Was the Sweet Leaf Cannabis Dispensary Sentencing Fair?
As the cannabis industry matures, mistakes will be made, loopholes will be taken advantage of and eventually everything will fall into place. The recent story out of Colorado dealing with the owners of Sweet Leaf being sentenced to jail for one year, showcases how the attitudes of the industry is changing.
For those unfamiliar with the Sweet Leaf case, let me break it down for you real quick so we can talk about ‘what it means’ and more importantly…if it was fair.
What happened at Sweet Leaf?
Up until 2017, Colorado’s marijuana laws stipulated that a marijuana store, “prohibited from selling more than one ounce of Retail Marijuana flower or its equivalent in Retail Marijuana Concentrate or Retail Marijuana Product during a sales transaction to a consumer.”
This is an important note to remember.
The Sweet Leaf stores were raided on December 14th, 2017 where their assets were seized and a bunch of budtenders arrested.
Why?
According to a statement from the Denver Police Department,
“This case began thanks to a watchful citizen who observed the same people making multiple purchases of marijuana from a single Sweet Leaf dispensary in one day and tipped off the Denver Police Department,” Denver District Attorney Beth McCann said in a statement. “The vast majority of Denver’s marijuana industry businesses are reputable and responsible and strive to obey our marijuana laws. However, Sweet Leaf is an exception. My office will prosecute those who do not comply with our marijuana laws.”
According to Sweet Leaf, they were following the law by allowing customers to purchase up to an ounce, leave the facility and come back again to buy another ounce. In other words, they exploited a loophole based on vague legal terms.
On Jan 1st, 2018 changed the language to stipulate that a single transaction which encompasses multiple sales to the same customer during the same day, if that person is buying more than one ounce of marijuana.
While Sweet Leaf did all of these actions prior to the changing of the language, the prosecution declared that they were facilitating black market transactions by exploiting the loop hole.
Long story short, the business went up in flames and the owners were sent to jail.
What does this mean for the cannabis industry?
As the Denver PD mentioned, most of the cannabis businesses are following the law to the letter. They ensure that people don’t buy more than they are supposed to. Clear Compliance with the new laws is of the utmost importance.
This means that any business dealing with cannabis in the marketplace, irrespective of presentation, it is important to adhere to the rules – especially in these early stages of the industry.
This type of behavior also negatively affected medical marijuana patients, where some customers would purchase all the medical products leaving patients without their medicine.
However, the bigger issue here is the part of public safety. The actions of Sweet Leaf acted as a safe haven for people who wants to resell to the black market. I personally believe this is why the owners got jail time. They were facilitating cross-border cannabis transactions by allowing individuals to stock up on products and then re-sell them at a higher price in prohibition states.
As a response, the cannabis industry and legitimate businesses within the sector are attempting to keep the playing field level. In other words, they are placing higher importance in self-regulation, which is a good thing over all.
Was the Sentence Fair?
Well, this depends on where you stand on cannabis laws.
Personally, I believe there should be no limits on how much cannabis one can buy. IF there are no limits on how much booze you can buy in one sitting, why do we have limits on how much weed you can buy.
However, seeing that the cannabis industry is in some dubious waters – in the sense that a black market is still very active outside of cannabis states – some restrictions are required for the time being. This is especially true if we want to weed out the black market.
The black market won’t truly disappear until we have managed to get rid of prohibition in other places. Once there are legal frameworks all over the world, the black market should fade into oblivion. Until then, it is necessary to have these limits [in my opinion].
However, once we lift the veil of prohibition, we should also be lifting the limits on purchases. If we want to live in a society that is fair, it would only be fair to do that. Or, at the very least, place a limit on how much alcohol and tobacco a person could buy per purchase. Of course, this wouldn’t fly, but it should act as a reason why there shouldn’t be limits on purchases.
In the case of sentencing the owners, I think it was fair in the sense that the owners were negatively affecting the industry as a whole. While you might find a loophole to exploit in the early stages of the industry, it is absolutely important to keep on doing solid business. We’re now in a time period where the market and rules are being tested. We can’t have fringe players ruining the system before it’s even completely integrated into our every-day life.
While it sucks for the owners, it’s a lesson the rest of the cannabis industry should learn. Right now, we have to set an example of the best business practices on the market.
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