that is not a hypothetical. you said that is a big if and i am wondering what the context is. it sounded like you are saying these allegations are not likely to be proven true. >> that is not what i'm saying. it is an assumption based on my effort to be as candid as possible with julie. this is an intelligence matter. i am not in a position to comment on it from here. as it relates to our relationship with germany, it is a relationship for a whole for irony of reasons, including the partnership we have when it comes to our nation's national security and our intelligence network.

we value that relationship. >> win a judge on that set in some cases, the deportation hearing can take years. presently, word of that has been making its way to the back of the country. is that not undermining the president and vice president, even two or three years? they are being welcomed in the united states. >> that meets a couple of things. it is one of the reasons again the president has directed the additional judges, officials, and attorneys be dedicated to deal with the back lots. the other thing that is important to understand is prioritizing -- people who are

showing up in the next few weeks are likely to have their cases processed efficiently through the system. due process will be respected. humanitarian responsibilities dictated by the law to be respected, these children when they arrive will be housed in a facility maintained by hhs. the administration is committed to be enforcing the law. >> you will do a last in and laughed out? >> it is more competition than can be described in an introduction to accounting.

>> we are seeking additional resources so we can real down the backlog but also address the basic due process claims of the border. it is my understanding the releases take place because of the backlog. we are trying to trim the backlog but also prioritize those. >>, which of those promised a court they are showing a further hearing? >> i do not have specific numbers. >> is there a reason? >> it is important to understand. if i have the number, it would not give you an accurate picture of what is happening. we have seen a recent surge in the last few weeks of recent arrivals.

sometimes, because the backlog is lengthy, the notice to appear is a lengthy time. it might not necessarily give you an accurate picture of what happened. >> it is a small number. >> i do not have the number in front of me. >> is it closer to 10%, 100%? >> i think the number would illustrate it is not operating as efficiently. that is why we are seeking additional resources to deal with those who have been recently apprehended and making sure we are enforcing the law. >> it showed back in 2008, there were more than 8000 miners sent

back and last year, the numberñi had fallen to less than 2000. it was almost 1/5 of what it had been. does that not show that what you are saying is disinformation, that when smugglers promise [indiscernible] this administration has not really been deporting. >> what is important is the difference between 2008 and the more recent statistics. the passage of that law, signed into law by the previous president. what that law mandated is different in the way children who arrived in the country from noncontinuous countries are treated in immigration system. the numbers you cite reflect or are the consequence of this it ministration's -- administration's consistent enforcement of the law. we are seeking greater authority for the secretary of homeland security to exercise discretion that would allow him to make

that process more efficient and, in some cases, more quickly and probably -- promptly remove children from the country if it is found they do not qualify for humanitarian relief. understanding those numbers presented this morning in the times requires someone to take into account what the enforcement of the law requires. what that law required was a longer process for adjudicating the cases of these children from 19 -- noncontiguous countries. >> showing some of the miners who come into the country illegally are i am large able to stay. there have been so few deportations. >> i am not blaming it on the law. i am merely citing this is what the law requires. there is a suggestion from our opponents that the problem is the president is not enforcing the law. he is.

we are seeing a greater authority to more effectively enforce that law that would allow the administration to act more quickly to return children from the country they originated. >> i have a question from another subject if you can remind me. the president's tweets. i understand those are not directly written by him. does he even read them and know they're going out? are they reviewed by the white house or is that simply doing something on his behalf? >> i am suspecting you asked me about a tweet i have not seen. the twitter handle is maintained by os a. that is the political organization, the offshoot of the campaign. it is a twitter handle maintained independently of the white house.

>> what i'm going to ask about each -- about is, after the hobby lobby decision, a throwback thursday tweet to a throwback of last week when a woman made her own decisions about her own health care. does the president believe because of the hobby lobby decision, women were not allowed to make their own decisions about health care? >> that is certainly true of women in some cases, that what the spin court ruling, the consequences of that is it will allow bosses to interfere with what the president believes should be the freedom that any woman has to make her own decisions about her health care. >> he was aware of the tweet as far as you know? >> i'm not sure. the twitter handle is maintained independently of the white house. i am not aware of it. it sounds like, based on your description, it is consistent

with a priority the president and this administration have attempted to advance, which is that women should have the freedom to make their own decisions about their health care without interference from their boss. mark. >> the administration has made it clear from the beginning and during the latest crisis that the priority is for an increase in the national government. we heard overnight the iraqi parliament will not intervene until the 12th. the government for nation is paralyzed. is the administration satisfied with the effort so far for iraqi leaders to overcome the issue and what else can be united states do to move along that process? >> i have been candidate -- candid, i think, that we will

not move more quickly to unify that country. that nation faces an existential threat from isil right now and to confront that threat, they will have to be united. this has been confronted by an array of people, particularly the vice president, who has been on the phone. we made clear that is a necessary step. we also made clear that the president has made it clear additional military involvement will only be done in coordination with tangible commitments from iraq's leaders to have a more inclusive government agenda. the reason is this existential threat has a security dimension to it but it only highlights the

