Do we not use this? Oh, wait, hold on. There we go. Yeah, you want to use the front-facing or the back-facing camera. Oh, is our thumbnail still on there? Mm-hmm. Oh, we’re live. Hey, guys. That’s my hand. Hi. I just went ahead and switched it. I didn’t realize you could do that. It says, I got an email right now that says, Brandy Austin Law Firm is live. Now, medical or recreational? Should marijuana be legal? That’s right. That’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Thank you for joining us. You’re like five of you. I don’t know. Do you know how many? We have 30 subscribers. Hello, 30 of you. We’re doing really good. We have 30 subscribers, and I think on a regular, we’re getting about 14 views now per video. Fourteen people are logging in. Y’all just click it. Click the email. That’s it. We’re popular. Fourteen of you really love us.
Our Facebook is getting, we’re getting some good views there too. We’re at like 300 on average, but y’all could go, all 300 of you, go subscribe to YouTube. That would be… We’re going to continue to be here, whether there are zero of you or five of you or a hundred of you, just because, you know. We’re here for you. Stuff and things. All 14.
You’re all invited, all 14 of you. I think those are probably the 14 people that have… We have over 100 RSVPs. I feel like it’s going to be 150. I’m sticking hard, firm to that number. Okay, so people don’t…
RSVP to parties, usually. I don’t know who’s our, I mean I guess it’s a good look at who’s all RSVP’d, but generally people don’t RSVP. That’s okay. If you show up and you didn’t RSVP, then you get to go to the back of the drink line and just hope there’s some left. We’re not giving anything to anybody that didn’t RSVP. There’s the, you’re going to be beer tasting and there’s a taco bar. If you didn’t RSVP, we didn’t know to buy enough.
Yeah, I went and looked at the paperless post, and I think it was like 100 and something. And then I looked, and you could see that people had opened it. And I saw all these people that opened it, and they didn’t respond. I was like, oh, you’re coming. You’re coming. You didn’t RSVP, but you’re coming. We are looking forward to it. All right, are we ready? This is recipe. I don’t know who it is, but I bought it, and I like it.
And I’m calling him rescue because that’s who he reminds me of. Okay, it looks like we are going live. You get all fancy. Our new look. Just a temporary one. And we’re going and we’re going. And it’s not connecting. Okay.
YouTube is just so faithful. Happy Friday, Facebook and YouTube. Welcome to Disclosure Live with Brandi Austin Law. I’m Brandi Austin here with… Jonna Lang. It is 4-20-2018 and we are discussing marijuana today. Medical marijuana, recreational marijuana, where is Texas, where is the rest of the country, and kind of what are options and what lies ahead.
Um, this is actually a really good topic just because every election every year we’re hearing about this and it’s kind of stirring up a lot of talk about whether we should legalize this or not and then there’s whether it’s medical or recreational, which one’s the best one. So I guess we are going to do, um, Hunter, do you want to… Hunter, we love Hunter.
So first, we’re going to cover a few local news stories, a couple of fun things. So why, as a law firm, do we do this part? Because you’re like, you know, I’m not in Arlington. I don’t know. Well, it’s simple. We want to give viewers a little information about Arlington, and we want to give you a little fun information about the day because every day is an exciting day or a new day. We want to talk about each one. Hunter!
And not all the time do you hear about Arlington. That’s right, because Dallas is covered pretty well by the local news stations and Fort Worth has the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, who does a pretty good job. So, interesting.
I set up a routine on Alexa because I have Alexa. I have like five Alexas. But I have Alexa at home. The spot is like the little alarm clock camera-looking thing. So it’s not the big one. Little one. Okay. So it’s like a hundred bucks or something. And I set it up so that I say, Alexa, good morning, and things happen. One of which is the Fort Worth Star-Telegram tells me the headlines of the day. My phone, it’s an alarm clock, and when it goes off, it does the same thing. And it’s kind of…
My light comes on. The windows go up. It’s fancy. A little fancy. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. So what are we going to start with? So we’re going to start with our National Day Of. I don’t know if everybody knows about National Day Of. So there’s over 1,500 things designated in National Day Of registration.
