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Microsoft is the first big company to say it's serving the legal marijuana trade

nytimes.com

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Re: Microsoft is the first big company to say it's serving the legal marijuana trade

#31

Post by mikestew »

joefkelley wrote: post #12
Drakim wrote: post #4

What is the legality of marijuana on the federal level in the US? I was under the impression that even if marijuana is legal on a state level you can still get in trouble for it.

Yes, it's still very much illegal federally. It's still a Schedule I controlled substance. The federal banking system / IRS refuses to interact with marijuana businesses, the postal service won't mail ads for it, the DEA continues to raid growers, etc, etc. Edit: as others have pointed out, I was incorrect in lumping in the IRS with the rest of the federal banking system. The IRS does indeed accept money from marijua…

IRS refuses to interact with marijuana businesses

That's not even remotely true, as even 30 years ago the IRS happily took my money, and did so without telling anyone else where the money came from. I mean, maybe it's changed since, but when it comes to "IRS won't take my money", ima gonna have to pull the "citation needed" card.

Re: Microsoft is the first big company to say it's serving the legal marijuana trade

#32

Post by 13of40 »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #3

Good. Maybe they can open a cafe on their campus to sell recreational versions so their people can test their tech and try the product. It'd make many developers I know want to work for Microsoft.

There's a weed store about 4 blocks from the Lincoln Square and City Center (Microsoft) buildings in Bellevue. Or so I've heard.

Re: Microsoft is the first big company to say it's serving the legal marijuana trade

#33

Post by tacos »

ethbro wrote: post #23
PeCaN wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of old IE things were pretty nice¹. The only real problem was the abysmal support for actual standards, along with a myriad of weird bugs. ¹ See: XMLHttpRequest, innerHTML, box model, CSS filters, CSS behaviors², VML, etc ² Well, behavior: was probably a terrible idea, but it did allow hacking oldIE to support an awful lot of CSS3.

Incidentally! I thought about this the other day. Given that it's been about 15 years, is there anyone in the HN community / internet that's spoken about the design decisions with IE 6? Specifically, was it incompatible by design or simply by incompetent management?

IE was the centerpoint of a lot of turf wars between Jim Allchin and Brad Silverberg. Lots of tech was mishandled as nobody could agree what was personal, what was business and what was consumer. A browser had to reach all three, Microsoft tried to apply its existing technologies that talked to all three audiences in a haphazard fashion, and even the government decided it had to stick its thumb into the pie.

Re: Microsoft is the first big company to say it's serving the legal marijuana trade

#34

Post by CaptSpify »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #24
Roboprog wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. I wonder how dispensaries are different than any other retail / pharmacy operation? Can they treat the product like cold/allergy pills that have to be watched, or does there have to be legal information specific to each "SKU"/item-type???

Not that familiar with it, but part of the issue is that financial institutions above a certain size won't do business with them because it's still illegal at the federal level and they're afraid of the ambiguity. I wouldn't be surprised if that affected what PoS software they could use.

Large financial institutions still dont play nicely with internet porn, which really isnt that ambiguous legally. I think a lot of it is PR as well. They dont want to be associated with moraly ambiguous industries

Re: Microsoft is the first big company to say it's serving the legal marijuana trade

#35

Post by tmm »

blackguardx wrote: post #25
joefkelley wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's still very much illegal federally. It's still a Schedule I controlled substance. The federal banking system / IRS refuses to interact with marijuana businesses, the postal service won't mail ads for it, the DEA continues to raid growers, etc, etc. Edit: as others have pointed out, I was incorrect in lumping in the IRS with the rest of the federal banking system. The IRS does indeed accept money from marijua…

The IRS explicitly states that you need to declare bribes and income from illegal activities [1] "Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity." [1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch12.html

Also from stolen goods, unless you return them in the same year:

"If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner."

Re: Microsoft is the first big company to say it's serving the legal marijuana trade

#36

Post by milesokeefe »

nathanasmith wrote: post #28
joefkelley wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's still very much illegal federally. It's still a Schedule I controlled substance. The federal banking system / IRS refuses to interact with marijuana businesses, the postal service won't mail ads for it, the DEA continues to raid growers, etc, etc. Edit: as others have pointed out, I was incorrect in lumping in the IRS with the rest of the federal banking system. The IRS does indeed accept money from marijua…

The absurd thing is that while marijuana being a schedule I drug which in the DEA's own words: >> Schedule I drugs are the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence.[0] Cocaine and methamphetamine are both schedule II. Now I understand the difference is that Schedule II means there are some medical uses but to lump marijuana in with "the most dangerous…

Methamphetamine is routinely prescribed for ADHD under the brand name Desoxyn, it absolutely has medical use.

Re: Microsoft is the first big company to say it's serving the legal marijuana trade

#37

Post by icebraining »

tmm wrote: post #35
blackguardx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IRS explicitly states that you need to declare bribes and income from illegal activities [1] "Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity." [1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch12.html

Also from stolen goods, unless you return them in the same year: "If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner."

I wonder if one could deduct it if they return the item in the subsequent year instead :)

Re: Microsoft is the first big company to say it's serving the legal marijuana trade

#38

Post by ergothus »

tlrobinson wrote: post #20
joefkelley wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's still very much illegal federally. It's still a Schedule I controlled substance. The federal banking system / IRS refuses to interact with marijuana businesses, the postal service won't mail ads for it, the DEA continues to raid growers, etc, etc. Edit: as others have pointed out, I was incorrect in lumping in the IRS with the rest of the federal banking system. The IRS does indeed accept money from marijua…

> IRS refuses to interact with marijuana businesses What does that mean? Surely the IRS still wants their money? It would seem to put the IRS and marijuana businesses in an awkward position...

Pretty sure the IRS is more than willing to deal with MJ businesses - they have an entire setup to let you report "illegal" gains and even keep that secret long before the recent legalization efforts.

Banks, now that's a different story.

Re: Microsoft is the first big company to say it's serving the legal marijuana trade

#40

Post by colemickens »

tacos wrote: post #5
godzillabrennus wrote: post #3

Good. Maybe they can open a cafe on their campus to sell recreational versions so their people can test their tech and try the product. It'd make many developers I know want to work for Microsoft.

The biggest pothead team at Microsoft was the Internet Explorer guys. So if you want another 20 years of calculating bounding rectangles incorrectly, by all means let's get the rest of the company baked.

Really? This? Again? There's a reason tech companies don't drug test and I'd argue that flies in the face of the tired stereotype you're offering up.

edit: It's funny to watch HN's reactions to anything related to cannabis. You'd think people here watched Reefer Madness and haven't bothered to inform themselves about any actual facts or know any actual consumers of cannabis since then.

The implication that someone smoking pot in the evening would affect their ability to type a very basic mathematical expression the next day is absolutely farcical.

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