Cannabis Career Institute teaches principles of business entrepreneurship on Sat., April 27 9am to 7pm.
WARWICK, RI — Some may feel the ‘Gold Rush’ is a euphoric money-making idea stuck in the distant past. Wrong. The Ocean State has just now unleashed an economic tsunami, the results of which can’t even be imagined. The first mini-wave just crested recently when Rhode Island opened its first-ever legal medical marijuana dispensary. The industry is seemingly poised for unimaginable growth and profits.
Now individuals can easily be part of it–by simply learning the proper ways and means to go about opening and running a medical marijuana business at the Cannabis Career Institute (CCI) The school doesn’t teach you how to covertly grow a huge crop of ganja plants. TheCannabis Career Institute is informative and also stays within the state law’s guidelines.
Conservatively speaking, according to Robert Calkin, national medical marijuana expert and founder & CEO of CCI (and one of the school’s instructors), the average dedicated and focused dispensary owner that grows and distributes medical marijuana can potentially earn upwards to $10,000 per day- an average master grower could make $250,000 a year! Profits like this are really relatively easy if one knows how and diligently applies the knowledge that can be gained in the school.
The school offers education-friendly classes and instructors guiding students from to A-to-Z on the art and science of establishing and maintaining a successful delivery service as well as a dispensary business. The classes will cover legal and compliance aspects, marketing, operating, budgeting, growing, cooking, and more. CCI has been launching full-range medical marijuana classes elsewhere throughout the nation for over five years. Taught by highly skilled instructors, students will be armed with the knowledge to open and run their own medical marijuana business after successfully attending the school.
What’s the catch? Students have to sit through an all-day class (yeah, but “we make it very fun.”) Individuals must pay the low enrollment fee of $249. Please compare this to going through years of very costly and laborious schooling, only not to really know if an individual might need to change their career once they graduate due to the economy. A potential return can be immense for a relatively minimal personal investment. In addition, if the student needs a refresher class–that is not a problem. Cannabis Career currently offer a lifetime enrollment.- it’s free to attend any class, at any time, as long is space is available.
The debut of the first-ever Rhode Island all-day school is Saturday, April 27, at the Radisson Providence Airport Hotel in Warwick, 2081 Post Road, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. You will have the opportunity to learn the principles to establish a successful business, and personally meet and talk to leading business experts in the field, including accountants, attorneys, grow experts, edible experts, strain experts and more. Students have the option of purchasing the accompanying textbook, as well as a wealth of other training materials at the class and online.
Cannabis Career Institute (CCI) was founded in March, 2008, by Robert Calkin, and is now the second oldest school in the nation. There are over 2,000 successful graduates, currently hailing from at least 10 U.S. cities, including Sacramento, Phoenix, Boston, Seattle, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. This year is ripe for CCI’s phenomenal growth, with up to 30 more U.S. and Canadian cities planned to launch medical marijuana educational curriculums.
More than just emphasizing the delivery aspects of marijuana, CCI classes are focused on providing a complete medical marijuana business education–incorporating legal aspects, business dispensary planning, and the marketing principles necessary to be successful in this burgeoning industry.
Washington, DC: Lawmakers in several states are anticipated to debate legislative measures this year that seek to legalize and regulate the adult use and retail distribution of marijuana.
To date, lawmakers in six states - Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania,Rhode Island, and Vermont - have either pre-filed or introduced legislation to legalize marijuana consumption for adults.
On Friday, members of Hawaii’s House Judiciary Committee will hear testimony regarding House Bill 699, which seeks to tax and regulate the commercial production, sale, and use of cannabis by those persons age 21 or older. House Chairman, Rep. Joseph Souki, is sponsoring the measure. Nearly six out of ten Hawaii voters believe that cannabis should be “taxed, regulated, and legalized for adults,” according to a statewide poll published earlier this month. Only 39 percent of respondents opposed the idea. You can read NORML’s written testimony to the committee here.
According to a January 2013 New Hampshire poll conducted by the firm Public Policy Polling, 53 percent of respondents favor “changing (state) law to regulate and tax marijuana similarly to alcohol.” Only 37 percent of respondents opposed the plan.