And we kind of added this to our opening segment. So today is National Cheddar Fries Day. So I read that this is Snuffer’s, right? Restaurant and bar. Okay, so I just want to make sure I’m clear on everything. You can just pick a topic and submit it to the registrar of the National Day Of, and I assume pay a fee, and you get a day. So National Cheddar Fries Day.
For Snuffer’s. Yeah. Snuffer’s fought for it, and they got it. Eat as many cheddar fries as you want on April 20th. On April 20th. So what else? We have National Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. I cannot tell you how much I love pineapple upside-down cake. I’m from North Carolina, okay? This is, like, common with dessert. Like, this is dessert. I have a love for pineapple in general, so anything pineapple. I have a pineapple in my office. I want a little thing. Do you?
So what is, for those of you who don’t know what pineapple was, okay. So Americans have been enjoying this springtime cake since the early 1900s. It is not just springtime. You can have pineapple upside-down cake every day. Every day. But I guess because the cakes were made in cast iron skillets, they were only able to make this cake that way. And so it became popular because it was one of the many things that they could make. Kind of like the peach cobbler day that we did. Oh yes, that was awesome.
So you just line the bottom of the cake pan with pineapple rings and cherry, and then place it. And the cherry goes in the middle of the pineapple ring. That’s very important. And then you put brown sugar on the top. You’ve got to caramelize. That’s the purpose of the… So then you take it out and it’s all… Cast iron skillet. You have this caramel-type sugar molding on the top. So good. And then you pour cake batter over top. Pineapple, you bake it. It’s a delightful, delicious masterpiece.
I don’t know why we don’t have any pineapple upside-down cake here. I feel like that would be something that’s super exciting for me. I think you can even make cupcakes. They’re not the same. You want to know why? Because you have to get that, like, the sugar molding on the top, the brown sugar that melts on top of the pineapple rings and the cherry and the cherry oozes down. It’s so good. I have to stop myself. Okay. Let’s talk about some news real quick.
So, Levitt Pavilion, which I don’t know if many people know what Levitt Pavilion is, but it’s located in Arlington, and it’s a little outdoor stage, a little venue, where they have concerts. A lot of it is free. Yeah, and they do movies as well, so during the summer, you can go look at their calendar, and they do free movies for the family, and you can watch movies on their lawn.
Um, and they are, people don’t like the port-a-potties. Right. So they have port-a-potties on site and a lot of people are complaining and they don’t like it, but the Levitt Pavilion is typically free. So where are they going to get the money? They have started a GoFundMe to raise $75,000 to help pay for the $2 million project. So the bathrooms are only $75,000. Yes. The rest of the project is $2 million. Yes.
It’s like fancy stuff. Yeah, they’re doing like indoor restrooms, a hospitality suite, and a deck overlooking the toilet. So what do you get if you donate some money? If you contribute $500, you get a silver potty pass that allows you to go to the front of the line for one year. If you contribute $1,000, you get a gold potty pass to jump to the front of the line for two years. And with a $5,000 donation, you get your name on a bathroom stall.
Who wouldn’t want that? You gotta go, you gotta go, right? So I do have one very important question and I didn’t see the answer. If you buy and contribute $5,000 and you get your name on a stall, do you forever thereafter get to jump to the front of the line since it is your stall? I don’t know. Somebody should submit that question.
To the city of Arlington. You know, I know who to ask because on May 2nd, there will be some city council, maybe the mayor will stop by Arlington here at our location and we can ask him questions about the vehicle that drives itself. Yep. And Levitt Pavilion potties. And the, isn’t the gaming center? Oh yeah, EA. Yeah, the EA gaming center and the jobs at the… Oh, at the Arlington Live. Yes.
All right, so there’s some good news for Tarrant County College students. Yes, so beginning May 15th, TCC students can ride on any of the 38 bus routes on the Trinity Metro. Okay, so keep going and we are going to have to restart in a minute, but we’ll do that in just a second. So let’s just talk about…
So TCC, so I’m assuming that Facebook is having some issues again, but I know YouTube is holding strong because they always do. Always all faithful. Mark Zuckerberg. Anyway, okay, so what do you have to do to be able to ride the bus with TCC? So you just have to be going to class and have a school ID. It has to be a TCC ID.