degree to which iraq is honorable. it will require iraq's put the leaders from each of the major communities in iraq, the shia, the sunni, to put aside those divisions and put the interests of the country first. we are urging iraq leaders to do that and to do it more than they have in the last few weeks. >> vice president biden called and rather than move up, they're moving it back. are they brushing aside? >> no, we have seen constructive words from other leading members of her rack's society. we saw a representative comments and urge the iraqi political

leadership to do the same thing. we have seen other countries in the region urge iraq a political leaders to come together and unify the country. i think there is widespread agreement in the region and around the world that the way in which this problem can be solved is pretty clear. i certainly have not tried to minimize the difficulty is making these kinds of decisions in reaching these kinds of agreements. to be blunt about it, reaching those agreements and making those difficult decisions are necessary for iraq to survive. >> thank you. i was talking last week to the other josh from missouri, the cocounsel in the hobby lobby case. he noticed there are 50 other cases pending that involved

nonprofits. he said the president, with a stroke of a pen, could set aside all of these cases of executive order that would either circumvent, using strong language, previous executive order health care, or designate certain parties, such as the government or an insurer to handle health care, which abortion inducing contraception's are involved. what are your comments it is the president considering executive order? let's our belief for henry -- >> our belief for handling the situation is that hobby lobby and the supreme court struck

down one part signed into law by the president. one few about how to resolve this situation is for congress to pass a law. the difficulty congress has in taking steps like this, i am not naïve. but in this matter, our first priority for resolving the situation is passing a law. >> no executive order. >> our first priority is for congress to take action and that is what i would like to see. >> we talked a lot about the core of the immigration problem right now. the problem for our country is they are able to get past the border and the law in place that caters specifically to them. would you agree that is our problem right now? that is our root cause of the humanitarian crisis you mentioned. >> if we can enjoy success in

cooperation that would stem the tide, that would be a benefit to our country. we are engaged in pretty intensive diplomacy. you have seen in the last couple of weeks the vice president and the secretary of state traveled to that region to meet with leaders of those countries to try to deal with the situation there. that involved increasing funding for programs that would promote community development and set up centers to make it more efficient to move children who left the country back into that country. it also involved greater cooperation with law enforcement officials, that we have existing law enforcement relationships to improve citizen security in those countries. we are engaged in a variety of efforts, some of which are underway in the home country who are seeking to travel to this one. it is accurate to point out there is an urgent humanitarian

situation that is in full bloom on the u.s. order. that is why you have seen the deployment of additional resources to try to do it that. >> if enforcing the law has contributed to the crisis, because we need to house and deal with them through the courts, with the president not then advocate for changing that law, or does the administration handle values of that law, or do you think expanding the leeway of dhhs will be enough? >> this is a multifaceted solution. the first is the bed rock requirement. we are also seeking additional authority from congress that can be given to exercise some discretion more promptly on how to remove children who, it is found to the court process, that they do not have a legal basis for remaining in the country.

>> the law basically needs to be changed? we know most of the kids will not have that remedy within their situations anyway. >> you're right. it is our expectation that after going through the legal process, the majority of these kids will not qualify for humanitarian relief. the law we are discussing is an antitrafficking law. there are important benefits. there are kids moving trafficking from asia, for example, who need to have the kind of guarantees and protections in terms of ensuring due process is followed. the law is important. in light of the recent surge we have seen from central american countries, there is an additional story that can be used to enforce the law more effectively in the best interests of the country and the children.

>> the supplemental request, will that include fees for border security or is this all remedied? >> the requests we are principally focused on immigration resources -- judges, lawyers, prosecutors, i would officials, who can make sure these cases are processed more efficiently. the thing now, i have seen reporting's on your network and outlets that a lot of these individuals traveling from central american countries are not necessarily seeking to get through the border. they are seeking out border patrol officers so they can be detained and go through the immigration system. we are certainly interested in making sure we have the additional resources in place in the immigration does them to process those claims more quickly. in most cases, we are talking about adults, they can be

returned to their country more quickly. those are concerned about border security, and i saw there were a couple of republicans forceful on their advocacy for increased border security on a couple of sunday morning programs. the fact of the matter is, copper has of immigration reform passed in the senate and is being blocked by republicans in the house including border security. those who claim they are against comprehensive immigration reform and yet are committed to criticize and the president for his lack of effort to secure the border, are opened to have their motives questioned. i hope they will be when they do an additional interview on your network. thanks, everybody. have a good monday.

