Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/342845
ByGeneJohnson The Associated Press SEATTLE Washington state's first recreational marijuana stores open for business this week, more than a year and a half af- ter voters decided to legal- ize, tax and regulate pot. Some questions and an- swers about the industry: Q: When can I buy legal weed? A: The state's Liquor Control Board issued the first two dozen retail mar- ijuana licenses in the wee hours Monday, and stores can open at 8 a.m. Tuesday if they're ready. Once stores get their licenses, they can place their orders with the state's licensed growers, who have to wait 24 hours before they ship the mari- juana. It wasn't immedi- ately clear how many stores planned to open Tuesday. Some, such as Belling- ham's Top Shelf Cannabis, said it would be open at 8 a.m.; others, such as Seat- tle's Cannabis City, planned to open at noon. Q: Where can I buy? A: Washington issued its first 24 licenses Mon- day to shops to sell recre- ational marijuana, 14 stores in western Washington and 10 in eastern Washington. Spokane has three stores. Vancouver, Tacoma and Bellingham each have two. Seattle and the other cities on the list have one each. A couple of small towns have a store, including Bingen, population 725, in the Co- lumbia River Gorge, and Winthrop, population 400, in the north Cascades. Li- quor Control Board list: https://lcb.app.box.com/re- tail-7-7. Q: Will it be expensive? A: Yes. Although some stores say they plan to sell some of their supply for as little as $10 or $12 a gram — comparable to what it sells for at the state's un- regulated medical dispen- saries — others expect it to go for $25 or more. The is- sue is mainly supply. Rel- atively few growers have harvested — the pot be- ing offered for sale in the coming days was grown by only about a dozen produc- ers statewide. According to the two labs certified to check the pot for mold and other impurities, the sam- ples they had tested by last Thursday represent a max- imum initial statewide har- vest of about 440 pounds. Some growers are asking $4,000 per pound whole- sale. The marijuana is heavily taxed — 25 percent at wholesale and 25 per- cent at retail, at least, not to mention additional sales taxes. Officials don't expect prices to stabilize until af- ter many more growers be- gin harvesting. Q: How much can I buy? A: State law allows the sale of up to an ounce of dried marijuana, 16 ounces of pot-infused solids, 72 ounces of pot-infused liq- uids or 7 grams of con- centrated marijuana, like hashish, to adults over 21, whether you're a Washing- ton resident or not. But there isn't expected to be any infused food or drink available right away: As of last week, the Liquor Con- trol Board had not issued any licenses to proces- sors of those products, or approved any edibles for sale. Some stores are talk- ing about limiting custom- ers to one 2-gram package apiece to make sure there's enough for everyone to buy some. Q: What took so long to get the stores open? A: Colorado already had a regulated medical mari- juana system, making for a smoother transition when it allowed those dispensa- ries to start selling to recre- ational pot shops on Jan. 1. Washington's medical sys- tem is unregulated, so of- ficials here were starting from scratch as they im- mersed themselves in the pot world and tried to come up with regulations that made sense for the indus- try and the public. The reg- ulations include protocols for testing marijuana, what types of edibles should be allowed, requirements for child-resistant packaging, how much criminal his- tory is too much to get a license, and what types of security systems pot shops and growers should have. Ultimately, though, much of the delay can be attrib- uted to overwhelming in- terest: The liquor board re- ceived nearly 7,000 appli- cations from people who wanted to grow, process or sell marijuana. Each of them needs to be vetted, with criminal and finan- cial background checks, re- views to ensure they're not too close to a school or day- care, and approval of their business and security plans. It's time consuming work, and the board's 18 licens- ing investigators have been swamped. Q: Where does the tax money go, and who's pay- ing for programs to prevent problems? A: The measure voters passed in 2012 directs 40 percent of the new reve- nues to the state general fund and local budgets, with the rest dedicated to substance-abuse pre- vention, research, educa- tion and health care. But tax revenue hasn't come in yet. With sales about to start, the state Health De- partment scraped together $400,000 for a new radio and online advertisement campaign urging parents to talk to their kids about marijuana and visit www. learnaboutmarijuanawa. MARIJUANA A lo ok a t le ga l po t as W as hi ng to n st or es p re pa re TEDS.WARREN—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Stevie Askew, a worker at Sea of Green Farms, packs recreational marijuana into blunts July 1that will be sold in stores when legal recreational pot sales begin Tuesday in Washington state. MASSOUD HOSSAINI — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A supporter of Afghanistan's presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, holds his poster as he and scores of others celebrate in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Monday. By Amir Shah The Associated Press KABUL, AFGHANISTAN Af- ghan officials released pre- liminary election results Monday showing former finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai well in the lead for the presidency but said no winner can be de- clared because millions of ballots were being audited for fraud. The announcement came as Ahmadzai is locked in a standoff with his rival Abdullah Abdullah, who has refused to accept any results until all fraudulent ballots are invalidated. A spokesman for his cam- paign rejected the results and called the decision to release them "a coup." The United States issued a strongly worded statement cautioning the results "are not final or authoritative" and urging electoral author- ities to "implement a thor- ough audit whether or not the two campaigns agree." The Independent Elec- tion Commission acknowl- edged that vote rigging had occurred and said bal- lots from about 7,000 more of the nearly 23,000 polling stations would be audited. "We cannot ignore that there were technical prob- lems and fraud that took place during the election process," the commission's chairman Ahmad Yousuf Nouristani said. "We are not denying fraud in the election, some governors and Afghan government officials were involved in fraud." The