Feds Raid Washington Dispensaries

NBC News reports confirmation by agents at the Drug Enforcement Agency in Seattle that “several” Puget Sound-area medical marijuana dispensaries had been raided on Wednesday. Casey Lee, an employee at the Bayside Collective in Olympia, told NBC that a DEA agent told him, “Things are going to be hell for you.”

If accurate, the quote reflects what may soon become a recurring theme of intimidation of the lightly taxed medical marijuana community in states which have recently passed much more restrictive rules for so-called “retail marijuana.” Washington State’s Initiative 502, for example, provides for 25 percent taxes on retail weed at the producer, processor and distributor levels, resulting in a cumulative tax bill for a pound of pot which could easily exceed its wholesale price. Little wonder then that Washington’s relatively generous medical marijuana program is due to sunset in a little less than two years.