>> great. thanks. it is good to get a sense of who is here. i would also say we are all -- money is one of these things that really kind of can

galvanize people and if you are here you mainly for money that is great. and i think a lot of people come to this industry because of the opportunity, the economic opportunity, but that is not what keeps us. what keeps them are the people, the passion, the change we are making, the pioneering spirit we are building and because this is different. businesses are not like other businesses so i think it is going to be an interesting ride as we look at our different motivations for being involved in the sector. and if you want something done in this world, you have got to figure out how to make it

profitable. hippies keep being right. they were right about renewable energy, write about working on organic foods, write about cannabis. look at renewable energy and organic foods, these are movement that started because people care about something, they cared about the environment, wanted to use renewables, they cared about the health of farms and land and what we put in our bodies. it started out really small with an activist sort of flavor. but once they figured out how to have profitable business models are around those ideas, now organic foods are everywhere. renewable energy is growing by leaps and leaps and bounds. i think that is what the cannabis industry is doing for

freedom. everytime we show communities that they can raise tax revenue, that they can have businesses that provide benefits to their communities and investors can see this is a viable investment opportunity and the entrepreneurs see that this is a viable business opportunity, that moves things. prohibition has been kept in place in partial part because of the profit being made by the people who make money off of depriving people of liberty. when you start a business where the outcome of your business, that people are more free as a result of your business, that is a powerful powerful act so thank

you. lost my train of thought. i want to talk about how i got here. if you think about how you got your. the way i cannot start in this movement, some friends played a trick on me. and that is the one that was just nervous about these types of things. they played a trick and had a security guard come and put me in a collar and then they came

in waxing and put their hand on me on the receiver back when you had to push buttons down to turn the phone off and they laughed and thought it was funny but at that moment it hit me in my court and by realize i can't believe people are punished for is this. this is terrible. people's lives of being ruined. i devoted -- they did know they were building an activist that day but for hundreds of thousands of people, it is not a joke. people are here thinking about how to make money. we owe it to them to make sure we do this right and to make sure we build the right kind of industry. so i was -- back in 2010 i was lead fund-raiser for the policy

project. i was raising money from high net worth individuals working on changing -- donating to change the laws and high net worth people who were working in this industry in the dispensaries and such in california and what i realized was these groups of people needed to know each other because a lot of people were donating to change the law. they were not thinking about business opportunities. they had been successful in other businesses and also noticing there were all these are entrepreneurs who had great ideas, wanted to expand businesses and do things in this sector, but they didn't know the investors, they didn't know the -- how to scale business or put together business plans with financials and all this stuff. i realized these people need to

know each other and it is also i realize i could raise a lot more money as the piers and somebody who was asking people to raise money for the cause. i sat down with steve dep angelo and he saw the same thing, got these people coming to him with different business ideas and also investors coming but he had no way to that the ideas and nothing for them to invest in and do was sort of like there is something here but i already have a job so i brought in this idea in late 2009. immediately saw it. if you want to figure out what is going to happen next, figure out what steve is doing now. he has been an incredible visionary for decades, pioneering much of what we see today. he was doing before -- usually

-- some people think he is crazy for doing it and he had the right idea. that was real great affirmation for my idea that steve fought was a good idea and was willing to become our first investor and our president so we started our views then with the idea that the development of a responsible, politically engaged and profitable cannabis industry would be the single biggest factor leading to a day when not a single adult is punished for this plan. probably the most notable is our investor network. we had a big meeting yesterday at the denver center for the performing arts and two 50 accredited investors and companies picking them. how many people were there? i am impressed that you are up this early and so sorry you had to hear me talk so much over the

last two days. and $2 million invested in a dozen companies from these folks and so it is really remarkable to see how it has been growing and the new waves of people getting involved. the thing about being here in colorado is there is this fear is that we don't talk about when we talk about the punishment that happens around the world we focus on the people who are caught and are punished, but the greater challenge is all the people who live in fear about being themselves, about feeling like they need to keep things from their family members and these sorts of things and so the freedom people get when they

walk into this store. tired of friends tell me a story that they walked into a store here in denver and went up to the counter and the president said do you consume cannabis and he goes yes. they're like ok, do you prefer this? and start talking, but that moment of randomly telling a stranger you consume can of this is a powerful liberating act. the fear and anxiety that pervades millions of cannabis consumers around the country, we get to solve. one of the reasons we are seeing so much excitement about the market here is because in a lot of ways they are not just buying cannabis but a taste of freedom so it is really amazing opportunity to be involved in this. that was my story about how i got here. i wanted to check in with your

story. close your eyes for a second. the first time you knew cannabis existed. the first time you knew someone who consumed it? think about the first time you realize people were punished for this. the first time you realized that was wrong? the time you realized someone benefited medically from cannabis. think about the first time you realize there was the business opportunity in this? the answer to that question, all these questions leading up is in many ways i imagine how you got here. you meet people over the next two days, there is the thing we do at business conferences,

shake hands and i'm going to give your elevator pitch, and you can have the same conversation 400 times, but it doesn't have to be that way. you can actually find out the why of what people do and it gets so much richer, so much so much richer. i think there is going to be a lot of really exciting opportunities in this sector, a huge agricultural explosion. we will see a lot of technology coming out where cannabis is leading the way because of the uniqueness of this plan. nobody obsesses over a plan to like cannabis consumers and cultivators so we have these underground botanists meeting up with the plant engineers and what they are going to create is going to be awesome. and i think we are going to see