A valid one. Yes, a valid one. So it has to be in current date. You can’t be a student from, like, 2003 and try to get on the bus. Okay, so it’s important, and providing transportation is important because it stimulates economic growth along with the access to education. So the buses, presumably, will transport students to class, and you don’t even have to be going to class. School doesn’t actually have to be in session for you to use the bus, so you can go anywhere on 38…
routes that they have. So just stand at the bus stop and use your ID and get on. So if you remove the obstacle of transportation being an issue, then people are able to get to work, they’re able to take their kids to whatever daycare they need to take their kids to, and they’re able to do all sorts of things. Get a better education because they have access to transportation. You get there, you know, cars are expensive.
So you’ve got to buy the car, then you’ve got to pay for upkeep of the car, gas, insurance, all of that stuff. And so people are often like, well, why do we want to have buses, or why do we want to do that? It doesn’t have to be buses. It can be alternative transportation. But transportation stimulates economic growth. There’s no real debate about that specific issue. Because a lot of people can’t afford things.
Vehicles, and so they need a way to get around. If they don’t have a way to get around, they stay in one area, and they often don’t have jobs within walking distance, especially in Texas or larger states. It may be different if it was like New York City or something. In larger states with a wider spread of population, more acreage, I guess, or square miles in each city or location, town, whatever area you might live in, there isn’t always…
Jobs surrounding everything. So like for my house, I live in the country, so I would have to walk quite a bit, quite a ways, miles to get to a job.
But higher levels of education are generally indicative of higher income levels. Not always, so caveat there. But more people, generally, the more they know, or the better they know, the better they try to do. Right. And the more they can do, then they can contribute more to the community. Taxes. Money. And they actually contribute to the community’s growth. They keep that money in the community and their families.
And an education can change a family’s course for generations, can flat out change the course of a family. Yeah. So it’s important that people take advantage of transportation. And here’s an interesting thing. So at TCC, you can go and get, you can apply to TCC. They have a lot of scholarships, and it’s not very expensive. So if you don’t have a lot of money, you can fill out the FAFSA. FAFSA. S-F-A-F-S-A? Yeah. Okay. We all call it FAFSA, but it’s FAFSA.
And you can get a lot of money. If your parents don’t have a lot of money, then you can get a lot of your stuff paid for. Scholarships, you can get grants, you can get all sorts of stuff. And because the cost of TCC is so low, especially if you’re an in-county owner, an in-city resident, then you will essentially be getting an education, or at least part of an education, for free. And then you can stack it, so like if you get an associate’s degree and get a job, and that job can help you pay for a bachelor’s degree.
So if you can get to a college, TCC, and you can fill out all of these forms and you can get accepted, you can get a bus pass. Well, your ID is your bus pass. And then you can use the transportation. So you essentially have access to free transportation if you can get there and get the paperwork. And I know 100% that there are people at TCC that are super excited to assist you in all of those things. Yes.
There are tons of campuses because TCC, Tarrant County College, there’s a North and a South and a East and a West. There’s so many. Northeast, Southeast. They’re everywhere. Everywhere. So go ahead and look into that. And if you need help, your local library can help. I know. If you call the office, there will be like 10 people super excited to help you with your college education. And Google it. Just Google TCC. That’s right. All right. So we’re going to stop and then restart. Do we still need to restart? No.
We’re good? No, we’re good. Hey, Facebook made it. Hold on strong, Facebook. Okay, so let’s talk about the main discussion of the day, marijuana and Texas. So we’re just going to start with the basic, what is marijuana and what does it do? So we’re going to do kind of like the, I call it, explain it like a five. I’m not really explaining it like she’s five, and I didn’t come up with that.
But we’re going to use simple words and try to explain what it is because not everybody knows. We’re not trying to dumb it down or anything. It’s just easier to explain. So marijuana is a greenish-gray substance. It’s a mixture of dried flowers from the cannabis plant. The chemical that people get super excited about is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol.