In Vermont, a 2012 survey of respondents in 148 Vermont cities throughout the state reported that one out of two Vermonters support legalization.
On Election Day, 55 percent of voters in Colorado and Washington approved citizens’ ballot initiatives legalizing the adult consumption of marijuana and authorizing the state to license individuals to commercially produce and sell it.
Nationally, nearly six out of ten Americans support legalizing cannabis, according to a just released Public Policy Polling automated telephone survey of 1,325 voters, commissioned by the Marijuana Policy Project.
“Calling for an end to marijuana prohibition is no longer a political liability; it is a political opportunity,” said NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano. “Never in modern history has there been greater public support for ending the nation’s nearly century-long experiment with cannabis prohibition and replacing it with a system of legalization and regulation. Politicians who are seeking to amend this failed policy are aligning themselves with the majority. Those who do not are siding with an ever decreasing minority of their constituents.”
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500 or Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org. Summaries of these legislative measures and of other marijuana law reform bills are available here:http://www.capwiz.com/norml2/issues/.
Source: http://norml.org/news/2013/01/31/several-states-considering-legislation-to-legalize-adult-cannabis-consumption
After the marijuana-policy-reform movement’s huge victories in Colorado and Washington on November 6, many people are asking, “What states will be next to enact measures to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol?” (We refer to these as “T&R” bills or initiatives.)
It is important to note that this pair of 55 percent victories would have been less resounding had they appeared on the ballot during a midterm election. Presidential elections traditionally attract far more voters, many of whom are younger and more supportive of T&R than older voters. And when there are more voters, there tends to be more support shown for ending marijuana prohibition.
With that in mind, here is what the Marijuana Policy Project will be pursuing from 2013 to 2016.
1. Alaska: Unfortunately, Alaska law currently only allows voter initiatives to be placed on the primary election ballot, so we will attempt to pass a T&R initiative in August 2014. Fortunately, Alaska voters have traditionally been more supportive of T&R than voters in any other state. Only 100,000 Alaskans are expected to vote in August 2014, so the universe of voters we need to persuade is quite small.
2. Rhode Island: MPP separately legalized medical marijuana and decriminalized marijuana possession in Rhode Island in 2009 and 2012, respectively. We’re now lobbying the state legislature to pass a T&R bill, which could very well happen in 2014 or 2015. Regardless of which year this happens, Rhode Island will almost certainly be the first state to pass a T&R measure through the state legislature.
3. Maine: I just returned to D.C. from Maine, where I met with leading activists, political consultants, and state Rep. Diane Russell (D), who’s the lead sponsor of the T&R bill in Augusta. If we fail to pass her bill during the 2013, 2014, or 2015 legislative sessions, we’ll place a T&R initiative on the November 2016 ballot. As a way of demonstrating public support before 2016, we intend to pass local ballot initiatives in Portland and two or three other cities in November 2014.
4. Oregon: Oregon is similar to Maine, in that we’re working with leading activists to pass a T&R bill through the state legislature during the 2013 or 2015 legislative sessions. If the measure falls short, we will place a T&R initiative on the November 2016 ballot. MPP already hired a consultant in Portland to coordinate this four-year plan.
5. California: There is already a consensus that our movement should work over the next four years toward the goal of passing a T&R initiative in California in November 2016. The ACLU is coordinating the public-education effort over the next three years, and then MPP and the Drug Policy Alliance will probably end up leading the ballot-initiative campaign.
6. Massachusetts: The voters of Massachusetts passed MPP’s decriminalization initiative in November 2008 with 65 percent of the vote, and then they followed up by legalizing medical marijuana on November 6 with 63 percent of the vote. Many Massachusetts citizens and legislators assume that marijuana will eventually be legalized in Massachusetts; it’s just a question of when. The answer is “November 2016.”
