Family-owned Colo. marijuana shop wants to become 'Costco of weed' [but with armed guards]

yahoo.com ^ | January 22, 2014 | Dylan Stableford

[grundle]

The pot business is booming in Colorado, and the owners of one of the state’s largest marijuana dispensaries have big plans: to become the "Costco of weed."

According to the Denver Post's Cannabist, members of the Williams family, who own Medicine Man in northeast Denver, are embarking on a $2.6 million expansion including a 20,000-square-foot retail space "all in white like an Apple store."

"We're building a showcase for the world," Andy Williams, Medicine Man's president and co-founder, told Time magazine.

Their current headquarters — located in Denver's Montbello neighborhood, now dubbed "Potbello" — includes bulletproof glass, armed security guards, 65 video cameras and a $35,000 charcoal air filtration system that is supposed to eliminate the pot smell coming from the building.

[tacticalogic]

You’re right, surely nothing but good things will come to the country and the people that embrace drug addiction.

They call that one the strawman argument.

[Ken H]

Medical marijuana has been around since 1996 and is now a multi-billion dollar industry (see post #12). It's been legal for over a year for recreational use in 2 states and is doing an absolutely booming business.

So where are the cartels already?

[PowderMonkey]

Big difference between the extant medical end of this business and what’s about to transpire. And even bigger difference between “recreational use” legal, and fully endorsed, govt. sanctioned business enterprise legal. It’s like comparing the neighborhood coffee shop’s cash flow to Starbucks. The cartels are already here and involved. Haven’t you noticed how lately they’ve seemingly “disappeared” from all reporting? Has the violence stopped in Mexico? Did they run out of ammo? Has everything turned to hearts and flowers?

[Ken H]

Big difference between the extant medical end of this business and what’s about to transpire. And even bigger difference between “recreational use” legal, and fully endorsed, govt. sanctioned business enterprise legal.

Oh come on. Medical marijuana is defacto legalization and everybody knows it.

Face it guys, the cartels are not going to do your dirty work. Marijuana prohibition has collapsed in the US and it's not coming back.

[PowderMonkey]

Is medical morphine “defacto legalization”? No. And, you’re right. The cartels are not going to do your dirty work. You will do it for them. Smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em. The Sinaloa cartel is counting your business.

[Ken H]

Apple and oranges. Morphine is a federally regulated drug with different prescribing laws and enforcement. Medical marijuana is regulated by the states under the Tenth Amendment and usually with much looser rules.

The point remains. Medical marijuana has been here since 1996 and is raking in billions across 20 states. The cartels have not done squat and they won't.

[William Tell]

RC one said: "You’re right, surely nothing but good things will come to the country and the people that embrace drug addiction."

And I believe that nothing but bad things have come from the War on Some Drugs. I would rather see a million drug addicts dying from overdose than suffer the continuing erosion of the Bill of Rights.

I don't approve of drug abuse. I don't encourage drug abuse. I don't embrace drug abuse.

I would trade the lives of the million drug abusers I mentioned if it would bring back a single person murdered by our government in a mistaken drug raid.

I can't understand how people can claim that decriminalization of drugs will lead to more corruption and greater reward for the drug cartels. It simply didn't happen with alcohol, it's not going to happen with marijuana, and it wouldn't happen with any other drug.

[grundle]

Thanks for that link.

[RC one]

a strawman argument picks a weak, less defensible and largely irrelevant aspect of an argument and focuses on that as opposed to the main relevant point of the argument which is generally a strongly defensible position. This strawman is thrown out by individuals who realize they have no chance of arguing against the previous point and they hope to change the argument in a way that provides them more room to maneuver. As far as I’m concerned, you have thrown out a strawman by claiming strawman because you know that you can not counter my previous point, that the promotion of drug addiction is harmful to society and the individual. You may as well have pointed out a spelling error.

[dennisw]

agree with you a 100%. Pot is for losers and pot legalization is for nations that want to be loser nations. South Korea is booming and you never here about pot legalization there or in any other booming Asian nation such as Taiwan and Japan, China

The worlds gold and wealth is moving from West to East and one factor is pot usage, other drugs usage and now pot legalization in the US and the West

[ican'tbelieveit]

I seriously need to get some ag land and get busy growing.

[dennisw]

I heard a drug counselor on the radio today. In her career she had never met a patient who did not start with marijuana. Even marijuana is very bad for young teenage brains because they are still forming. But then when the drug user decides to move past this gateway drug..... then he gets in worse trouble.

[RC one]

anyone who thinks that legalizing drug addiction is in any way a good thing needs to read up on the Chinese Opium wars and the subsequent Chinese "century of humiliation". Only in the mind of a drug addict or a traitorous usurper can drug addiction be construed as something that should be legalized. Nothing good will come of this. Guaranteed.

[tacticalogic]

At current exchange rates that’s worth a one-way ticket on the short bus to /dev/nul.

[RC one]

drug users are scum bags and losers who are hiding from troubling emotional issues. I laugh at them and their weakness and enjoy watching them fail at life. put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[tacticalogic]

And you can go pound sand.