a lot more, these are going to be the first types of companies we will start seeing acquisitions in. a lot of ancillary businesses where there are companies that are very similar but in non cannabis space, we will start seeing a lot more -- the first real acquisitions of companies probably in the next two years and the most likely place that will happen is going to be the media's bases because it is the most protected space and the easiest to building to something else. that is what we will see first. there is a lot of money at the table and is looking to find a place but it is a nascent industry. different people looking to put in $50 billion or $100 million into this space and in many ways it is too nascent. most of the companies are at early stage companies and so the money is -- the money to build

this industry is here and it is a matter of figuring out which steps we need to go through because there just isn't the previous example of what is happening here so it is going to be interesting to see what happens over the next couple years as it rolls out. i am going to be on the panel, my colleague steve burke will be speaking about the market report which is another thing we do, the deep dive into this sector, $1.5 billion industry in 2013 growing to a $2.6 billion industry that year, that associate% growth in one year, find me another industry that is growing at that kind of a clip, particularly find me another industry growing at that clip

that does not have a single player at more than one hundred million dollars a year business. in fact there is probably only a dozen or so companies that are more than 10 or $15 million a year. this is the rare opportunity for start ups and small businesses to take a run at this before big businesses start to come in and so it is going to be a fascinating -- one of the things you will hear a lot about today and tomorrow and in conversations this about the professionalizing of the industry, how we need to professionalize this industry. i want to challenge that notion. i agree we want to professionalize this industry but it depends on your definition of professional is. is professional what people wear

and where they went to college or what their last job was? that conflate a role but to me, professional means you do what you say you are going to do, you honor the key stakeholders including the community in the businesses that you do and you treat people with respect no matter how long their hair is. and some of the most professional people i ever had the pleasure of working with didn't look typically professional. and some of the least professional people i ever worked with have looked like we normally think of when we think of professionals ally encourage people to open up the concept of what that means so that we can make sure we are building something that can be a new kind

of industry that embraces and we don't lose the lessons of this plant and the importance of the creativity that so many people discover through it as well. i am going -- you know what i am going to do? i got this message from steve angelo last night and wondered how i am going to close this out. as i was trying to figure out how to close it out, i read his message and i thought since this was supposed to be his speech why don't i read what he wrote to me as the closing because this is shockingly fitting. i will read that now and we will close. he says hello, my friends, fellow entrepreneurs and investors, thank troy for filling my slot and aaron for inviting me to speak. i would like to salute the voters, activists in the cannabis community of colorado

for their effort to create the nation's first full access adult use market. may many more states follow your good example and soon. unfortunately a sudden flu has robbed me of the ability to present with you in the room today but i prepared a brief summary of the talk i was going to give, it is a social justice movement. it could never be anything else. given the origin of canada's prohibition which had nothing to do with the inherent qualities of the plant and everything to do with the people who were using it. the very first law preventing cannabis in the u.s. was passed in california in 1913 followed shortly thereafter by border states. those laws were passed as a racist reaction to the first great wave of mexican immigrants fleeing the brutal battles of the revolution that started in 1910. this was just the beginning of a long tragic history of canada's laws try getting racial minorities and the other

marginalized people. those early laws than the myths that propelled them inspired the theme of william randolph hearst and the nationwide propaganda campaign. once those campaigns produce the desired results, and black jazz musicians and other early targets were t pads of harlem which welcomed members of all races at a time when few with any other social venues were integrated. the decadence of hollywood was also targeted by the anti cannabis crusaders resulting in the arrest of robert mitchum and others. after jazz loving beatniks picked up cannabis from african-american musicians and passes them on to the hippies canada's laws provided cops with a great reason to hassle the anybody with the wrong kind of clothes or hair cut. we started in 1913 what started in 1913 has grown into a monster. since 2001, 12 million americans have been arrested on cannabis

charges and most of them convicted. african-americans have been arrested and a rate four times greater than that of white people. our nation in prisons a larger percentage of its population than any country including north korea. the majority of those arrested will suffer a lifetime of the other damaging consequences including losses of employment, housing and various professional licenses. equal or more serious social justice issue is the denial of the effective medicine to people whose lives in many cases depend on it. for many years we believe cannabis was a palette of medicine that made sick people feel better. now we know it may have powerful curative and preventive properties for some of the most grave diseases like cancer, epilepsy and parkinson's and alzheimer's and the real criminals are not those who provide medicine to patients to need it but those to prevent them from causing that --

helping. anyone who looked into the eyes of a mother whose child depends on cannabis will understand this instantly. we have not only talked about the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on canada's enforcement or handed over to games and cartels which has been a form of robbery from society as a whole. a social injustice passed on every american or the hundreds of people killed by police in the course of canada's enforcement or the tens of thousands killed by gangs and cartels. the good news is our work to dismantle descended of injustice is bearing more fruit every day as new initiatives and new laws remove criminal penalties and create new markets, each business will reclaim a portion of the dollar stolen by prohibition and as that happens, as we build our success let's remember our industry was birth to buy a movement for social justice. the opportunities we are blessed with today are the result of many decades of struggle to change the laws and our future is inextricably bound up with