results showed that Ghani had about 4.5 million votes, or 56 percent, while Abdullah had 3.5 million votes, or 44 percent, accord- ing to the commission. Turn- out was more than 50 per- cent, IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor said. Abdullah, a former for- eign minister who won the first round of voting on April 5 by a large margin, says his campaign monitors recorded ballot box stuff- ing and other irregulari- ties, prompting him to sus- pend his cooperation with electoral officials. The Euro- pean Union also expressed concern about "highly wor- rying indications of poten- tially widespread fraud." The U.S. State Depart- ment called for a "full and thorough review of all rea- sonable allegations of irreg- ularities" to ensure Afghan confidence in the integ- rity of the electoral process and broad acceptance of the new Afghan president. Officials: Ahmadzai leads in disputed vote WORLD By Frances D'emilio The Associated Press VATICAN CITY Pope Fran- cis begged forgiveness Monday in his first meet- ing with Catholics sexu- ally abused by members of the clergy and went fur- ther than any of his prede- cessors by vowing to hold bishops accountable for their handling of pedophile priests. Abuse victims and their advocates have long de- manded that higher-ups be made to answer for the decades-long cover-ups of rape and molestation of youngsters in a scandal that has rocked the church and dismayed its world- wide flock of 1.2 billion. The pope celebrated a private Mass with six vic- tims — two each from Ire- land, Britain and Germany — at his Vatican residence, and spent the rest of the morning listening to their accounts, one on one. "Before God and his peo- ple, I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgive- ness," Francis said. "I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of church lead- ers who did not respond ad- equately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves," the pope said. "This led to even greater suffering on the part of those who were abused, and it endangered other minors who were at risk." But in speaking of ac- countability, he made no mention of what count- less victims and their fam- ilies around the globe have waited years to hear: whether bishops and other prelates who shuffled child- molesting priests from par- ish to parish or didn't in- form police and prose- cutors would be fired or demoted. "All bishops must carry out their pastoral minis- try with utmost care in or- der to help foster the pro- tection of minors, and they will be held accountable," Francis said, delivering his homily in his native Span- ish. The survivors were al- lowed to bring a relative or friend and an interpreter. The U.S.-based victims group SNAP, or the Sur- vivors Network of those Abused by Priests, reacted skeptically. "We are glad the pope promises to 'hold account- able' Catholic officials who conceal abuse," SNAP Di- rector David Clohessy said in statement. "But he hasn't done it yet, not in Rome, nor in Buenos Aires. Saying and doing are different things. The first is easy, the second is hard." Anne Barrett Doyle, a director of another vic- tims advocacy group, Bish- opAccountability.org, said the pope's meeting with the three men and three women was still a positive step. "The pope made a signif- icant and historic promise to discipline bishops who fail to respond adequately to child sexual abuse," she said. One of the six victims, Marie Kane, 43, who was abused by a priest for three years while a teenager in Ireland, said she asked Francis to remove an Irish cardinal, Sean Brady, from his post because of how he handled abuse allegations. VATICAN Pope: Bishops must be held accountable for abuse ALESSANDRA TARANTINO — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Pope Francis celebrates the Angelus noon prayer from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's square, at the Vatican on Sunday. By Ryan Lucas The Associated Press BAGHDAD With political leaders deadlocked, Iraq's parliament squabbled Mon- day over when to hold its next session, potentially de- laying the formation of a new government for weeks despite the threat from ex- tremists who have seized control of a large chunk of the country and declared the establishment of an Is- lamic state. The acting speaker of parliament initially an- nounced that the legisla- ture would not meet again until mid-August because there was no agreement among factions over the top leadership posts — par- ticularly the prime minis- ter, with incumbent Nouri al-Maliki facing a cam- paign to replace him. But after an uproar over the long delay, speaker Mahdi al-Hafidh an- nounced Monday night that there was a prelim- inary agreement among lawmakers to meet Sun- day, July 13. But even that appeared uncertain, since al-Hafidh added that an of- ficial announcement of the date would not come until Tuesday. With politicians strug- gling to even agree on when to meet, it was hard to see how they could quickly forge a compromise on the much thornier issue of a new government. The impasse, coupled with the military's sluggish counter- offensive, underlined just how difficult a task Iraqis face as they try to keep their country from frac- turing along sectarian and ethnic lines. The military suffered a new setback in its battle with the extremist advance Monday when the top com- mander of the armed forces battling militants in the west was killed by a mor- tar strike. The United States, which withdrew the last American troops from Iraq in 2011, and other world powers have pressed for the quick formation of a new government, as has Iraq's top Shiite cleric, the revered Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani. They are calling for an inclusive govern- ment that will draw sup- port among Iraq's Sunni minority away from the insurgency, led by a rad- ical al-Qaida breakaway group called the Islamic State. Lawmakers met last week for the new parlia- ment's first session since April elections, but the meeting ended without agreeing on a new prime minister, president and speaker of parliament. The main point of con- tention right now is the post of prime minister, which holds most of the power in Iraq. Al-Maliki's opponents — and many former allies — want him removed, accusing him of monopolizing power dur- ing his eight years in of- fice and contributing to the current crisis by fail- ing to promote reconcilia- tion with Sunnis. INSURGENCY Iraqi parliament squabbles over when to next meet 327WalnutSt.,RedBluff (530) 529-4004 Voted Best Carpet / Floor Covering Store in Tehama County. 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