Weedmaps, the online directory of cannabis-store menus and
\nlocations that\u2019s served alternately as a \u201clittle black book\u201d for licensed weed
\nstores and a Craigslist for off-books and illicit marijuana sales, is now also
\nthe federal Justice Department\u2019s leading source for inside dirt on the California
\ncannabis industry.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2008, Weedmaps quickly became the leading online
\nresource for curious cannabis buyers and weed merchants eager to sell them
\ncannabis. Until Jan. 1, Weedmaps allowed almost anyone to publish on its
\nwebsite contact information and a menu of cannabis products \u2014 including, much
\nto the chagrin of California state cannabis regulators and struggling legal
\nbusinesses playing by the rules, unlicensed marijuana merchants, both delivery
\nservices and storefronts.<\/p>\n
The names of those merchants \u2014 and whatever they sold, and Weedmaps\u2019s parent company, Ghost Management Group, was The subpoena also sought information related to at least 30 The company was given until Oct. 31 to comply, and appears No indictments or prosecutions have resulted yet, and Weedmaps, a \u201cnecessary evil\u201d for cannabis businesses trying to find customers, in the words of one delivery operator, is still in business. <\/p>\n Under both the Obama and Trump administrations, the federal \u201cWeedmaps\u2019s goose is cooked,\u201d said Omar Figueroa, a Sonoma A Weedmaps did not comment on the subpoena nor provide a copy to Cannabis Now. However, word of the subpoena has spread fast and will almost certainly damage Weedmaps\u2019s reputation and trust within the cannabis industry even if the company is not prosecuted for abetting criminal behavior. <\/p>\n Founded in 2008, the company was raking in as much as $30 million a year in revenue by 2014<\/a> \u2014 cash flow that helped Weedmaps\u2019s parent group donate $750,000 towards Proposition 64<\/a>, California\u2019s recreational legalization initiative, in 2016. <\/p>\n But since Prop. 64\u2019s passage, Weedmaps has behaved as if the The company sometimes painted its actions as activism meant Weedmaps \u201csaid [the law] didn\u2019t matter. They willfully said Technology companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t protect content providers,\u201d added Not only is Weedmaps liable for all the illegal cannabis As Marijuana Business Daily reported<\/a>, even after Weedmaps self-policed and removed advertisers who lacked state-issued license numbers from its website, the company still allowed paid advertisers to \u201cself-publish,\u201d allowing for as many as 1,700 underground cannabis merchants to peddle their (untested) wares on the site. A Weedmaps spokesman disputed that allegation and said that as of January, Weedmaps staffers verified listings with state regulators before publishing \u2014 but by then, the feds already had records detailing the company\u2019s earlier conduct.<\/p>\n In the years since legalization, the illicit market has far outpaced the legal, regulated, and heavily taxed (and therefore extremely expensive) market. By some estimates, the illegal market is eight times bigger than the legal market in California \u2014 and in some jurisdictions, legal sales have actually declined in recent months.<\/p>\n Exactly what triggered the Eastern District of California\u2019s interest in Weedmaps remains unclear. The district is vast and runs from the Oregon border to Sacramento and south to Fresno. The timing of the subpoena, issued Sep. 19, coincides with the height of the vape-cart health scare when illicit cartridges likely contaminated with additives sickened and killed vape-users across the country, attorneys and insiders noted. <\/p>\n But for now, \u201cwe really don\u2019t It\u2019s very hard to run around prosecuting someone slinging Is this what the feds plan to do? Is Donald Trump busting We don\u2019t know, but we do know that if they were, last fall\u2019s TELL US,\u00a0<\/strong>have you used Weedmaps?<\/p>\n The post Weedmaps Coughs up Records to Feds<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Weedmaps, the online directory of cannabis-store menus and locations that\u2019s served alternately as a \u201clittle black book\u201d for licensed weed stores and a Craigslist for off-books and illicit marijuana sales, is now also the federal Justice Department\u2019s leading source for inside dirt on the California cannabis industry. Founded in 2008,Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,90,387],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41513,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41512\/revisions\/41513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nto whom \u2014 now appear to be in the possession of prosecutors at the U.S. Justice
\nDepartment\u2019s Eastern District of California, as
\nMarketWatch first reported on Monday.<\/a><\/p>\n
\nissued a grand jury subpoena on Sept. 19 of last year for \u201cdocuments related to
\ncannabis businesses listed\u201d on the website as well as records related to
\ncannabis orders, on top of records related to Weedmaps\u2019s own business dealings,
\nincluding its investors and staff, MarketWatch reported. <\/p>\n
\ncannabis brands operating in California, including Cannacraft, which markets
\nvape-cart cartridges under the AbsoluteXtracts and Care By Design Brands, and
\npublicly-traded Terra Tech, according to attorney Matt Kumin, who reviewed the
\nsubpoena.<\/p>\n
\nto have done so, according to a statement from a company spokesman.<\/p>\n
\nJustice Department has steered clear of prosecuting state-legal cannabis
\nactivity despite its violation of federal law, but with one caveat: Any
\ncannabis activity that also violated state law would be a priority for
\nprosecution. And what Weedmaps did was provide a very large and organized forum
\nfor such conduct, attorneys and industry insiders told Cannabis Now.<\/p>\n
\nCounty, California-based defense attorney and author of an annual handbook
\noutlining state cannabis laws. \u201cThe only reason why they\u2019re allowed to exist
\nnow is to be a honeypot for the feds and California law enforcement to pick off
\nunlicensed operators.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nnuances of legalization just didn\u2019t matter that much. The company very
\nnotoriously allowed unlicensed cannabis retail stores and delivery services to
\nadvertise on the site, and was brought to heel only after thumbing its nose at
\nstate regulators, including Bureau of Cannabis Control Chief Lori Ajax.<\/p>\n
\nto provide access to cannabis patients and customers living in jurisdictions
\nthat chose not to permit legal weed businesses. But that likely does not matter
\nto the feds.<\/p>\n
\nthey would do that until the end of 2019,\u201d Figueroa noted. \u201cI think that\u2019s
\ngoing to be used by federal prosecutors to say that [activity on Weedmaps] was
\nnot in compliance with state law and not entitled to protections\u201d afforded to
\nmedical-cannabis operators obeying state law, he added.<\/p>\n
\nwhose platforms are used for illegal conduct seek immunity for prosecution for
\nthat conduct under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which states
\nin part that companies can\u2019t be held liable for how users abuse the platform. <\/p>\n
\nFigueroa, who argued that as soon as Weedmaps starting verifying listings and
\nproducts, it lost such protections. <\/p>\n
\nsales facilitated on the platform, it could also be prosecuted under federal
\nlaw for \u201caiding and abetting\u201d illegal marijuana enterprises, he said.<\/p>\n
\nknow why these companies were targeted,\u201d Kumin said. <\/p>\n
\ndime bags, but it\u2019s not very hard at all to find a central repository of
\nillegal listings and accuse the repository-holder of aiding and abetting
\ncriminal activity. <\/p>\n
\nWeedmaps \u2014 and, along with it, anyone who used the website to move a few packs
\nhere, a few boxes there off the books? <\/p>\n
\nsubpoena is a logical first step. But even if it wasn\u2019t, trust still matters in
\ncannabis and the damage to Weedmaps\u2019s brand could take a long time to repair in
\nsome circles.<\/p>\n
\n
\nRead More: Weedmaps Coughs up Records to Feds<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"