7. Nevada: MPP failed to pass a pair of ballot initiatives in Nevada in November 2002 and November 2006 with 39 percent and 44 percent of the vote, respectively. Support nationwide has been increasing by about 1.5 percent per year, so we could probably pass a T&R initiative tomorrow if we were permitted to place it on the ballot today. Because that’s not possible, we’re planning to pass an initiative in November 2016.
The themes here are pretty clear.
First, the next states to end marijuana prohibition will be in New England and the West. Second, everything is trending in our direction, and most people now agree that marijuana will eventually be legalized nationwide.
Third, the biggest day in the history of the marijuana-policy-reform movement will be November 8, 2016. After that day, just 46 months from now, it will be almost inevitable that Congress will change federal law to allow states to determine their own marijuana policies without federal interference. When that happens, we win.
- Rob Kampia
By: David Klepper
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Recent campaigns that made Colorado and Washington the first states in the U.S. to legalize recreational marijuana are energizing efforts to do the same in New England, with lawmakers in Rhode Island and Maine vowing to push legislation next year to impose alcohol-style regulations and taxes on the drug.
Rhode Island Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence, said Thursday that the passage of legalization referendums in the two Western states are the latest indication that American attitudes toward marijuana are softening. She said the regulated sale of marijuana would eliminate the black market while raising a projected $10 million in revenue for government coffers. The state would also save some $20 million a year simply by no longer arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating people for marijuana offenses.
“Our prohibition has failed,” she said. “I think legalizing and taxing it, just as we did to alcohol, is the way to do it.”
Maine Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, said she also will propose legislation to legalize marijuana in her state, and estimated that sales taxes on its purchase there would raise $8 million.
Robert Capecchi of the Marijuana Policy Project said he expects other states to follow suit. He said the successful efforts in Washington and Colorado may represent a “tipping point” for proposals long consigned to the political fringe.
Eighteen states and the District of Columbia now have medical marijuana programs, and 16 states, including Rhode Island, have rescinded criminal penalties for adults who possess small quantities of the drug.
Voters in Washington and Colorado approved ballot questions last week that will authorize adults to possess up to an ounce of marijuana. Both states are holding off on crafting regulations for its sale and taxation of marijuana while they await the response of the federal government, which classifies marijuana as an illegal drug but has often turned a blind eye to state medical marijuana programs.
The threat of federal drug raids will be a concern as long as there is a conflict between state and federal drug policy, Russell said. She noted proposals in Congress that would prevent federal intervention in states that have legalized marijuana.
“The people are far ahead of the politicians on this,” Russell said. “Just in the past few weeks we’ve seen the culture shift dramatically.”
Ajello introduced legislation to legalize marijuana in Rhode Island in 2011 and again this year, but the bills never went to a vote. Instead, lawmakers voted to replace criminal penalties for adults caught with a small amount of pot with something more like a parking ticket.
When the new law takes effect April 1, adults caught with an ounce or less of marijuana would face a $150 civil fine. Police would confiscate the marijuana, but the incident would not appear on a person’s criminal record. It will still be illegal to drive under the influence of marijuana, and minors caught with pot would have to complete a drug awareness program and community service.
The author of the decriminalization bill, state Rep. John Edwards, D-Tiverton, said he thinks Rhode Island should see how decriminalization works before it potentially picks a bigger fight with federal authorities over legalization.
One opponent of legalization said legalization would send the wrong message to children and increase the number of people driving while high. But Rhode Island state Rep. Joseph Trillo, R-Warwick, said he worries legalization may be inevitable.
“I’m hoping this goes nowhere,” he said. “But I think we’re getting closer and closer to doing this.”
By Johnny Green
I just read an article onReason.Com suggesting that bills will be introduced tomorrow in the Rhode Island and Maine legislatures to legalize marijuana. With Colorado and Washington State legalizing marijuana, and politicians still stunned that they are clearly behind schedule in other states, states across the country are trying to put marijuana legalization measures in place before the citizens get the chance to do so.
