A Weekly Roundup of Stories We Found Interesting – From The Profound To The Profane

California Signs Off on Marijuana Home Delivery
California endorsed a rule Wednesday that will allow home marijuana deliveries statewide, even into communities that have banned commercial pot sales. Cannabis companies and consumers had pushed for the change, since vast stretches of the state have banned pot activity or not set up rules to allow legal sales.

Colorado Marijuana Sales Crack $6 Billion Since 2014 Legalization
Colorado crossed the $6 billion sales threshold since legalization thanks to a record-setting 2018. Sales surpassed $1.55 billion for the year, beating the record of more than $1.51 billion set in 2017.

THC vs. the IRS: How the Cannabis Industry Gets Screwed by Taxes
Why are taxes such a headache for cannabis businesses? Under the IRS’s rules, code 280E explicitly bans tax deductions for income made by trafficking Schedule I and Schedule II drugs defined by the federal Controlled Substances Act. And since the feds classify “marijuana” as a Schedule I substance, a category reserved only for deadly and addictive drugs with “no accepted medical use,” that means state-legal cannabis is still considered criminal, and the federally-run IRS will have nothing to do with it.

Teen Pot Use Fell in States That Legalized Medical Marijuana
A new study suggests that States with medical marijuana laws had 1.1 percent fewer teenage pot smokers than states without such laws. For the study, the research team relied on data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a poll conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention every other year. It tracks drinking, drug use and other risky activities among U.S. teens.

In Bid To Blunt Black Market, California Eyes Marijuana Tax Cuts
In California, legal pot sales are saddled with a $9.25 per ounce cultivation tax paid by growers, as well as a 15 percent retail excise tax and a 7.25 percent retail sales tax paid by consumers. When you add in local taxes, pot buyers in some counties could be paying as much as 45 percent in aggregate tax on legal weed. To combat the black market, A new bill proposes eliminating the $148 per pound cultivation tax and reducing the 15 percent retail excise tax to 11 percent for three years.

Barney’s Opens Marijuana Lifestyle Store, Sells High-End Cannabis Items
Not in your wildest dreams would you have imagined Barneys New York Inc., that glaring symbol of opulence and high-end decadence, going down the cannabis road. But here it is, and the road Barney’s took is gilded with gold and silver tributes to weed culture, such as a sterling silver pot grinder retailing for “only” $1,475.

Native Americans are Being Shut Out of the Cannabis Industry
While tribes are free to grow and sell cannabis on their sovereign land now that recreational marijuana is legal in California, there’s no path in state law for Native Americans to join the regulated market. That means tribes are cut off from the much larger nascent industry that’s open to every sanctioned marijuana farmer not in Indian County.