the cannabis policy reform movement. we must pass new laws to gain new markets. the passage of new laws in other states in other countries will not happen unless our industry funds them and pushes them forward. so i encourage you to embrace the past and future of the industry of the social justice movement. rarely in human history have investors and entrepreneur is been handed such a large, well proven and completely and served market. take advantage of the unique opportunity to simultaneously build wealth for justice in our society. i would be disappointed if all we did with this opportunity was created other successful money-making industry. i believe early pioneers had the skill and dedication and vision to do much more. i hope when we look back 20, 30, 40 years from now on what we have created we can proudly say it is a new kind of industry, industry with ongoing commitment to social justice, industry that

will set a new standard for industries to live up to. an industry with an active conscience, and afraid to use its resources to defend our rights and environment and values doing good as much as creating wealth. it won't work unless we do all together but if we do, if we make that commitment, when we do gather in that room 30 or 40 years from now and we are congratulating each other on our success and wealth we will also be able to look in each other's eyes and claimed the most valuable reward life has to offer any of us, the knowledge we left this world little better placed than we found it. [applause] >> thank you, steve de angelo. i look forward to building the next great american industry

which you. have a great conference. [applause] >> thank you, troy dayton. can i ask our panelists to come to the stage for the next round? it is an honor to introduce brian vicente, co-director of the 64 campaign and longtime advocate for marijuana law reform in colorado. brian was the first chair of the in cia board and i think it was in this building 3.5 years ago that we found in cia. in 2010 brian was there from the beginning, almost number number one if we had a numbering system

back then. it is an honor and privilege to introduce mr. brian vicente. [applause] >> thanks, it is really great to be here. it has been a big supporter of ncia and it gives me great pride and as we started the organization there are ten of us or so and everytime i see his staff vice well with pride. we are up to 550 paying business members. it is on to us. it is 01 careful organization. i will start with something important. wednesday night at my law firm, a fund-raiser for the united for

care campaign. give them a round of applause. we have an insider briefing from eric stevens about how the campaign is going open to everyone, a 5 or 10 minute block from the conventions so please head on down. i will give a couple brief comments and then turn things over to our wonderful speakers and it is profound that we are here in colorado at this moment. not many people are aware that when marijuana became illegal at the federal level, the first person elected under that federal law was samuel caldwell in colorado so is phenomenal that colorado began the war on marijuana. that was large for small town distribution and here we are at the cutting edge of where marijuana legalization and commerce is going. wonderful to be here at this

time. i was involved in the campaign to legalize marijuana which passed in 2012 and i am happy to report it has been very successful in hell implication has been rolling out. it is only about 18 months to legalize marijuana and six months since we had the commercial system in place you currently see with stores and so forth for legal recreational marijuana. it is tough to say exactly. i don't have tons of data how things are going. usage rates and things like that are important to keep an eye on, tax revenue, we have been good at tracking that. we brought in tens of millions of dollars of tax revenue. release that money was going into the hands of the underground market and cartels for years and years and now has been captured by our state using that money for public schools and $25 million, already set that aside for things like treatment for people with drug

problems, prevention, used education on marijuana so that is from sale of marijuana going into positive things in our state. we produced over 10,000 direct jobs in colorado in this industry, 10,000. that is phenomenal and we will hear from elliot and other people who employ a lot of individuals and a good living wages, many get health care and that is worth reflecting on. in addition there are thousands of indirect jobs in my law firm, twenty-seventh of the jewels and a marijuana law ants construction, tons of job creation driven by these laws. we are also setting aside $10 million for the state medical marijuana program to research medical marijuana. we know millions of people in our country use marijuana medical marijuana legally, 130,000 in colorado, the research is not always been there. we need more research, a significant amount of money to

fund actual marijuana research and positive things going on with medical marijuana. wanted to also point out one or two other things, wanted to apologize in advance because my wife is actually 40 weeks pregnant, today is the due dates. i have my phone by the ready. if i need to run out, let's give her a round of applause. [applause] >> if i need to run out one of my staff members will jump up here but i bring that up not only because i think i should be supporter of the year for being here, but because i think that is profound, children in colorado and washington born into a world where marijuana prohibition is a relic of the past. it is simply amazing. my daughter will grow up -- it doesn't make any sense. can't believe the policy existed. like alcohol prohibition. it is nonsense. how many lives were destroyed

and negatively impacted by marijuana prohibition? impossible to count. it is a new dawn and exciting to be here. i am going to turn things around to our speakers of i will talk about the challenges and positive aspects of legalization and their particular states. i wanted to know in case you're thinking of sneaking out you shouldn't because at the end when these gentlemen speak i'm going to ask what i think it's a tough question and i want to know is there an existentialist threat to legalization out there. is there an issue that we are grappling with right now that if we don't get it right, the pendulum may swing back towards prohibition? this is new. a lot of us are taking it for granted, we have big wins, in oregon and alaska, there are some real threats and i want to hear from these gentlemen, how potentially do we address those?

