CANNABIZ

Notes On The Passage Of HB 1284, Tcf Bank Drops Dispensaries, Scandal
At Medimar And More.

Bill Signs Bills

On Monday, Gov. Bill Ritter signed Senate Bill 109 and House Bill
1284, making Colorado the home of one of the largest state-regulated
medical marijuana industries in the country.

"In my State of the State Address in January, I called on the
legislature to work with my office, law enforcement, the medical
marijuana community and other stakeholders to bring bipartisan,
common-sense solutions to the chaotic proliferation of medical
marijuana dispensaries in communities all around Colorado," Ritter
said in a statement. "The companion measures I signed today strike a
delicate balance between protecting public safety and respecting the
will of the voters."

The Senate bill dictates physician best practices, while the House
bill gives explicit details on medical marijuana center ownership and
caregiver-patient relationships. The latter also offers local
municipalities the option to ban MMCs within their jurisdiction and
is expected to draw a flurry of legal challenges.

In a later release, Sensible Colorado's Brian Vicente said the
signing "serves to further legitimize the use of marijuana as medicine."

(See "Council OKs dispensaries" in Noted.
http://www.csindy.com/colorado/noted/Content?oid=1739782)

Bank Rolled At TCF

After perusing TCF Bank's website, it would be easy to assume the
Minneapolis-based lender welcomes all comers: "As a result of TCF's
community banking philosophy, we market our products and services to
everyone in the communities we serve."

But unless the bank's talking about advertising, this statement is a
lie.

As explained in a letter dated May 26, 2010, and sent to roughly 80
local MMJ-affiliated bank members (according to Tanya Garduno of the
Colorado Springs Medical Cannabis Council): "TCF will no longer offer
or maintain accounts for Medical Marijuana Dispensaries and other
similar lines of business. ...

"TCF will be closing your account effective June 30, 2010. You are
encouraged to close the account sooner if possible. ... We apologize
for any inconvenience this may cause and will work with you to
transition your account."

Garduno says she has received no assistance in relocating her
account, nor has any person who has contacted her for help. The
letter gives no contact name and only a branch phone number.

Multiple requests for comment from the manager of TCF's Centennial
Boulevard branch - cited for customer contact in its letter - only
yielded repeated handoffs to corporate mouthpiece Jason Korstange, a
veritable wealth of information.

Korstange says he doesn't know how many accounts were dismissed. He
does assert, however, that the accounts were closed because "it's
difficult to administer [them]."

Why? "Because of the number of transactions. I'm not going to go into
the whole BSA [Bank Secrecy Act of 1970] for you," he says. "But it's
a lengthy process that we have to go through when there's unusual
transactions."

For the record, the BSA requires banks to track and report various
activities in an attempt to combat money laundering. But what about
MMJ-related transactions makes them unusual?

"What's unusual about them is a lot of them are cash, and other
things," Korstange says, before finally acknowledging, "I don't know
the full aspect of why [closure] happened."

Needless to say, Garduno and others are seeking friendlier waters,
and recent events suggest they'll find them. The signing of House
Bill 1284 - which notes that "a state chartered bank or a credit
union may loan money to any person licensed pursuant to this article"
- was a start locally. Additionally, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared
Polis recently wrote to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in
support of "legitimate state-legal [MMJ] businesses [that] are being
denied access to banking services."

Medimar Minimized

Tom Sexton, co-owner of Pueblo's Medimar Ministry, was convicted in
May of felony possession of marijuana, and he was sentenced to 18
months probation. Though Sexton is appealing the conviction - "I was
sentenced for possessing that which I was legally allowed to
cultivate," he says - some scrambling has been required to comply
with the new state laws.

"As a precaution, as a result of Tom Sexton being a felon now, and
the rules that are coming down by the state where felons are bad
characters and can't participate in the industry, basically I just
came off the ownership of Medimar," Sexton says.

"I'm now taken off as one of the owners of Medimar, and the capacity
in which I serve now with Medimar is one of a volunteer consulting
basis."

Besides his own fate, Sexton is concerned for MMJ patients in
Pueblo.

"If Pueblo does not grant somebody local approval, there won't be any
medicine in Pueblo for at least a year. That's what's missing for
Medimar as well as anybody else who may have a desire to come into
Pueblo," he says.

"Medimar has been in this conversation with Pueblo - paying their
taxes, doing everything they can in order to serve the community -
and at this point, Pueblo has yet to come out and say they approve of
anybody."