420 Magazine Speaks Out About Marijuana - CNN iReport Exclusive

[MsRedEye]

The 420 Magazine message of Cannabis Awareness has spread to the mainstream media outlet, CNN. Journalist Chris Morrow's popular CNN iReport "420 Magazine Speaks Out About Marijuana" shows Ron Cabrera, 420 Magazine Spokesman, visiting a medical Marijuana facility to purchase his medicine.

Ron suffered broken vertebrae after a fall in Army Infantry Training. Like many of us, he has found medical Marijuana eases his pain and suffering. Ron steps in front of the camera to demystify the experience of visiting a Cannabis dispensary in California.

We urge you to watch the video clip on CNN's iReport. This story of Cannabis Awareness can be found on CNN's main page under the iReport.com title "Touring a Medical Marijuana Facility."

Please help us create more awareness by posting a comment on the iReports article!

THANK YOU.

[Soniq420]

What a great job representing the site!

I loved the part where he's standing in front of the dispensary with the cop parked there, making the point that the officer won't bother him because it's ok by state law.

It's normal to go the store to get the medicine you need

Progress is beautiful

[medMUser]

I liked the part where he said "no back ally, no gang members". Also the cop across the street means gang bangers are not going to be there either.

Every 'illegal' grower takes a small bite out of gang & cartel profits.
To me that is wonderful!! If every one could get their MMJ from a legal store the violent, deadly cartels & gangs would lose a lot of $.
Works for me!!

[Soniq420]

^^ Exactly, this will be the end of more than half of the Mexican Drug War problem.

Not to mention all the freedom and financial benefits to the US citizenry

Go Team

[randi2u]

I have a herniated disk, and my spinal cord was pinched in 1986. I found it necessary to buy from "The Gangs", and unshady characters.

Since my neurosurgeon and GP have both died I followed my nerosurgeons advice (before he knew he was going to die). He said "Your going to California's High Desert, you won't find any good medical treatment out there, so go to the methodone clinic and tell them you are addicted to opiates (Vicodin)" I was and I did, but marijuana helps so much more, instead I'm forced to be addicted to methadone, because that's the way it works. It's all about money!!

[Nigtmove]

Marijuana poll @ cnn.com

[flank]

You know, this was a great video. Only 3 days up, and it already has something like 30 000 views. Shows how normal people, who are in need, can get the proper treatment that they deserve, and its not just a bunch of druggy teens, or violent gangs, but everyday people.

so go to the methodone clinic and tell them you are addicted to opiates (Vicodin)" I was and I did, but marijuana helps so much more, instead I'm forced to be addicted to methadone, because that's the way it works. It's all about money!!

It's sad to know that if Cannabis was legal, you could of been traded off on Medical Marijuana instead of methadone. Marijuana might not work as well as trading off for another chemical addiction (Vicodin > Methadone), but im sure it would of helped, and is easier on the body and mind. Hope things work out for you in the future.

[TorturedSoul]

Originally Posted by flank

It's sad to know that if Cannabis was legal, you could of been traded off on Medical Marijuana instead of methadone. Marijuana might not work as well as trading off for another chemical addiction (Vicodin > Methadone), but im sure it would of helped, and is easier on the body and mind. Hope things work out for you in the future.

And FAR less addicting.

Hey, did I hear the guy in that video say he paid $160 for an EIGHTH? If so, did he mean an eighth-pound? Or is someone getting rich?

[flank]

Originally Posted by TorturedSoul

And FAR less addicting.

Hey, did I hear the guy in that video say he paid $160 for an EIGHTH? If so, did he mean an eighth-pound? Or is someone getting rich?

Yeah, I heard that to. I just decided to leave it alone since the high price is due to high regulations. Hopefully when it becomes legal for all, the price will go down.

On price note, i had a dream last night where i bought fuzzy weed peaches (fuzzy peaches which would make you high) and a bag was only 7 something. Oh dreams, what wonderful places.

[TorturedSoul]

Originally Posted by flank

Yeah, I heard that to. I just decided to leave it alone since the high price is due to high regulations. Hopefully when it becomes legal for all, the price will go down.

I have trouble buying into that since its over 3x as much as the illegally-sold stuff.

SOMEONE is getting rich off of people's ills.

[420]

when your dealer living in an apartment, graduates to paying a full time staff of 20 people, renting an $8,000 a month leased office space, spending $20,000 in advertising each week, over $100,000 worth of security equipment, paying an armed guard, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to the state and all of the other expenses i am forgetting, then your dealer would have to charge higher prices too... for the record, the sativa og is $85 an eighth, not 160, that was some type of editing error, not sure what happened there, i will check and get back to you guys.

[420]

plus the fact that the feds can come in and take it ALL away at the drop of a hat, that risk is another factor in the pricing structure... this particular co-op was already hit once my the dea last year and lost over a million dollars worth of inventory... i doubt your dealer ever got hit that hard, if ever... they are still recouping lost expenses... think about it...

[420]

personally, i would pay 3 times that much to avoid going to jail...
you cannot put a price tag on your freedom, period.

[Soniq420]

Jail, and/or bullets dealing with gang members when you wore the wrong color shirt by accident

[TorturedSoul]

Originally Posted by 420

when your dealer living in an apartment, graduates to paying a full time staff of 20 people, renting an $8,000 a month leased office space, spending $20,000 in advertising each week, over $100,000 worth of security equipment, paying an armed guard, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes to the state and all of the other expenses i am forgetting, then your dealer would have to charge higher prices too... for the record, the sativa og is $85 an eighth, not 160, that was some type of editing error, not sure what happened there, i will check and get back to you guys.

