Wanda bitches about the rules she helped create

Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division rules for moving MMJ extreme, says Wanda James - Denver News - The Latest Word

​It's a crazy time for Wanda James, co-owner of Simply Pure Products, a medicated edibles company. Not only is she in the midst of introducing a bold new initiative -- Simply Home Cooking, for people who want to make their own edibles -- but she's readying for tomorrow, when Colorado's medical marijuana regulations officially go into effect. And she admits that many of them strike her as extreme.
James stresses that Simply Pure "has passed all the rules. All our products are compliant -- they're sold in opaque, childproof packaging -- and we've already gone through our final interview with MMED" -- the Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division, which is charged with making sure the regs are followed. "But getting there was extremely difficult. And then there's everything with the manifests..."

The manifests? "Every time you're moving marijuana, whether it's from a grow facility to a dispensary or our kitchen, or we're moving any of our infused products to a dispensary that's going to sell our products, there has to be what MMED is calling a manifest," she explains. "We have to e-mail MMED 24 hours in advance and let them know what the person's name is who'll be moving it and where they're going with x-amount of product. Everything has to be labeled and accounted for."

That may not seem onerous on the surface, but consider the complications. Simply Pure products are currently sold at 278 dispensaries in Colorado, and the firm typically employs between five and seven sales reps, each of whom is likely to make multiple deliveries per day. At this point, James thinks one e-mail will have to be sent for each rep, rather than for each of the rep's stops; if MMED insists on the later, it could bring the number of manifests from Simply Pure alone to thirty or more every day.

And even if the total winds up closer to five, James remains uncertain "that MMED is going to be able to handle the onslaught of paperwork on a daily basis," especially in light of the difficulties inherent in the ongoing employee licensing process. MMED had to push back its July 1 deadline for workers in Denver a month, and those elsewhere in Colorado even longer, because staffers were overwhelmed by applications, resulting in long lines and some people who'd driven for hours being turned away.

That's not all. What if dispensaries run out of a certain item and want more? Are they forced to wait a minimum of 24 hours for a manifest to be sent to MMED, even if it hurts business? James doesn't know. And there are also questions about reps taking samples they can use to promote Simply Pure products at dispensaries that aren't currently carrying them. "Can the rep go in with a box and show them what they've got and move the product there and then? MMED hasn't given us an answer on how they want us to handle that," she says. "So we've added another line on the manifest saying, 'Rep A has x-amount of extra edibles they may be using throughout the day.' And we hope they're going to be okay with that.

"In our conversations with Dan Hartman," the head of MMED, "we're doing our best to show good faith in how we're attempting to do this," she continues. "But there's got to be some give in these rules, because the cost they're putting on individual businesses is somewhat extreme. They have to purchase cameras, POS systems, the type of computer system that can download into the MMED system -- but they're not allowing outside investment, and we can't go to a bank. So that puts on a lot of pressure to hit the goals MMED needs us to hit and still be a successful business."

Not that James is planning to dial back the ambition. Look no further than Simply Home Cooking, a new line of sauces, spreads and oils. "First, we're releasing the marinara sauce, the green-chile sauce and the mango salsa," she says. "Our spreads are peanut butter, apple butter and strawberry jam. And coconut oil and olive oil will come out later in the month, along with a cookbook showing people how to infuse almost anything they want and do their own dosing at home."

Couldn't this potentially cut into Simply Pure's sales of pre-made edibles? James doesn't look at it that way. "What's important to us is for people to be able to cook at home," she says. "We want to make sure patients are always taken care of. We started working with a hospice program and people with young families, including one of the forty kids on the registry under the age of eighteen. His family said, 'We'd like to have the opportunity to have dinner together,' and this will let them do it."

On top of that, they'll be able to make sure the doses are consistent, just as Simply Pure does with its own edibles. Right now, Simply Pure is producing videos -- they should be available soon -- to show people how to do it.

At this point, James would love to focus entirely on such projects rather than worrying about the vagaries of the new regulations. But she understands why that's not possible quite yet.

"I think what a lot of the activists in the industry don't realize is that we've got years to go before all the rules will even be close to set," she maintains. "If they legalized marijuana next month, it would take years for the business world to totally adjust -- and the laws will keep changing. So we need to be responsible, be professional and be able to show people that we know we're asking to sell a Schedule I drug -- and we're going to do everything we can to show the patients and the people who live in Denver and surrounding cities that this is a safe business, a good business, a viable business that's bringing a good product to market."

Quote:

---

"I think what a lot of the activists in the industry don't realize is that we've got years to go before all the rules will even be close to set," she maintains. "If they legalized marijuana next month, it would take years for the business world to totally adjust -- and the laws will keep changing. So we need to be responsible, be professional and be able to show people that we know we're asking to sell a Schedule I drug -- and we're going to do everything we can to show the patients and the people who live in Denver and surrounding cities that this is a safe business, a good business, a viable business that's bringing a good product to market."

---

Seems like the proper attitude to me.