i am going to start with washington if that is okay with you gentlemen and i will sort of introduce our first speaker, john davis is founder of the first patient resources dick, a dispensary in seattle and has been involved for years with an event i am blown away by which is seattle him fast, a guy working on marijuana policy, i have been too a lot of marijuana events, seattle has by far the most excellent marijuana event i have never been to, hundreds of thousands of people, he has been involved since 1994. the final thing about john, he is currently working on a project with the former president of mexico, president fox, on creating an international dialogue about canvas policy reform. give a round of applause john

davis. [applause] >> thank you. i was asked to come and speak, the title of this is colorado and washington, success and challenges from the frontier of post prohibition america. post prohibition is a little bit soon to be using those terms but in thinking about this i decided to leave with the successes we have had in washington and overall most important success we had in washington, was also in colorado, the psychological effect of simply passing a legalization initiative. no one at the time knew what that meant. the federal government was going to respect it but the legalization vote was the most

important event in this industry since california legalized medical marijuana in 1996. it forced the government's hand. two states now are in violation of that single convention treaty. the 61 single convention treaty which is international allows for medical and medical research if you read the treaty. this is recreational. this is the first time this has happened and no one really knew how everyone was going to react and so far it seems the government, the federal government is willing to to allow it to happen. it is not parts of the government are not happy. but overall, the notion of the

legalization is going to be allowed to continue. since legalization, the vote on legalization which in washington is still little bit theoretical, the polling has jumped between 10% and 15% nationwide for those in favor of legalization, the polling numbers around 50, 56%, 58% of the entire country including those people in oklahoma wanting out right legalization and over two thirds of those people in the nation wanting some form of legalization including medical. in the conversation, not just happening here, the conversation just because of the initiatives passing has been spread throughout the world.

they just had last week is special in australia that was the cannabis ink of australia. there are so many other countries now looking at it, at us and saying wasn't it the united states that put this on us and now they're going away from it. does it make sense? the conversation happening south of the border. a lot of people don't know that the drug war impacts those south of the border and if you look at the usage rates of mexicans, of drugs, they are far less than we had in the united states. the united states is one of the most producing, mexico does not have the drug problem. they have a border problem. they are on the border with a country that is a large drug consumer. and a lot of people don't

realize there have been over 80,000 confirmed direct confirmed casualties from the war on drugs since 1996. 1500 of those confirmed children. we have journalists that are kidnapped, killed. we have truckloads of be headed corpses dumped on the side of the road but that is down there so we don't think of this as a true war because people aren't dying here, because the cartel's know that if you turn up bodies on this side of the border there are going to be problems. down there they don't care so much. now the claim, we heard this lot before for years, it will never be allowed to happen. now we can pretty much put that behind us and look at the other

states and start to look at up half forward, what this did, what these boats did especially in the case of washington is create a framework, a scaffolding in which we can build on what has been done in washington and colorado. i have been working on drug policy for couple decades now and i have yet to see the perfect legislation. what has always happened is we took small baby steps, short out the position and take the next step and each one of those steps is faltering. it is not perfect. we have taken it up next legislative cycle. what has been a success in washington is the legalization vote is starting to force the localities in washington to actually take this seriously and

to think about what it is going to take for zoning, occupancy and uses. people don't realize how important for businesses the localities are. they think legal, problem solved. you still have to get into your localities but this has been forcing the hands of the localities and now they are beginning to figure out exactly how they are going to issue a building permit for the large-scale production of a substance. that brings us to the end of washington successes unfortunately. washington has a lot of problems. as you know, colorado is passing out of brochure around where you can actually go within a mile and find some recreational cannabis, that is not the case in washington yet.

washington had done some things very differently. for you people in various states it is important for you to look at what happened in colorado, what happened in washington and even some things happening in california and various areas so that as you are going to the next steps of changing your laws you can learn from mistakes that are made. we will get over these mistakes. it is just a small process, small baby steps forward. challenges. washington, when it was legalized and kicked to the liquor control board and there was a lot of talk about what it was going to work like, this notion of legalization, they did not want to think about it from a business perspective because at the time, it was bad business. business was going to come and

faber going to advertise to your children and business is just bad. understandable, when the industry reached out to the liquor control board and the powers that be there were a lot of people in the community that one of my colleagues call activists. these are very passionate but very politically naive people in the medical community typically and instead of engaging positively with the process, the liquor control board, legislature, they decided loud was active and kind of went down and started accusing the liquor control board of things and a number of other things just

being a real pain, shouting and not having a clear message and that really turned the liquor control board off. they went to the academics and a said academics, how do you do this? academics are not engage in the business of canada said the business of cannabis is a tricky one. there is a lot to know in the business of cannabis in order to keep your supply line right and keep on the right side of taxation and their desire was to wake gold mom and pops but in leaving it to the mom and pops they didn't want any capital requirements, didn't want to require any experience, they didn't -- they didn't want

