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

nytimes.com

211–220 of 226 posts

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

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as all marijuana trade is criminal under federal law You may be right because of the word trade ; however, the Federal government itself has authorized the growing (University of Mississippi) and interstate distribution of legal marijuana since 1976 through CIND. Not trying to split hairs, because the total patient list has probably always been under a dozen people, but it is still an interesting fact and one I onl…

360 joints per month? That's an absolutely insane amount of marijuana. Even if marijuana isn't inherently unhealthy, I have to imagine it can't be healthy to put that much smoke into your lungs.

I remembered the # of joints, but just confirmed the amount and its 9oz/month...leave it to the federal government right?

As far as respiratory issues, I have never seen any medical record (nor would I discuss them if I did), but my Client is a public figure/activist for medical marijuana and addresses this question regularly. You can find videos online of him discussing this and many other issues if you are interested, but in short he claims no negative respiratory effects and 34 years on this dosage.

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

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that you mention MJFreeway. Their one of our competitors. I'm an engineer at [Greenbits][1], a marijuana POS system running on almost 50% of stores in Washington State. We were runner up finalists at [2015's Tech Crunch Disrupt][2]. Every quarter, we do visits to stores (some of our customers and those of our competitors). It's amazing to see the state of the industry and how underserved it is. I think par…

Just asking because I saw that the engineering position listed San Jose but it seems that there are remote employees and an office in Portland, as well. Are there opportunities for remote work for the current/future hiring needs?

We do support remote. For example, I'm actually based in the Boston area. However, we are trying to build out a team in San Jose and Portland, so there is definitely a preference for people in the west coast.

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

#213
post #148

I make https://weedtraqr.com/ - we are operational in Washington and Oregon - and now apparently compete with MS. The company Microsoft is working with (Agrisoft) doesn't even operate in WA, or OR yet. And has been sold like two times in the last two years (first to Surna[0] then to Kind[1]) Additionally their "partnership" is really just Agrisoft getting free Azure hosting. The headline is very click-bait. [0] http:…

Microsoft may seem like a big scary competitor, but they've been dead for some time (1). If all they're doing it providing free hosting then they're not really competing with you.

(1) http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

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

#214
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that you made money selling drugs, told the IRS that the money was made illegally and nothing happened? I've heard that the IRS definitely focuses on collecting tax money and not how it was made, but I thought that people technically never admitted to anything when declaring illegal income sources. It looks like the applicable part on a 1040 would be line 21, which just asks for "other sources of incom…

> told the IRS that the money was made illegally and nothing happened Is there a checkbox on US tax forms for "illegally earned money"? Or are you expected to put that in a free-text field?

Man, I didn't know this would get so many responses, and I wished I could remember better from 30 years ago. So I apologize for the lack of detail (and I'm not a tax accountant anyway, so do not be taking this as advice or anything but an anecdote). But as I fuzzily recall, just put it in the "other income" box, deduct cost of goods, sorted.

One should also note that (as far as I can tell) the IRS does little more than a cursory glance at most returns to make sure the numbers add up, especially back then. Point being is that it's entirely possible one could have put "income from trafficking under-aged children into white slavery", deducted the cost of acquiring said children, and never gotten flagged because the numbers add up and it doesn't hit the "trying to weasel out of paying what's owed" flag in the computer. Dunno, I'm just relaying an anecdote with a lot of details left out, you sure as hell don't want to take this as tax advice.

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

#215
post #148

I make https://weedtraqr.com/ - we are operational in Washington and Oregon - and now apparently compete with MS. The company Microsoft is working with (Agrisoft) doesn't even operate in WA, or OR yet. And has been sold like two times in the last two years (first to Surna[0] then to Kind[1]) Additionally their "partnership" is really just Agrisoft getting free Azure hosting. The headline is very click-bait. [0] http:…

One possible thing to take away from this: Your competitor might have an inferior product, market share, etc, but possible has better traditional marketing/PR.

I prefer to have my customers promote my product. I'm just going to focus on their needs.

Its all about HIGH quality. Pun intended.

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

#216
post #148

I make https://weedtraqr.com/ - we are operational in Washington and Oregon - and now apparently compete with MS. The company Microsoft is working with (Agrisoft) doesn't even operate in WA, or OR yet. And has been sold like two times in the last two years (first to Surna[0] then to Kind[1]) Additionally their "partnership" is really just Agrisoft getting free Azure hosting. The headline is very click-bait. [0] http:…

Microsoft may seem like a big scary competitor, but they've been dead for some time (1). If all they're doing it providing free hosting then they're not really competing with you. (1) http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

Exactly, thank you for saying this.

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

#217
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible thing to take away from this: Your competitor might have an inferior product, market share, etc, but possible has better traditional marketing/PR.

I prefer to have my customers promote my product. I'm just going to focus on their needs. Its all about HIGH quality. Pun intended.

No doubt. Always a good strategy. :)

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

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FDR's Supreme Court blew the Commerce Clause open such that the Feds can regulate purely intrastate commerce as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

You don't even have to participate in commerce to participate in commerce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich

in Thomas' dissent in that case, he states that the decision means that the commerce clause invalidates the 10th amendment, which is huge.

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

#219
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is totally wrong. Previous Supreme Court decisions, especially Gonzales v. Raich, have set a pretty clear precedent that the Federal Government has the authority to criminalize drugs even when their use is legal in a particular state.

Right, it depends on the judiciary.

only if stare decisis means nothing to them.

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

#220
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Massively underserved. I live in Denver and have friends with ownership stakes in local dispensaries. The quality of their software solutions (mainly POS/Compliance) is laughable. Edit: This ( http://www.mjfreeway.com/ ) is the defacto standard. I kid you not it went down for 2 weeks ~a year ago after scheduled maintenance went wrong. At the time it had ~50% market share, this left dispensaries around the country doi…

It's funny that you mention MJFreeway. Their one of our competitors. I'm an engineer at [Greenbits][1], a marijuana POS system running on almost 50% of stores in Washington State. We were runner up finalists at [2015's Tech Crunch Disrupt][2]. Every quarter, we do visits to stores (some of our customers and those of our competitors). It's amazing to see the state of the industry and how underserved it is. I think par…

for those looking for an open source option, we[0] have been doing quite well with Openbravo[1]'s POS suite.

0. http://medicalcannab.is

1. http://openbravo.com

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