DENVER One of this city’s most popular marijuana shops sits nonchalantly beside a Starbucks and a Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurant on a pedestrian mall. Marijuana massages can be had on the other side of downtown. There’s a cadre of polo-shirted, well-branded cannabis consultants sprinkled in between.
And much of the state’s $700 million industry rests on a memo from the federal government, as Colorado was reminded this week.
Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie on July 28 and 29 said that he would effectively terminate the legal marijuana industry if he wins the top office.
“If you’re getting high in Colorado today, enjoy it,” Christie said on “Fox and Friends.”
It might not be the most popular promise – national polling has found majority support for recreational pot legalization – but it would only take a presidential pen-stroke to set the end in motion.
“This could all go away in an instant, if the feds decide they want to shut it down,” said Karen Boxx, a law professor with the University of Washington’s Cannabis Law and Policy Project.
Cannabis’ conflict with federal law has been one of the few brakes on its growth. It’s illegal for banks to operate accounts for marijuana businesses. Result: You often can’t buy marijuana with a credit card. Many cannabis businesses need armored cars for all the cash they collect instead. One Colorado mountain-town shop even runs its finances under a restaurant’s name, according to its staff.
Meanwhile, the federal government has been gathering up hundreds upon hundreds of reports on bank accounts linked to the cannabis industry, Rocky Mountain PBS iNews reported. Those would come in handy if President Christie loosed the Drug Enforcement Agency on the Eufloras, Grass Stations and Mile High Dispensaries of the world.
An enforcement campaign could include stricter auditing by the Internal Revenue Service, civil forfeiture or even geared-up DEA task forces tearing down grow operations and shops, according to John Arsenault, a Denver-based attorney who follows the industry.
Besides bankers, a change in federal policy also would also scare some business lawyers from the industry, according to Boxx, making it more difficult to run a shop.
Christie’s threat wouldn’t even require an act of Congress to enact, since federal laws on marijuana still enforce prohibition. In fact, individual federal attorneys still can crack down on state-legal businesses. U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag has tried for years to shut down Berkeley Patient Group, the California city’s patron saint of pot shops, on the grounds that it sells federally forbidden products.
“There is a sense that these laws are starting to progress, and public opinion has drastically shifted on the issues. So I think that there is a sense of relative safety, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t open still to criminal prosecution,” said Morgan Fox, communications manager for the Marijuana Policy Project.
Fat chance?
A newly elected president bent on a crackdown would likely start by repealing the 2013 “Cole” memo, which shifted the federal government’s ire away from state-sanctioned marijuana businesses.
“I think he could hypothetically do it pretty quickly,” Boxx said.
But the new president also would need to scrounge up the money to reverse a years-long decline in federal enforcement.
The DEA’s haul of confiscated pot is down to roughly 4 million plants per year from a high of more than 10 million in 2009. The agency claims this is because previous efforts drove growers to hide their weed better, but it also coincides with President Barack Obama’s softening stance.
Paul Armentano, deputy director of the marijuana advocacy group NORML, said that votes in Congress hold sway over law-enforcement priorities, providing another layer of protection for cannabis businesses.
Who else would kill pot?
So far, Christie’s pot views have proved conservative among presidential candidates, according to an analysis by Marijuana Policy Project.
Gov. Jeb Bush thinks Colorado’s legalization “was a bad idea,” but said in February that the right should go to the states. Hillary Clinton said that Colorado is “experimenting,” calling the states “laboratories of democracy,” as have Ted Cruz and George Pataki.
However, candidate and Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has said that federal law “still needs to be enforced. John Kasich, Rick Santorum and Marco Rubio have said much the same.
Gov. Scott Walker split the difference: “There are currently federal laws on the books that must be enforced, but ultimately he believes the best place to handle this issue is in the states,” a spokeswoman told The Washington Times.
So, depending how the primaries play out, the cannabis business could find itself on a trial in the 2016 election. But with several legalization campaigns under its belt, and more coming, the industry may be better prepared than ever for that test.
“I’ve got people from Big Tobacco … It used to be millionaires. Now it’s billionaires,” said Ellis Smith, chief development officer for American Cannabis Consulting Company, referring to the investors supporting new marijuana ventures.
“I cut my hair. I had to,” he said. “I’m still tie-dyed and dreadlocked on the inside.”