CANNABIS UNIVERSITY™ of Colorado

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Marijuana Cannabis University vs. Mile High Marketplace:

Grandma Ganj protests on the street (video) By Joel Warner, Mon., Oct. 25 2010 @ 3:58PM Categories: Marijuana Share  0diggsdigg ​As we reported last month, the Mile High Marketplace, aka Mile High Flea Market, isn't high enough for medical marijuana, since the operation kicked out Cannabis University Dean Michelle LaMay when she ran a booth there.

Now LaMay, aka "Grandma Ganj," is back. Yesterday, she protested outside the flea market in a token green graduation gown.

"Lots of traffic, lots of thumbs up and honking. No negative vibe," reports LaMay about her ninety-minute protest, which began just after noon. "I'm going out there next Sunday, same time and place, and will continue to do so until I hear from Mile High Marketplace!"

LaMay may be waiting a while. As Patty Beyers, spokesperson for Mile High Marketplace, noted in an e-mail to Westword last month, the operation's rules regarding medical marijuana are immutable. "Mile High Marketplace's seller guidelines state no drugs or drug paraphernalia (sale or display), pornography of any kind (sale or display), guns and ammunition (sale or display), cigarette or tobacco (sale or display) and live animals," she explained.

Still, that might not matter. LaMay will likely draw more attention to Cannabis University from her flag-waving stunts outside the flea market than she would at a booth inside, surrounded as she'd be by endless antique stalls and vendors of bedazzled T-shirts.

Check out a video of the protest here:

Tags: Cannabis University, medical marijuana, Michelle LaMay, Mile High Flea Market, Mile High Marketplace

Dear Board Members:

    Please avoid expensive litigation and vote to reduce the Medical Marijuana Registry fee because:

    1) Article XVIII states that the fees can only be used for the administration of the registry, which is feeble at best, considering the long wait patients must endure to receive their cards.

    2) The Tabor amendment also limits fee taking by state agencies to their administrative costs.

    Why no one has sued the Board yet is beyond me. Fees that were increased by the legislature last year are currently under the gun: Proposition 101 would require voter approval to create or increase fees on vehicles and telecommunication services and it is the result of out of control legislators.

     The Board would do well to heed Coloradoans anger when it comes to enforcing hidden taxes by upping fee taking. The Governor, who appointed many of you, robbed the Marijuana Registry of $286,000.00 in April of 2009 and has said in public that he's prepared to do it again.

    The legislature just voted to move $11.6 million July 1 into the Department of Revenue to enforce HB1284. The new enforcement agency has taken in only $7 million in outrageous fees from 1100 people and is now mulling just how much to charge for a yearly license for the legal entities they created (without going to the voters). Even though HB1284 designates the fees the Medical Marijuana Enforcement Agency not be part of the general fund, based on the Governor's continued disregard for the law I wonder just how vigorous enforcement can be if there is no money, all of it having been moved into the general fund in the near future.

    To lower the fee for the application for the Medical Marijuana Registry to reflect the actual cost of the registry is the only legal route the Board can take. A $9 million dollar surplus in the registry's coffers plus $6 million in un-cashed checks is too much of a temptation. Colorado's intelligent taxpayers will not ignore the blatant and illegal behavior of the Governor, his lackies and the entire legislature in the last year!

Shine A Light

Michelle L LaMay M.A., the Dean

Cannabis University™ Inc of Colorado

1-303-886-7998

www.cannabisuniversityinc.com

Cannabisuniversity@indra.com

www.Twitter.com/CannabisU

Cannabis University™ Inc

1265 Downing St., #408

Denver, CO  80218

303-886-7998

September 21, 2010

Re: Violation of Civil Rights at Mile High Marketplace


Dear Mile High Marketplace Management :

I write to you on behalf of myself, a corporate business owner with Colorado and Denver Business and Sales Tax Licenses and a member of the Colorado Bar Association. On Sunday, September 19, 2010, I was peacefully and quietly displaying my products, education and apparel, exercising my constitutional right to free commercial expression by merely wearing cheap, sequin sunglasses in the shape of two marijuana leaves, and a tee with my corporation’s logo (without any graphics). Nothing I brought into Mile High Marketplace’s public space contained profanity, nudity, or references to other more-dangerous drugs.

Accompanied by a colleague, I reserved and paid with my corporate debit card for space A-7 at the Mile High Marketplace (for the second time in two months) the week before.  After two hours, at 9:30AM, three employees, and a security employee of Mile High Marketplace and a police officer backing them, and after much cell phone communication, told me 1) someone had complained, 2) it was a private property and they had the right to ask me to leave. I insisted on a refund, and sensing that an old, disabled lady with a cane could cause some trouble, quite a crowd gathered, all of them told me several times that "It wasn't them…they were just doing their job," which I knew, and packed up PEACEFULLY! It all took 45 minutes including waiting for my cash refund.

Cannabis is legal in Colorado, and I am a disabled woman and a Colorado-registered Medical Marijuana patient pursuant to the Colorado Constitution, Article XVII § 14. The employees of Mile High Marketplace who confronted me Sunday were directed by Management to enforce a wrongful and discriminatory policy. And, because of the arrival of not only a security employee of Mile High Marketplace, but a police officer also, the incident caused an embarrassing spectacle where none had existed before! My bandishment from a public place probably equates to discrimination against me due to my disability.

 As a business owner conducting a legal business in a public place, in addition to the discrimination claim, I can claim a violation of my civil rights. In Bock v. Westminster Mall Company 819 P.2d 55 (Colo. 1991), the Colorado Supreme Court analyzed the extent to which privately owned commercial retail centers could be held to a "public forum" standard which requires deference to commercial and political speech protected as free speech. As the court held in Bock, Mile High Marketplace certainly qualifies as a "public forum." The Marketplace regularly hosts community events open to the public and allows other merchants to sell products displaying marijuana symbols.