HighPop, if you only knew what Wanda, Josh and the rest of CMMR's true intentions were pre-1284 you might have a different view. Our dispensary was approached by CMMR before any legislation was introduced with the intentions of getting us to join CMMR. At the time the industry was exploding, dispensaries were popping up everywhere, and some were blatantly throwing it in the public's face by hanging huge signs with pot leaves, etc. I knew at the time there would be a backlash and things would not turn out well and that is why I got out of it when I did. It seemed to me dispensaries were the least protected under the law and they would be the first to get fucked when shit hit the fan. Apparently CMMR felt the same way, only problem was they were driven by huge egos. CMMR told me legislation was looming and Wanda was 'high up' in the political circles and that they had a lobbying and marketing group ready to go. I told them I was getting out of the dispensary business and planning on going back to being a caregiver, the response was 'good luck with that, caregivers are the ones ruining this business and that will be our main target'. I found that statement to be very strange considering the fact that every dispensary owner started as a caregiver.

Fast forward to now, it seems they got their way regardless of the fact that caregivers are supposedly protected under the constitution. But make no mistake, their intention was clearly driven by greed and their own survival and fuck everyone else. What I have a huge problem with is if it were not for the caregiver model that they shot down they would have never got where they were to begin with, once they had their foot in the door they worked diligently to shut everyone else out.

100% agree. I saw it first hand from Wanda and heard it from many other owners who spoke to her.

I think the greed claim is a stale one, and not really applicable. Wanda Jones is in the exact same business as KC - commercial cannabis production and retail sale. Both want their businesses to be successful and both have formed associations with other large-scale operators and are using lawyers and lobbyists in order to obtain favorable changes in regulatory regimes. You can call it greed, but it's really just normal business. It's also normal to pare back rules and regulations as the industry matures, and to attempt to circumvent them entirely as Chippi is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HighPopalorum

I think the greed claim is a stale one, and not really applicable. Wanda Jones is in the exact same business as KC - commercial cannabis production and retail sale. Both want their businesses to be successful and both have formed associations with other large-scale operators and are using lawyers and lobbyists in order to obtain favorable changes in regulatory regimes. You can call it greed, but it's really just normal business. It's also normal to pare back rules and regulations as the industry matures, and to attempt to circumvent them entirely as Chippi is.

---

You cannot even compare the two. Kathleen never had a lobbying group, where did you come up with this? Kathleen never pushed for regulations to push out her competition. But since they are comparable in your eyes then why do you love Wanda so much and trash Kathleen?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zedleppelin

You cannot even compare the two. Kathleen never had a lobbying group, where did you come up with this? Kathleen never pushed for regulations to push out her competition. But since they are comparable in your eyes then why do you love Wanda so much and trash Kathleen?

---

This is how the conversation takes place, and Kathleen's lawsuit is part of that. I don't believe she has the upper hand though.

HighPop is expressing a realistic perspective. Business is a power struggle and a popularity contest. Wanda has both, but wanting to make her daily life easier by making reasonable requests of the MMED is how this is all going to settle in, but it will take time and work.

Business is also time and work.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zedleppelin

You cannot even compare the two. Kathleen never had a lobbying group, where did you come up with this?

---

CTI is a lobby group. Even if it weren't Kathleen Chippi is the most active marijuana lobbyist in the state, and has been for years. We could mince words for a while about whether or not Kathleen is in a group, or about the hazy line between lobbyist and activist, but the truth is that she spends a lot of time with officials trying to influence policy, at the Capitol and on the local level.

the difference is pretty simple though - CTI is fighting for patient rights and that is the basis for the lawsuit. Will those who are bringing this action benefit if it wins? Sure, but so will patients. 1284 *could* have been a patient's health and safety bill, but it ended up being jammed through and is clogged with crap meant to appease the anti-pot crowd and industry, but really NO thought was given in the regs for patients. There is a pretty basic problem with the mmj rules here. Those who entered the market early wanted regs that would protect them - and they got what they wanted. Even year 2 of a moratorium on new biz. Is that to protect patients? HA! Now, they think it's lame that there are patients and caregivers who are 'against' them. The people they locked out are the other activists. This challenge was inevitable. 1284 is unfair to patients in the most basic way - it is limiting choice. It's closed down dozens of shops in cities who don't them, it's taken caregivers away from patients and made medicine harder to get for many. The other basic difference is lobbyists are paid & I'm pretty sure KC is out-of-pocket for a large portion of the costs..

CTI is a trade lobby, like CMMR. Both groups are funded by the industry. To the extent that these groups are trying to protect consumers, they should be applauded, but all industry groups are ultimately self-serving, as they should be. However, the question of patient protection can't be reduced simply to pro and con 1284. Big parts of 1284 do protect patients: health inspection, prohibitions on felons, explicit medical privacy rules, scale certifications etc. Other parts of the bill, and the rules that followed, seem unreasonably onerous to business owners and without clear benefits to the consumers or the community. A few things in there are positively sinister. The goal of the ongoing debate (as I see it) is to find out which rules work, which rules don't, which provisions turned out to be unnecessary and which ones have unintended consequences on the industry, patients and the state. Even though I don't agree with Chippi's zero-regulation stance, I'm glad she's part of the process.