I know in my home state of Oregon, there has been a lot of talk of the legislature legalizing marijuana before the 2014 Election. The most significant call for such a policy change oddly enough came from The Oregonian. The Oregonian has ALWAYS hated marijuana, and for their Editorial Board to call out the legislature after the 2012 Election results was mind blowing. Below was the reasoning the Oregonian offered up to the Oregon legislature:
“And if business booms at Washington’s pot shops, as expected? Our neighbor to the north will collect millions of dollars in new “sin” taxes, with much of the money coming from Oregonians who’d be happy to keep their business — and taxes — in state if given the opportunity.
Losing out on all that revenue would be a pity. However, when policies diverge so widely in adjoining states — whether they govern marijuana or taxes – people move back and forth in pursuit of their interests. Want to stop the movement? Remove the incentives by leveling the policies.”
According to the article on Reason.Com, Oregon is far from the only state contemplating such a strategy. The article stated, ”Rhode Island Rep. Edith Ajello and Maine Rep. Diane Russell will hold a conference call tomorrow with the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) to announce the legislation. MPP says that “similar proposals will be submitted in at least two other states — Vermont and Massachusetts.”
Could you imagine if a state legislature legalized marijuana instead of the citizens having to force it down their throats via an initiative? Something that seemed impossible to me just two years ago seems like an almost certainty. If five states are pursuing a legislative strategy, I have to assume at least one of them will work. What if all five of them did? What if by the end of 2013 there are 7 states where marijuana is legal? The feds would be helpless, and would be forced to finally, finally respect state marijuana laws. I can only hold my breath in anticipation. What a great time to be a marijuana activists and consumer, am I right!?
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union says it’s filing a lawsuit against the state Dept. of Health over a recent change to the state’s medical marijuana program.
The group says it plans to file a lawsuit on Tuesday.
Since the summer, the state has required patients who want to participate in the program to have an application signed by a physician. Previously the state accepted applications signed by nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants.
Medical marijuana advocate JoAnne Leppanen says the change makes it harder for seriously ill people to get the medicine they need.
THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / KATHY BORCHERS
George H. DesRoches, Jr., a partner in a collective medical marijuana “farm” that had been located at 12 Hyat St., Olneyville, stands inside his empty apartment.
PROVIDENCE, RI — Medical marijuana growers George H. DesRoches Jr. and Domenic Parillo are being driven out of Olneyville by criminals.
For five years they have maintained an apartment at 12 Hyat St. where they grow marijuana, but they have been victimized by robbers and thieves 17 times. They have moved their “farm” to a new, secret location and continued moving out the rest of their belongings Wednesday.
“It wasn’t until (the robbers) started to bring in real lethal weapons” — in a home invasion in March — that the pair decided relocation was unavoidable, DesRoches said.
Four men, two of them armed with handguns, scared DesRoches, his girlfriend and two of DesRoches’ buddies in a search for marijuana and money.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Rhode Island health officials have contacted three prospective medical marijuana dispensaries to do business in the state.
The Providence Journal reports (http://bit.ly/yXauJR ) that the state Department of Health sent letters to confirm the interest of three prospective dispensaries in registering for a certificate to serve licensed patients.
State legislation enacted this spring allows dispensaries to possess up to 1,500 ounces of marijuana. The proposal would also allow law enforcement to inspect dispensaries and give the state police a seat on the board overseeing the facilities.
Health Department spokeswoman Dara Chadwick says Thomas C. Slater Compassion Center in Providence, Summit Medical Compassion Center in Warwick and Greenleaf Compassionate Care in Portsmouth have gone through a pre-approval process.
Information from: The Providence Journal, http://www.providencejournal.com
PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee (CHAY’-fee) has signed legislation rolling back criminal penalties for the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
Chafee announced the signing Wednesday night after the General Assembly ended its formal session. Chafee, an independent, had been expected to sign the bill into law.
Adults caught with an ounce or less of marijuana would face a $150 civil fine. Minors would also have to complete a drug awareness program and community service.
The previous state law made possession of small amounts of marijuana a misdemeanor. Violators had faced possible jail time and fines up to $500.
Fourteen other states have decriminalized possession of limited amounts of marijuana.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Catharine Leach is married and has two boys, age 2 and 8. She has a good job with a federal contractor and smokes pot most every day.