vertical integration. the initiative for business so if we are on the retail side we can't grow our own. and they didn't want to necessarily give medical which doesn't have the same amount of regulation in washington as it did in colorado. a path to legalization. they ended up, their requirement, property requirement was a sham, it was meaningless, people didn't need to be tied to property, they could list kentucky fried chicken and say it is a distance relationship that is fine and they would be allowed to change it later. they ended up limiting the number of licences for entity and these are not things likely to blower investments in to a market. you could only have three stores and you have all these other

challenges, made in a lot difficult they took the growers to initially have three that are in washington state, 30,000 square feet. the reduced that to 20,000 square feet and said you could only have one so lot of people that had taken a business approach and actually taken and secured these facilities they are holding high overhead and you are playing against someone with no overhead, no experience. there one commonality was if you can gain the system and that is the way it is, restricting out-of-state money, why would you not want to have money to help build your infrastructure, just makes it more difficult. than the control board, they have consistently changed the

rules and their interpretation of the rules. as i say the existing industry has had some sway but they decided to take an academic approach whereas colorado took the existing medical, let the existing medical go over, also is they were a lot farther along in their localities and building permits because they had to be because they had to create 70% of everything they sold out of retail stores so we had to get a building permits in place and we had that ready to go. so you saw colorado rollout with some product first. i can't stress enough the locality role in implementation, in washington state we are in the process of going into the industry did -- the individual localities and working to get an

occupancy in a way to get building permit. and again, now you overlay with all the bureaucracy, clean air, environmental, solid-waste, fire, water, labor, department of agriculture. it is the process with those people. they are nervous about standing on the branch alone. they have to be worked with in order to figure out okay, solid-waste, can we put it in train and can the train go to oregon crossing the border? can we treat it like another solid waste? is a hazardous waste? those questions are still being answered in washington. then of course you have the other factors, contrary to federal law makes won't work with cannabis industry, not even on the and soleri's, not yet.

and the tax challenges are immense. i am still wondering how retailers are going to manage to file complaint and still not go broke so we have achieved a lot and will we have to do in washington now is let the system turned on july 1st and show a little failure. we are going to have to let the media say this system is imperfect because we have to do like we always did. we will come back in and figure out what works, what doesn't, and make some changes and the ongoing process, as my good friend vivian mcpeak often says legalization is not any event, it is a process.

[applause] >> thanks a lot. that was a great overview. we turn things over in the second to our other panelists from washington state and then focus on two colorado panelists. in terms of john's comment the banking issue and tax issue of 280 are two of the cornerstones of ncia's work. there is up panel, my closest friend is steve fox, i suggest you check that out. our next speaker from washington state, roger goodman. i got to know him, he is a state representative in washington and i got to know him eight years ago when he was really doing some ground-breaking work with the king county bar association, the attorney association for seattle land young aspiring attorney myself i know they're

putting out position papers saying the war on drugs is a failure and we should rethink marijuana policies and did that time it was inspiring to me and i was able to reach out to roger and start to take some similar steps so it is my pleasure to look at roger goodman. >> stand up so i can see you better. a pleasure to be back here in denver. i have worked with brian a dozen years. the time has flown by. getting the professional voice to speak up against the war on drugs in general. look at the ground work we laid. i have to pinch myself. i don't see a lot of fringey ponytail reggae people. i used to be the oldest person in the audience and i'm not any more so this is quite a shift.

one want to do is give you an update of the details of what is going on in washington state. after my reform work in colorado and other states i became notorious in my area. a seat became open in a legislator and i ran and they hit me hard. they use all those keywords, roger goodman is a lawyer, crusading to legalize drugs and all that sort of thing, hit pieces arrived at the voters stores and michael number shot up after words those that was a cultural sign that i was fighting for the truth and had courage as a politician to talk about this. really? you are saying this? it is amazing. and i begged my opponents to hit me on the drug issue because always backfire on them. if they say i raise taxes than i

am vulnerable. now i find myself as the chair of the public safety committee and the state house of representatives which used to have jurisdiction over cannabis but it is legal now so i don't even have jurisdiction over the substance that i helped to legalize so it is an irony there. i am also practicing law. council with henry walkout's the who opened an office in seattle and i am servicing cannabis businesses in washington state sell i have an inside view on what it is like to produce and process and sell at the retail and regulatory burden and so forth. i want to echo what john davis said, a pioneer in washington state, been working with him for a decade as well. talking about the acceptance of the initiative. all the soccer moms and sheriff's who oppose the initiative are saying that is it, let's do it.

