Official konsider blurb magazine

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RELENTLESS

Relentless Alaska Grown, Brandon Emmett on the frontline protecting the Rights for Responsible Cannabis.

Growers Corner Article Learn from tips & tricks from the best,

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Cannabis News

10 Reasons Cannabis is Safer than Alcohol

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in focus

Shoot of the Month Jesse L. Brooks.

Jesse L. Brooks: I’m obsessively-driven, diversely-experienced creative director, with wide variety of contemporary strategies. My work is made through strict rules which can be perceived as liberating, inspirational, and authentic. I try to approach problems with a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way, I work directly in respond to the surrounding environment and use everyday experiences from an artist starting point. jessebrooks@KonsiderMagazine.com

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�When we run, our bodies actually produce endocannabinoids, a naturally occuring form of THC.�

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“It’s not easy. You can’t really grow it outside here. It takes quite a bit of resources and knowledge. ”

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“Jack Herer’s like a hero of mine.

He was extremely popular when I was a teenager in Oregon. There’s a strain named after him..”

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“Hey, a drop in the bucket is better. than a drop out. All right, we’ll keep you guys around.”

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Answer Key: Next Konsider Magazine issue.

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Photo provide by: Shutter Stock Images

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words by: Marco Torres

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Photo provide by: Getty Stock Images

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by: Dr. Baz Moreno.

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Dr. Baz Moreno lives in Mexico City, Mexico. He is continuing his education in Complementary Alternative Medicine after having taught classes in holistic health.

He specializes in lupus, AIDS/ HIV, cancer, diabetes and pain.

His clinic is located in the southern part of Distrito Federal.

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Ballot Measure No. 2

ITS LAW

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– saint augustine.

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brings pot usiness

and questions to fairbanks by: jeff richardson

David Hodge with Discreet Deliveries speaks with a customer confirming a marijuana delivery Friday evening, May 1, 2015.

After being greeted with a smile and checking an ID, Hodge handed over a sealed silver envelope. It contained 3.5 grams of “Green Rush” marijuana, just like the Discreet Deliveries website promised.

Nikki Shelton admitted the experience was a little bewildering as she held the bundle from her new purchase.

It also was just what she’d hoped for when she voted to legalize pot last November.

“It’s a really cool thing,” she said. “I don’t need to call the guy down the street.”

Shelton was among the first Fairbanks customers for Discreet Deliveries, which began operating locally on Monday.

The company sees its expansion to Interior Alaska as the next logical step in its pot-delivery boom, which began in Southcentral Alaska four months ago.

Hodge moved from the Mat-Su Borough to Fairbanks to become the company’s regional manager. He still was using a GPS navigator on his smartphone to make his way around town during his rounds last week, but said he’s ecstatic about the move.

“It’s definitely exciting,” Hodge said. “I believe our business will blow up here. I don’t see it not happening.”

But there’s one big catch, according to the director of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which has been given the task of regulating marijuana in Alaska. When asked about Discreet Deliveries, Cynthia Franklin didn’t hesitate.

“Completely illegal operation,” she said. “It’s illegal.”

A new industry The arrival of the Discreet Deliveries in Fairbanks is the newest development in the emerging business of commercial pot. Franklin said it’s one of several operations that suddenly came to life, mostly in Anchorage, after Alaska voters legalized recreational use of marijuana last fall.

The company formed soon after the November election, openly bringing pot to homes, businesses and even nursing facilities, said coowner Rocky Burns.

Burns was previously in real estate, and his business partner Larry Stamper worked in

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construction. They said the decision to shift toward pot deliveries has had an immediate payoff.

Burns said his company brought in $104,000 in March and was on pace to exceed that figure in April. It has 14 drivers, he said, with expansion to Juneau planned for the near future.

“It just went ‘whoosh!’” Burns said, using his hands to mimic an explosion.

Both Burns and Stamper say they are confident they’re operating legally based on their interpretation of the voter initiative. Burns argues it provides rules for commercial operations, which can be followed until the Legislature chooses to provide a more detailed framework.

“Nowhere will you find that businesses weren’t to start,” he said. “It’s quite the opposite.”

Not everyone enforcing Alaska’s drug laws agrees.

The delivery business hit a bump on Jan. 28, when a Discreet Deliveries driver was arrested after selling to an undercover Anchorage police officer.

The company temporarily halted deliveries after the arrest, but vowed to “open again soon.”

That happened less than a week later, after Discreet Deliveries received a courier license from the Mat-Su Borough. Burns said the license amounts to a government sanction of his operation, and he said he hasn’t heard from law enforcement or state regulators since then.

Except for Franklin at the ABC board, authorities haven’t had much to say publicly about such operations in recent months.

Alaska State Troopers forward questions about marijuana to the ABC Board and the Alaska Department of Law. Fairbanks police didn’t provide a response by Friday when asked the previous week about Discreet Deliveries.

Franklin, however, said there isn’t a gray area in terms of commercial operations. Although possession of limited amounts of marijuana became legal on Feb. 24, the initiative gives the state nine months to implement a framework for commercial sales. She said anyone making money from pot before then is operating outside the law.

“It’s not that we’re running behind,” she said. “They’re getting ahead, and that’s unfortunate and illegal.”

Differing interpretations Franklin and Burns have differing opinions about the primary intent of the marijuana legalization initiative, underscoring their beliefs about whether it’s proper for commercial pot businesses to be operating now.

Franklin said the voter intent of the initiative was clear — not only did it legalize pot, but it also assigned the state the role of regulating it. She said there’s not a path for jumping ahead of the process.

“It was not a vote for unregulated, unlicensed marijuana businesses,” Franklin said. But Burns emphasizes a passage from the initiative that states “legitimate, taxpaying business people, and not criminal actors, will conduct sales of marijuana.”

Discreet Deliveries has regularly paid employees, a tax attorney and an advertising budget, Burns said. He said they get invoiced records of each sale, with the intention of paying taxes on the product.

They also have a website and Facebook page, which openly state prices and delivery rates for various marijuana strains and edibles. Prices range from $20 for a gram of marijuana to $320 for an ounce, along with a delivery fee of $10, or $25 for same-day service.

Burns said stunting businesses like his will continue to route sales to the “criminal actors” who the initiative singles out as undesirable. He’s also convinced the state’s confounding approach to medical marijuana provides plenty of reason to move ahead immediately.

Alaska voters approved pot for medical use in 1998, but the Legislature never followed up with a way to legally acquire the drug.

Although hundreds of Alaskans hold medical marijuana cards, they’ve always needed to use illegal means to purchase pot.

That history doesn’t give state officials much credibility when they urge marijuana businesses to be patient, Burns said.

“The same people are telling us ‘Don’t start, just wait,’” he said. However, Franklin said there will be consequences for businesses that operate illegally. A bill establishing a Marijuana Control Board, which also will be under her direction, is awaiting Gov. Bill Walker’s signature. When it’s signed, it will shift enforcement authority to her alcohol and marijuana investigators. “When the governor signs it, that will be the magical day we will address and hopefully shut down” illegal sales, Franklin said.

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Klassified

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