interest in running a business that can be shut down next month or that attracts violent crime or causes all the neighbors to hate them.

People who love the gifting shops are stuck in the "heh heh let's go hot box your dad's car" stage of pot use. They like that it annoys people because that's part of the allure of pot to them -- being counterculture and annoying the squares. But actual pot legalization eliminates that distinction, which is actually better for everyone in the long run. Time to grow up.[/quote]

No one loves the gifting shops. People aren't defending them here, they're explaining why we're in this stupid status quo where the city is barred from proceeding with actual legalized marijuana. D.C. has attempted to have actual legalization; voters have approved it. Congress has passed laws forbidding the city from using any money to carry that policy out in any way. They're looking for alternative ways to proceed, like allowing all adults to self-certify for medicinal cards and allowing the gifting shops to get certified under the existing medicinal regulatory regime, which comes with rules, licensing, requirements, etc. Personally, while I buy marijuana very infrequently, I would MUCH rather buy it when I do from a legal, regulated, law-abiding business, and I don't have any interest in "being counterculture and annoying the squares."

But many posters here are acting as if the choice is between the status quo and full legalization, when it is not — the choice D.C. faces now is between the status quo and full criminalization, at least until they're able to shift all of the businesses that would like to be law-abiding into the ABRA-run medical regulatory model. Unfortunately, it is not possible for the city to set up rules to govern the gifting shops unless they become medicinal dispensaries or unless Congress drops the rider in the D.C. appropriations law that has led to this absurd gray market setup.[/quote]

Stop excusing DC. There’s no reason DC has to allow the gifting shops to continue to break the law. [/quote]

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