Yeah. Okay. THC. And it’s responsible for creating that euphoric feeling. So, essentially, it’s found in resin. If you heat cannabis… I don’t know where you’re going, Hunter. If you heat cannabis, then you can extract this resin. And this resin activates specific psychological responses. Not always. Everybody’s different. That create kind of a euphoric feeling. Yes. So…
That’s what’s responsible for the psychological effects, the excited psychological effects that people feel. Kind of like how alcohol reduces inhibition and things like that. This plant does this as well. Because, you know, alcohol is made from grain. Another plant. So, okay. Yeah, so it’s the THC, which is the resin that’s used from the heated plant. Okay.
Are there medical benefits? Of course there are. And so there are medical benefits. And not even the most conservative of states is really arguing that there are actual medical benefits to cannabis. So simple answer, yes. Naturally occurring plants, and we’ve all heard about the fancy rainforest plants that can cure cancer. I think that was in the movie. Again, another movie. The Jane Goodall movie, maybe? Or something like that. I don’t know.
They were in the rainforest searching for a flower, and I think Sean Connery was in the movie. That’s that one. Okay. So cannabis has several medical benefits. So I’ll go through a couple of things, and then we’ll just do kind of a brief overview of the other ones. So it’s an anti-inflammatory drug. It’s one of the most powerful anti-inflammatory drugs, and this is important for a lot of people who have chronic pain and…
Arthritis, would that be? Yeah. Okay. So anything like that. And it’s used to treat the side effects of cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, so it increases appetite and reduces pain. It’s the most popular use as a pain reliever, but we’ll get to that. And so in addition to anti-inflammatory, cancer treatment assistance, and there, there’s some evidence, don’t know a lot, some evidence to say that it helps fight cancer as well.
It’s small. I don’t even think that they’ve done a lot of research on it. Yeah, because it hasn’t been used so much in the medical context until recently. So it takes a lot for these things. So it helps people with PTSD to forget the traumatic memory association. So it is able to create a disconnect between the PTSD victim kind of staying in that traumatic place. And so when you have this disconnect, then they can heal and move on. Because PTSD can be healed and you can rehabilitate.
But you have to be able to kind of break that connection a little bit in order to allow people to get through the loop. So it helps with that. It can help with depression and anxiety and ADD, ADHD. Again, the most popular use is pain reliever. And so this is a great substitute for opioids that are prescribed. Yes. As you guys know, there’s huge opioid epidemic. Everybody talks about it, also a political topic.
Um, this is not as, uh, not really addictive. Um, so there wouldn’t be the same kind of spiraling down with someone who is in pain originally and then becomes addicted. Right. And remember, this is a plant and it’s derived from a plant. There are chemicals in plants, so there are chemicals, but it’s derived from a plant. So it’s a little more natural.
Opioids and prescription medications are designed by pharmaceutical companies, sold by pharmaceutical companies. I’m not saying that cannabis would not be sold by a pharmaceutical company. Right. But it is a little different. It’s not created or designed to be addictive. It’s not created or designed. It was made by the earth and whomever you believe in, because everybody believes in something different. So it’s naturally occurring.
And I think with the opioid thing, it helps with the depression and the withdrawals. So I think that’s the biggest thing, because there’s pain with the withdrawals. So people who are addicted to opioids, this is a way for them to help with transitioning to not using drugs. Yes. Erratically. As you mentioned, arthritis is another use, cancer, chronic pain, diabetes, Dravet syndrome…
Glaucoma, Huntington’s disease, inflammation, mood disorders, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, schizophrenia, neurodegenerative disease, like Alzheimer’s. All right, so. What are the laws in Texas? So you get arrested. The possession of even the smallest amount of marijuana can land you in jail. You know, we talked about this before. Anything less than two ounces, so like even a little piece when you’re done. Oh, it’s gone.