While she worries that her public support for marijuana decriminalization and legalization could cost her a job or bring the police to her door, the 30-year-old Warwick resident said she was tired of feeling like a criminal for using a drug that she said is far less harmful than the glass or wine or can of beer enjoyed by so many others after a long day’s work. Like others around the nation working to relax penalties for possession of pot, she decided to stop hiding and speak out.
“I’m done being afraid,” she said. “People in this country are finally coming around and seeing that putting someone in jail for this doesn’t make sense. It’s just a changing of the time.”
Once consigned to the political fringe, marijuana policy is appearing on legislative agendas around the country thanks to an energized base of supporters and an increasingly open-minded public. Lawmakers from Rhode Island to Colorado are mulling medical marijuana programs, pot dispensaries, decriminalization and even legalization. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia now authorize medical marijuana and 14, including neighboring Connecticut and Massachusetts, have rolled back criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of pot.
Rhode Island is poised to become the 15th state to decriminalize marijuana possession. The state’s General Assembly passed legislation last week that would eliminate the threat of big fines or even jail time for the possession of an ounce or less of pot. Instead, adults caught with small amounts of marijuana would face a $150 civil fine. Police would confiscate the marijuana, but the incident would not appear on a person’s criminal record.
Minors caught with pot would also have to complete a drug awareness program and community service.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee has said he is inclined to sign the legislation.
One of the bill’s sponsors, state Rep. John Edwards of Tiverton, has introduced similar proposals in past years but the idea always sputtered in committee. Each year, though, he got more co-sponsors, and the bill passed the House this year 50-24. The state Senate passed it 28-6.
Some supporters of decriminalization say they’d like to go even further.
“America’s 50-year war on drugs has been an abysmal failure,” said Rep. John Savage, a retired school principal from East Providence. “Marijuana in this country should be legalized. It should be sold and taxed.”
Opponents warned of dire consequences to the new policy.
“What kind of message are we sending to our youth? We are more worried about soda – for health reasons – than we are about marijuana,” said one opponent, Rhode Island state Rep. John Carnevale a Democrat from Providence.
A survey by Rasmussen last month found that 56 percent of respondents favored legalizing and regulating marijuana. A national Gallup poll last year showed support for legalizing pot had reached 50 percent, up from 46 percent in 2010 and 25 percent in the mid-’90s.
Medical marijuana helped bring marijuana policy into the mainstream back in 1996, when California became the first state to authorize the use of cannabis for medicinal use. Other states followed suit.
“It’s now politically viable to talk about these things,” said Robert Capecchi, legislative analyst with the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based group that supports the reduction or elimination of penalties for medical and recreational pot use. “The public understands that there are substances that are far more harmful – alcohol, tobacco – that we regulate. People are realizing just how much money is being wasted on prohibition.”
Colorado and Washington state will hold fall referendums on legalizing marijuana. A ballot question on legalization failed in California in 2010.
This month, Connecticut’s governor signed legislation to allow medical marijuana there. Last week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed cutting the penalty for public possession of small amounts of pot.
Liberal state policies on marijuana have run into conflict with federal prohibition. Federal authorities have shut down more than 40 dispensaries this year in Colorado, even though they complied with state and local law. In Rhode Island, Gov. Lincoln Chafee blocked three dispensaries from opening last year after the state’s top federal prosecutor warned they could be prosecuted. Chafee and lawmakers then rewrote the dispensary law to restrict the amount of marijuana dispensaries may have on hand.
Robert DuPont, who served as the nation’s drug czar under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said Americans should be wary of a slippery slope to legalization. While marijuana may not cause the life-threatening problems associated with heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine, it’s far from harmless.
“It is a major drug of abuse,” he said. “People ask me what the most dangerous drug is, and I say marijuana. Other drugs have serious consequences that are easy to recognize. Marijuana saps people’s motivation, their direction. It’s a drug that makes people stupid and lazy. That’s in a way more dangerous.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77284.html#ixzz1yATvwKMZ
