http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024172567

The pistils, or white strands that mark the blooming of marijuana flowers, have turned amber, the color of money to the pot farmers inside a Sodo warehouse.

It’s time for the first harvest of “West Seattle Kush” by AuricAG, one of the pioneering legal pot growers in Washington state.

The team of local guys isn’t popping Champagne yet. Drying, curing and crucial lab tests are to come — and probably more of the unanticipated problems that have stressed the AuricAG team in their race to market.

They’ve worked Father’s Day, Fourth of July, and close to 130 days straight. Finances are short, refrigerators bare, nerves frayed. One recent night, during a full moon, the guys got “pretty emotional,” said sales director Joby Sewell. They argued about equipment and building problems but the beef was really about exhaustion, Sewell said.

“Bilbo Baggins put it best, we feel ‘like butter scraped over too much bread.’ ”

In that sense, AuricAG exemplifies the bumpy start of the state’s recreational pot system, with a handful of stores opening earlier this month with short supply, most only to shut down a few days later while they waited weeks for more. . . . Tension surfaces in decisions over things such packaging, and whether to use bags or bottles. Elliott wants glass jars or plastic pill bottles because beautiful buds get crushed in bags. But bags are more practical for labeling, Sewell said, and they stack and hang more easily for retailers.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2013/01/25/us-drug-policy-rankles-latin-american-leaders/

US Drug Policy Rankles Latin American Leaders

The legalization of marijuana also doesn’t prevent violence or curb cartels operating in drug producing countries, according to ONDPC. The agency’s research indicates that legalization would not dramatically reduce Mexican drug trafficking revenue, with the gross revenues to Mexico’s cartels from marijuana likely less than $2 billion a year.

Mexican and Colombian cartels combined total yearly profits are between $18 to $39 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Some drug policy experts argue that marijuana legalization in certain U.S. states makes the country look hypocritical because of the U.S.-led global war on drugs, which includes initiatives in the region to combat trafficking and the number of anti-drug agreements signed with Latin American countries in the past.

The U.S. has given over $7 billion to Colombia since 2000 through Plan Colombia – a program to combat trafficking and left-wing guerrillas – and in 2008 the U.S. provided Mexico with more than $1.5 billion in the Merida Initiative, with millions more going to fight drug cartels throughout Central America.

“To go against the treaties, I don’t blame the countries if they are angry,” said Calvina Fay, the executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation, based in Washington, D.C. “It’s very demoralizing to the leaders in Mexico who have to put their lives at risk.”

Some countries throughout Latin America have followed suit in the conversation of legalizing drugs. Uruguay considered a proposal to to legalize marijuana, while Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras and Belize last year called for an international debate on drug policy.

Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina has steadfastly pushed for a legalization as a way to reduce violence and crime in his country.

“It’s the first time that a president in power dares to say that other routes have to be found for the war on drugs,” Pérez Molina said in a Fox News Latino interview last year.

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