Anyway, it carries a jail sentence of up to 180 days and a fine of up to $2,000. There are other options. You just don’t automatically get those. But it’s still a crime. Yeah. And it affects your family law case. It can affect your work life. It’s still a crime. But there is the Texas Compassionate Use Act, which legalized the sale of cannabis oil for a small group of Texans.
So epilepsy patients who have symptoms and that have not responded to federally approved medications may qualify for cannabis use. So there’s strict roles on who can qualify and who can’t. This is ever-changing because politicians… I mean, we’ve all heard it. It’s important to know some of the details. We’re not going to be able to give everybody all of the details. It really is more complex than…
Somebody smoking pot behind the bleachers in high school. It’s not exactly that anymore. In fact, I think rates of youth smoking have gone down since… It’s because youth don’t even want to drive these days. I’m kidding. They don’t. I don’t know. But yeah, so recreational use of marijuana has gone down, along with a lot of other things among the teenage population.
So how do they compare to the federal laws? That’s my favorite part. Well, the federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, so it’s still illegal federally, meaning it’s perceived to have no medical value and a high potential for abuse. Obviously, the federal government and some of the federal hospitals, and I think even the military with the PTSD, have utilized or…
Research marijuana and the medicinal uses, not the recreational use, because, you know. We don’t research that. It’s not really going to happen. So that’s interesting. And the classification puts marijuana in the same category as heroin, a more restricted category than Schedule II drugs like cocaine and meth. So technically, the federal government has said that marijuana is worse than meth. Mm-hmm.
So I think we should pull some mugshot photos of meth users and marijuana users and just put them up here. Side by side. Which one? And I think from what I was reading, it was just because they consider it non-medicinal or when they put that in place. So again, like we mentioned before, it’s new. A lot of these studies and this research is new. People weren’t using it for medicinal purposes 20, 30 years ago. It was, you know…
The 60s, the 70s. Yeah, so it was recreational. I think it was allowed for a while. It was. It was allowed up until, I want to say, the 50s. It was legal. So before they researched it, it was just plopped in another category, you know, drugs. But a distinction between Schedule I and Schedule II substances…
Is whether the federal government thinks a drug has the medical value. And the DEA says Schedule II substances have some medical value, so crystal meth and cocaine. Well, okay, so cocaine was used as a drug in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Coca-Cola was sold with cocaine in it. Coca-Cola. So, it was. I’m like shocked.
So, I watch a lot of Netflix. I’m kidding. So, yeah, it was used. It was used… It was by those traveling salesmen in, like, the 1800s. They would say, oh, come have my elixir, and the elixir was cocaine. Everybody would get excited about it, right? Because they’d be all peppy and doing stuff. Cleaning. So…
So they get more regulatory scrutiny, even though they may not be more dangerous. And this is, people are trying to change it. So Senator Chuck Schumer, who is not from Texas. New York, right? Yes, New York. He’s putting his name on a legalization aiming at decriminalizing marijuana. That would lead or leave kind of criminal proceedings for marijuana use up to each state. So it’s…
Actually a way to have the federal government less involved in state regulations, which I know a lot of people are for, especially Texas. Marijuana’s a seceding thing. It was very odd coming from North Carolina to Texas, isn’t it? You know, Texas is a country. I was just about to say that. We are our own country down here, and we’re proud of it. So if they decriminalized marijuana federally, then states could make the decisions how they wanted to proceed.
Kind of how alcohol became involved again. Not exactly. So, a lot of people say that marijuana is either a gateway drug or increases criminal activity. Do we have true evidence to state that? Not really. So, no. Critics of legalization say that increasing accessibility makes people want to…
Use marijuana, cannabis in its methods. Because you can eat it, you can smoke it, there’s oils, you can, you know, if anybody watched Grey’s Anatomy last night, they put it in the cookies. Yeah, so, it was Scandal’s, the last night of Scandal, so I, you know, started at 8 or 7. But, okay, so there’s not really a lot of research to show that it’s a gateway drug. I mean, there just isn’t, you know. Um…
Police spend a lot of time and resources cracking down. But I will also say that at the moment, it’s kind of a wash because they do get a lot of fines back from people who are arrested. Because there’s a lot of fines we get. So it says up to 180 days. That’s not what they mean. They mean you pay a fine and you get a ticket. It’s like probably Class C or B or something. Nothing special.