I did not realize that their place was so large as to require 20 full-time employees. It looked quite small from the video, something that could be staffed by five or six (at 40 hours each).

As for $8k/month for their lease, I don't have a clue and will therefore believe you. On the one hand that seems pretty expensive, but on the other, with prices like that (even @ $85) I guess that a lot of their clients may have been forced to sell their vehicles and take the bus - and around here at least there are more buses traveling the high-dollar business districts than the cheaper areas. Plus, I heard from a relative that stuff costs more in CA which probably meant both retail space AND drugs (and quite possibly gas, food, electricity, etc.).

The taxes... I assume that you mean the standard taxes involved in operating a retail establishment since AfaIK (and please correct me if I'm wrong) the only tax specific to MMJ at this time would be standard sales tax? Still, taxes in general are not inconsequential.

The armed guard... I'll give you that one; I do not know the crime situation there, how quickly LEO would respond to a call from such a business (I would assume just as fast as they would if the convenience store across the street from it were to call them but IDK). I also do not know the laws concerning firearms in the state of CA. If it's not an "open-carry" state, or if the local/state govt. has passed laws against firearms in a MMJ business like many have against firearms in bars & liquor stores, etc. So it might well be that they really do need armed security. I have heard that some banks still feel the need and they are probably more secure than a MMJ retailer.

So, I will admit that you are in all liklihood correct about most of the things that you mentioned and that I just wasn't thinking about the details.

But $20,000 a week in advertising? That business needs to spend over a million dollars a year in order to "sell" their products to their potential customers? <INSERT "JAW-DROPPED" ICON HERE>

I would have thought that MMJ-related products would sell themselves. I really would.

I feel sorry for the low income people that can't afford it. I mean, as long as it is illegal in any way/shape/form in the eyes of the feds, I guess that Medicare & Medicaid won't cover it. And I've heard that private insurers haven't exactly gotten on board yet. Maybe there are state programs for low-income patients there; IDK but I hope so.

Then again, I know that some drug companies will help their patients out if they simply cannot afford their drugs and don't qualify for any kind of program.

And I know a couple of local (non-chain) businesses of the "Mom & Pop" variety where the owners aren't in it to get rich, pay for a house with a swimming pool, buy a new car or two every five or six years, or anything like that... And while some of their prices are rather high for poor people to afford, I know of many occasions where these business owners have made up "Special Tuesday (or whatever day it was) Senior Discounts" over and above their usual 15-20% off they give for people aged 60 or older, announced "Special Unadvertised Sales," and everything else that they had to do to make sure the people could get what they needed.

So I don't know but maybe those prices are only that high for rich people who walk in wearing suits and being trailed by camera crews and if someone comes limping in with patches/holes in their clothes and the proprietors can tell that they are wearing the same clothes that they had on the past couple of days because they can't afford to do laundry every day (or buy extra outfits) they might sell their products at FAR lower prices.

I don't know, but I sure hope so.

Having always been what is known as "working poor" - someone who works as many hours as they can and hopes that after paying for shelter and utilities that they have enough left to buy food... I would still not have a problem with paying more at a dispensary than I would have to pay a regular dealer if it meant that others who were more unfortunate than myself would get their meds at drastically-reduced prices or even free.

That's one reason I give my commerce to those Mom & Pop outfits I mentioned even though I know that it means that I'll end up being able to purchase less than I could at a discount store or WalMart. I know that those big greedy places aren't pretending to have a sale or "forgetting" to charge for half the items so that Mr. Jones on the corner can eat at least once every day.

Come to think of it, I once got "volunteered" into watching a very small grocery store so that the owner could drive some elderly lady home because it seemed all she could do to make it around the store and he had noticed that she was on foot. When I asked what I should do if a customer came in he said to just write down the prices of their items and then add them up on the calculator & make change for them out of the register and that he would eat any tax so I didn't have to try to operate the register (which wouldn't have been a problem for me but the owner was like 70 and to him it probably WAS a challenge lol). And knowing that tax has to be paid, that also would have come out of his profits.

So if these MMJ dispensaries operate like that - businesses that actually care about their customers and take care of the ones who can't afford things - then I don't have a problem with their "normal" prices, no matter what they are. After all, the money for stuff like that has to come from somewhere.

Back on topic (WHOOPS!), I did watch the videos and think that things like that will have to be helpful in the fight, especially if they were presented in a good context. I would have liked to have seen more about current/recent research about the benefits of MMJ and so forth but I do understand that these were not full-length documentaries and that there is only so much time (and also that the newsies would have tended to want to present things that their viewers would be most interested in and less to want to present facts/figures on experiments and research since they aren't non-profit organizations and their ratings set their ad rates).

Hopefully the next person that is in a video like that can mention all of the problems associated with a whole list of "pills" that they were prescribed in the past and how MMJ has freed them from having to deal with the pills and their problems. I know a lot of people who take many such pills and who's quality of life suffers greatly because of same - and such statements on a national network news show would have an impact on their thinking, IMHO, and have a very good chance of breaking through their "It's illegal so it MUST be bad" mentality (they're old and mostly trust that such a statement is true because they weren't raised to not automatically assume that the authority/govt. is correct). Yup, they're old - but they still vote. Having seen statistics, the elderly ought to be targeted for education more than the young (again, MY opinion).

Hoping to see more "neutral" or even cautiously positive news & fact-based reports on all aspects of MMJ, MJ, and hemp in the future!