they are accepting and acknowledging and embracing it and i think it is also in view of the fact despite bumps in the road to we are developing a rigorous regulatory system that will satisfy public opinion. and a little bit advanced to answer brian's question about could this possibly reverse i don't think so. i don't think so. it was a surprise to us who were alive when reagan was ejected that jimmy carter -- looked like it was all going to happen in the late 70s and early 80s and then it whiplashed against us. i have to say i was with jimmy carter not long ago in atlanta and spoke at wind with him about his position on marijuana and he does not believe it should be legalized. he believes it is a dangerous substance that will be marketed to children and cause cancer. almost all his family members died from lung cancer related to tobacco nt has that on his mind

associating it with cannabis. he is strongly opposed to cannabis legalization and is in favor of decriminalization and i got into a debate with him. don't you want to regulate the market and get rid of the criminal enterprises? would that be a better way to protect children and families? i stumped him. just to let you know jimmy carter was never in favor of legalization so maybe it is not a surprise that we didn't make it happen way back when but now the dam has burst. the industry is sitting right here. we are on top of them. and if you put your finger to the wind you see public opinion going in the same direction. i compare same gender relationships with cannabis legalization. there is still a lot of feeling,

a cultural acceptability ceiling on same gender relationships. some people still grows out by it but cannabis legalization is the plant and the rapid cultural change, the acceptance of cannabis as a plant that ought to be regulated and not prohibited and driven to the criminal market is rapidly gaining acceptance so i just don't think it will go back. maybe i will be proven wrong but i pink we are there. a great example of discontinuous change. nothing happens, nothing happens and then the berlin wall falls. for us, colorado and washington the berlin wall has fallen for cannabis prohibition. i predict in 2019 if hillary wants to get reelected she will have to bring down a lot of federal prohibition to become popular enough to get reelected president. five years of federal prohibition is my prediction. on the ground the liquor control

board in the state which we will rename the liquor and cannabis board which is pretty cool, same letters, wanted to change the stationary anything, doing the best jobs they can. they are used to bottles of vodka, not an agricultural products so they are learning a long way and sometimes the hating like bureaucrats and hindering the development of the market. the initial phase here and we are letting colorado run interference for us to see what lessons you are learning, right behind you, the first retail shop should be opening in the first couple weeks of july the we are penetrating the market very slowly. colorado already had statewide uniform regulatory system for medical cannabis and we didn't. we have a patchwork of local control, we have an initiative

on the books but the medical cannabis system is legal. we have to invent something new and figure out a way to line medical cannabis with the new access market. by the way i do not use and i'm about to say the word, recreational as the word, that were diminishes the use of cannabis i don't go for recreational beer. those who use tobacco don't go out for recreational cigarette. so i don't think -- i encourage you not to use that word. see angela use the word full access market original adult use and so i really try to use the words medical cannabis and general adult use cannabis for general use but not recreational. try not to use that word because it comes across as something less than what it should be. we are now licensing 2 million

square feet of cannabis. the liquor control board seeing 50% of the businesses will receive licenses will fail either for failed crop for bad business plan. and so those 2 million square feet of cannabis are estimated to satisfy about 15%, 15%, just getting started. 25% of demand in washington state is true nationwide, people under 21 so there will always be an unregulated market for those under 21 and the it is 75% of that, 50% is completely unregulated and the of the 25% is medical cannabis so we a starting to supplant, undercut the market and to a certain extent medical cannabis. it is a very high risk venture. for anyone who wants to get into the business as john was saying it is sort of an predictable what bureaucrats are doing so

you invest in a property, you are paying rent, you don't have a license, don't know if you are going to get one and the liquor board changes the rules and you wait another few months, so for those getting into this you need the resources. otherwise -- the applicants have withdrawn because they don't have resources to continue. the challenges and get our banking. we have one credit union in the state willing to provide merchant services and i am working on a deal where retailers and other sectors of the market were joining an association and the banks yet to be named which service the association rather is than the individual businesses they the banking issue is still huge. still a cash business. this is the major challenge and i would rather answer questions about what is going on with washington than continue to talk at you but very exciting.

we are moving in the right direction. bumps in the road. i think in terms of medical, we will be probably licensing medical, small-scale, licensing medical retail but in general it is going to be the general adult use. i am concerned about medically needy individuals who need a lot. as a legislator i am wanting to make sure we provide -- in just to make oil, a lot of plant material so that is a major concern. one big difference between colorado and washington is we don't have arguably -- the attorney-general said that is going to be litigated the giants in favor of revenue-sharing, saying to locals, counties or cities we would give you a share

of the revenue. they want to be able to pay to play so that is the of this thing to provide local revenue-sharing to make a state wide market still a pleasure to be here, thank you. [applause] >> wonderful to have elected officials speaking to the groups and now i am going to shift and talk about colorado's and remind folks we will have an open q&a at the end this is because from colorado talking about the successes and challenges of legalization and then some burning questions, please hang on so eliot klug is ceo and co-founder of pink house -- pink house blooms which is the prominent adult use dispensary in colorado. they have a reputation for being

toppled the class. he comes from a background in oil and gas and agriculture is a brings a lot of acumen to the seals alternative for to eliot klug. [applause] >> thank you for the glowing review. the successes and challenges overlap in the industry. the things that made a successful in colorado are some of the biggest challenges going forward. the prior panelists covered it. the cliche is all politics are local land in this industry, we are the political face of of the commercial side of the movement as well as hopefully, not all of this but hopefully for the

people who helped create this opportunity. .. >> to push us into a regulated retl outlet and a regulated production model. and during that time even the building departments didn't know