Big, under two ounces. But there’s a lot of time and energy that goes into each one of those reports. So every police officer has to spend the time taking someone to and from jail. If they go to jail, somebody’s going to take it. They have to do paperwork. They have to show up at court. It’s a whole big thing. So there are some things that everybody is in agreement on when it comes to distribution of marijuana. Don’t give it to kids, right?
We can all agree on that. Hunter, you want to scroll down? We have notes on here because it’s a lot of information. And we are not experts. We’re just here to pass along information. So, researchers have found that some people substitute marijuana for alcohol, which means they drink less. And it’s the same for opioids. Because it’s a naturally occurring substance. It’s cheaper than a lot of others. It’s cheaper than alcohol, I believe. Or it can be.
Theoretically, you could grow it, but don’t. It’s illegal. That’s illegal too. So the people are four times… Wait, what? Black men, according to federal data, said that they are almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, even though both groups use the drug at roughly the same rate. I think that’s a different topic.
Totally different, yeah. But it is interesting to see now. It would be interesting to see why. Is it because they’re stopped more frequently? Or is it because they keep it on them? Do they have more? Do white people… I don’t know. I don’t know the answers to these questions. Well, when I was reading about it, they just kind of pinpointed a lot of things back to the Just Say No to Drugs campaign and the war on drugs and how it was…
Laid out to be about one thing, and then it all turned to marijuana. And so, I don’t know how that all works. I don’t know. So there’s not a lot of correlation research. So we can anecdotally say something like, well, the war on drugs reduces people from using the drug because it’s more difficult for them to get. Like, you can’t just go to the store and buy alcohol. But there’s no real correlation.
So we’re not 100% sure that, you know, one thing is caused by another thing. It’s just maybe inconvenient or it’s just a fact and those facts are together. Kind of like there was a book out, again, I’m so bad at names. There was a book, Freakonomics, that’s it. Got it. Explained all of this. Better book than what I can explain right now. Okay, not my forte.
But several studies have found that reductions in crime after marijuana is legalized for medical use demonstrate a relationship and not necessarily causation, what we just talked about. Basically, we see a reduction in crime, but there’s not enough just to say that legalizing marijuana is responsible for the reduction in crime. And because marijuana has only been legalized in some states for a short period of time, it’s going to take a while.
And very few of those states have it as recreational. So how many states have legal marijuana in our country and what are the legalization options? Okay, so 10 plus Washington, D.C. Isn’t that interesting? Washington, D.C. An additional 20 states on top of the 10 plus Washington, D.C.,
Along with Puerto Rico and Guam, allow cannabis for medical purposes. So the 10 in Washington, D.C. are recreational and medicinal. You can pretty much assume that if a state allows recreational, medicinal is included. Okay. Because there’s no regulation on that. But do you know if cannabis is regulated by the FDA? Medical? I don’t think so.
You know what? I think it might be because they’ve started dispensaries from some companies are coming in and opening dispensaries in places. And so it could be. It should be. At least the medicinal version should be regulated. Somebody should comment down below.
And more of an expert than us on the topic. So what are the options? Well, you know, there’s a few options. What can states do? They can crack down and attempt to close down the entire market. It’s pretty radical. And then the other end is completely legalizing everything everywhere for all cannabis and marijuana use everywhere. Those are both kind of the extremes. And then you have the middle ground. So you can shape the market, selectively choose which aspects of the market should be closed down.
High-potency products. I think Colorado limits the amount of cannabis or cannabis product that one person can carry at any one time. So you can only have a day’s worth of cannabis, you can only purchase a day’s worth of cannabis at a time. So they limit large volumes so that there’s not a lot of trade, so to speak, of that among people without some sort of oversight and regulation. Yeah, and they do allow them to grow plants…
Personally, but it’s nine plants or the two numbers I get mixed up. It’s either nine plants, 13 feet high or 13 plants, nine feet high. And you have to have a fence around your property in order to do it. To prevent children and dogs, pets, people, all those things. Yes. And I know that the people or the states that allow people to grow are fewer than the 10 that allow the recreational. You can’t just…
Grow it anywhere. And in some states, it gets really tricky in some of those states that have it legalized. Like the state may say that it’s legalized, but the city has their own ordinances on things. So like, I think it’s Denver, you get recreational and medicinal, but in Colorado Springs, it’s only medicinal, but every… it’s recreational on your own. But I think they only sell medicinal. I can’t remember.
