{"id":5489,"date":"2016-02-06T01:04:48","date_gmt":"2016-02-06T01:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/?p=46774"},"modified":"2016-02-06T01:04:48","modified_gmt":"2016-02-06T01:04:48","slug":"washington-state-gop-chairwoman-claims-increase-in-black-market-since-legalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/washington-state-gop-chairwoman-claims-increase-in-black-market-since-legalization\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington State: GOP Chairwoman Claims Increase in Black Market Since Legalization"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/washington-state-gop-chairwoman-claims-increase-in-black-market-since-legalization\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p><strong>In an interview with Roll Call, a new Power Brokers news series, House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers expresses her opinion on a variety of topics &#8211; one being marijuana legalization in WA State.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Chairwoman\u2019s home state, Washington, legalized marijuana for adult consumption in 2012. The interviewer, Melinda Henneberger, asked <strong>Chairwoman McMorris Rodgers<\/strong> how recreational marijuana legalization has changed life in WA State and if she felt [the legalization of pot]was related at all to the heroin epidemic.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">McMorris Rodgers touches on a few sensitive topics in her response. First, she claims that the legalization of recreational marijuana has certainly led to a \u201cconcern about the underground economy, and um, activity, that is related to marijuana in Washington State.\u201d Essentially, she\u2019s saying that <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.marijuana.com\/blog\/news\/2015\/01\/washington-state-sold-64-million-worth-of-legal-weed-in-2014\/\" target=\"_blank\">legal weed has increased black market sales<\/a><\/strong>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But let\u2019s back-up and look at <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">how<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Washington legalized pot for adult consumption. The initiative passed in November of 2012 which made the possession and consumption of weed legal for anyone over 21&#8230;yet, there was <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">nowhere<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to buy said \u2018legal weed\u2019. The first recreational store opened in July of 2014. So for <\/span><b>20 whole months<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the herb was legal to carry, legal to smoke (in the privacy of your own home), but <\/span><b>illegal<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to buy anywhere! I\u2019m not exactly sure what legislators were expecting, but it\u2019s pretty apparent they actually <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">created<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the need for a black market.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can\u2019t just<strong> legalize pot<\/strong> and assume people are going to wait patiently until you figure out the structure. That\u2019s like giving a kid an awesome Christmas present they\u2019ve been waiting years for and then saying &#8211; \u201cOh, but you actually can\u2019t use it for a year and a half, sorry!\u201d Of course, people who have never gone to the black market before are suddenly going to turn to their friends and ask who has the herbal connect. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not to mention, in 2012 there were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seattlemet.com\/articles\/2012\/10\/8\/seattles-biggest-buzz-dealer-isnt-starbucks-november-2012\">more medical shops open in Seattle than Starbucks<\/a>. There wasn\u2019t a lack of product! There was a lack of safe access to product for adults that didn&#8217;t have their medical card. So, of course, anyone over 21 who was excited about weed being legal had nowhere else to go <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">besides<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the black market. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oregon recently legalized pot and their model for transition was quite inventive. They realized their citizens would be excited about this new-found freedom, so once the bill passed they allowed all the existing medical shops to sell up to 7 grams of flower to anyone over 21. This harnessed the population\u2019s excitement &#8211; you could visually see it by the mile-long lines outside of medical shops. It also generated<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">$3.2 million dollars of revenue in the first <\/span><b>day<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, $11 million in its first <\/span><b>week<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> &#8211; <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">these are the highest sales out of any state to legalize marijuana. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This structure is short-term as they transition into a recreational structure and begin licensing growers and retail outlets. But rather than let their population sit around and be left to fall into the black market &#8211; they provided them with safe, legal access. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>Another reason the black market has seen an economical jump is because of the diminishing medical market. Proponents of Initiative 502 (legalizing marijuana for adult use) promised over and over again that the passing of this bill would not affect the existing medical marijuana industry. There was a large \u2018Anti-502\u2019 movement from the medical community who were sure their livelihoods would be at stake if this initiative passed. Unfortunately, they were right. The first day of legal recreational pot was the beginning of the end for medical marijuana in Washington State.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As medical marijuana retail outlets dwindled &#8211; patients were forced, unwillingly, back into the black market. Why? Because patients treating serious conditions such as cancer, epilepsy, etc, require high dosages of concentrated cannabis &#8211; a product that is considered illegal in the recreational market. There is also a high tax placed on recreational pot products that makes treating ailments unfeasible. Patients were faced with the decision to live illegally in the midst of the black market, or pick up and move their families to another state where they are allowed safe access to medical-grade marijuana again. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lastly, the interviewer, Melinda Henneberger, and Chairwoman McMorris Rodgers both made points linking marijuana to increases in opiate addiction. This is strange because researchers have actually found that in the 23 states where medical marijuana has been legalized, opioid-related deaths have fallen by an average of 25%. According to the 2011 World Drug Report, U.S. States with medical marijuana saw dramatic decreases in overdose deaths from opioids like morphine, oxycodone and heroin &#8211; 20% decrease in the first year, 25% by year two and up to 33% decrease in years five and six. Not to mention, that 6 out of 10 of these overdoses are by patients who have a <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">legitmate <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">prescription from a single doctor; they are not obtaining these opiates illegally on the black market! <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This Roll Call interview portrays marijuana as a gateway drug, by insinuating that heroin addiction is increasing in legalized states, however that has been proven false. How much longer are we going to call pot a gateway drug and ignore the <\/span><b>real <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">gateway drugs? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A Study published in the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Journal of School Health <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">aimed to determine which drug, between alcohol, tobacco or marijuana, actually led to the abuse of additional substances. <\/span><b>The study found the drug that does the most damage is actually the most socially accepted one: Alcohol.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The study concluded that high school students who used alcohol \u201cexhibited a significantly greater likelihood of using both licit and illicit drugs.\u201d Unlike cannabis, if a kid decides to experiment with alcohol and drinks too much, it could be <\/span><b>fatal<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Smoking too much weed may scare you away from ever smoking weed again, but at least you won&#8217;t die<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>There needs to be more cannabis education for our elected officials &#8211; and everyone for that matter. Learning more about the plant is the quickest way to grow out of the long-held, negative stigmas still held by many in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Here is the interview, 10:00\u00a0is when Henneberger asks the question about marijuana.<\/p>\n<p><span class='embed-youtube' style='text-align:center; display: block;'><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text\/html' width='702' height='425' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xXvS_tyspDM?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;autohide=2&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;wmode=transparent' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen='true'><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an interview with Roll Call, a new Power Brokers news series, House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers expresses her opinion on a variety of topics &#8211; one being marijuana legalization in WA State. The Chairwoman\u2019s home state, Washington, legalized marijuana for adult consumption in 2012. The interviewer, Melinda Henneberger, asked Chairwoman McMorris Rodgers [&#8230;] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1428,5078,5079,77,2437,9,5080,302,399,1,3,173],"tags":[3997,5081,5082,2655,2443,5083,2880,2977,2751],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5489"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}