My treatment is also problematic on practical and public policy grounds. Within the Mile High Marketplace, multiple stores sell marijuana-related products. While marijuana may be offensive to Mile High Marketplace employees, Mile High Marketplace Security, the local Police, and other overly-sensitive people, the argument simply cannot be made that my views, or my educational and promotional products can somehow fail a community standards decency review. A recent statewide survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports concluded that 49 percent of Colorado voters supported marijuana legalization, with just 39 percent of respondents saying they remain opposed. It is worth noting that this same poll found support for legalization greater among respondents than support for any statewide candidate for elected office. Obviously, Colorado voters legalized marijuana in the 2000 election and added it to our State Constitution, the Supreme Law of Colorado.

I understand that Mile High Marketplace employees can get over-eager and can make mistakes, but it is management who directed their actions in this instance. I am a reasonable person who wishes to avoid litigation. I respectfully request that the Mile High Marketplace immediately negotiate a monetary sum that represents the income I may have lost by being forced to leave  Mile High Marketplace after only an hour; and the personal embarrassment and discrimination that I, CEO of my corporation, a legal business owner and a disabled person was forced to endure in public. I also demand, in writing, a sincere apology for my treatment and a confirmation that marijuana-themed businessess are always acceptable and entitled to equal protection and free commercial speech at Mile High Marketplace. If this can be accomplished by October 1, 2010, I will probably refrain from filing any legal action, and we will deem this matter settled.

Please contact me with questions. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Michelle LaMay, CEO

Cannabis University™ Inc

mlamay@indra.com

Not Quite a Mile High

You can find just about everything you want at Mile High Marketplace, that collection of kitsch north of downtown Denver at I-76 and 88th Avenue that’s long been a local institution (and in our hearts will always be known by its old name, Mile High Flea Market). Just about everything, that is, except anything pertaining to medical marijuana.

Michelle LaMay, dean of Cannabis University, a local medical marijuana education program, learned that the hard way this past Sunday. She and a colleague had barely set up the table in the space they’d reserved to advertise their wares and services when Marketplace managers and security guards stopped by and said that since this was “a family place” and someone had made a complaint, Cannabis University would have to leave.

LaMay isn’t sure what caused the concern. The booth featured a large “Cannabis University” banner, program materials, “Cannabis University Honor Student” T-shirts and some “hippie bracelets,” she says. Maybe the problem was the spiky, bright-green marijuana sunglasses worn by LaMay, who describes herself as “an old, disabled lady.” Whatever the offensive material might have been (the Marketplace has not returned our calls), it’s hard to imagine that it might have been worse than many of the other items for sale at the flea market -- including a bedazzled pot-leaf T-shirt we once saw there.

LaMay’s $33 table-registration fee was returned, but she’s not going away quietly. She’s planning to launch the same sort of protest campaign that targeted the Town Center of Aurora this past summer after a man was banned from the mall for wearing a “Yes We Cannabis” T-shirt. Then again, if the Marketplace has a change of heart about pot paraphernalia, LaMay is willing to lend a hand. “I will hold a training seminar if they want to hire me,” says the self-professed "Dean of Green.”

In the meantime, though, it looks like Mile High Marketplace isn’t high enough for MMJ.

            Monday, September 20, 2010, DENVER CO    Yes, little old me, the Dean of Green, Michelle LaMay, accompanied by a friend, had a reserved and paid for space at the Mile High (very appropriately named, don't you think?) Flea Market Sunday for the second time in two months. After two hours, at 10AM, someone made a complaint about my marketing my classes and selling some hoodies. Four employees and two security men told me 1) someone complained, 2) it was a private place and they had the right to ask me to leave. I insisted on a refund, and sensing that an old lady with a cane wearing MJ sunglasses could cause some trouble, a crowd was gathering, all of them told me several times that "It wasn't them…they were just doing their job," which I knew and packed up PEACEFULLY!

    My $33 was returned in cash and they sent a golf cart over to take me and my small box of tees, DVDs, and books, along with my banner and Notary Public sign to my car in a nearby handicapped spot. I'm sure this retinue of Flea Market employees heaved a sigh of relief. It all took :45!

    But, I don't get mad, I get even. My civil rights have been denied and, for the sake of all merchants like myself marketing legal products in a commercial public place, I will step up and do something about it to protect this industry's right to free commercial speech! Mile Flea Market must train their staff in responding to the one or two people offended by a pot leaf by asserting our right to display and sell a legal product, in my case, education and apparel.

Michelle LaMay, the Dean

Driving through Leadville, CO Wednesday, I had the pleasure of stopping in at Cloud City Compassionate Care (719-486-4013) and meeting the owner, Josh Sodic. I chatted him up about, in my opinion, the outrageous assumption of our legislators that Coloradoans in the cannabis business were scum bags and, what I think, is so insulting to all my students and to all the business owners I have met in the two years I've been teaching the CO laws and helping people starting to grow MJ. These people have the same hopes and dreams for their legal businesses as any other American! And Cannabis University and our Public Relations firm, Enlightenment™ is here just for that: the Colorado Cannabis business community, especially outside the Denver area. (I also purchased some GREAT Durbin from Cloud City!)

(Matt Cook, on Colorado Inside Out said, and I paraphrase, that he expects many of the the over 1300 applicants to be FELONS and thus greatly reduce the surprising number of applicants! Who would pay all those fees, submit to the unbelievable intrusion into your privacy if you hadn't fully ccomplied with these unconstitutional restrictions imposed by the new bureauocracy, the Colorado Department of Revenue Medical Marijuana Enforcement Agency?)