But each city can decide how they want to regulate it. So there’s regulation internally both on the most local level, city, and the state level, and then federal. So what politician in the Cole memo, as it’s known, said just leave it as is? That was in 2013. I don’t think that didn’t work out. They can deschedule marijuana. So as recently as 2016, the federal government refused to change the marijuana status as a Schedule I drug. I mean, they should probably just…
There’s actual research, and I believe the federal government has taken advantage of the research that shows it has medicinal use, so it probably could be changed. Or they could just get out of the state’s business. Again, this was me. Leave the current approach untouched, but resolve some of the federal-state conflicts, such as banking, because dispensaries cannot put their money into banks, because banks are regulated by the federal government, so you have all this cash just laying around. They can’t accept credit cards.
Again, some of the dispensaries in Colorado, everyone has to be CHL, the concealed handgun license. Everyone has to have a gun because they are carrying large amounts of money. And you have to report that to the federal government as well. There’s a special form that you have to fill out. So it’s heavily regulated at the moment. And so you can go to either extreme, crack down on everything, legalize everything, or one of the many options in between. I think…
Personally, I would like the federal government to have safe business, but should they be there, regulating, at least in protecting people, is a good option. So having marijuana legalized in either direction, is it going to bring revenue to cities and states? Yes. So the current market is estimated to be worth…
$45 billion a year if it was legalized in some form or fashion, recreationally. That doesn’t mean not regulated. That just means you can go and buy it from a dispensary at whatever regulation is there. $45 billion. And that means that it’s a lot of money to spread around. And that’s not even every state. I mean, we only have 10 and 1 that are fully legalized.
Right, so $28 billion to federal tax revenue. You’ve got $5.5 billion for business taxes. $1.5 billion of that comes from income. The federal tax law has $23 per pound. Imagine that if you bought a box of cigarettes. It’s a lot of tax. That’s a lot of money. It’s like double the prices. The amount of money it could generate and…
Assist communities is unfathomable at the moment. So anyway, that is our discussion today about marijuana and the state of Texas and the federal government.
So don’t forget that we have invited everybody to Cinco de Belf, which is our fifth anniversary party here at the firm. We’re super excited about it. More than 100 people have RSVP’d and we are, you know, free food, free alcohol for those over 21, but limited because I’m not getting rid of that.
We have beer tasting, we’re going to do live, so you guys can join us even if you’re not here. Although we’d like to feed you and stuff. I’m still from the South. Hospitality. Right. So just send us a message if you want to come. I’m happy to give you the details if you don’t already have them. And is there anything else that we need to talk about today? I don’t think so. Just don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. We got 30 strong.
And leave us a comment if you know something that we didn’t know, let us know. Leave it on there. If we messed up some information, put it in the comments. It’s always good to have the correct information. I don’t know everything. I forget things sometimes. We get super excited about talking.
When we get to do this, it’s fun for us. It is. We like to be on here. We appreciate the 30 of you tuning in. Okay, so enjoy your weekend. Don’t drink and drive. The Arts Festival is this weekend in Fort Worth. Yes. So go have fun. Don’t drink and drive. Uber goes everywhere. Literally. My house even. Picks me up. Amazing. Didn’t do that last time. They’ll go anywhere. They’ll drive you across state lines. Will they? They will. Oh, interesting. It’s a lot of money. Oh, because you have to pay…
You know what, they’re going to a different state, so anyway, we’ll talk about it. Yeah. So thank you for joining us on Disclosure Live with Brandy Austin Law. I’m Brandy Austin with… Jonna Lang. Check us out online, brandyaustinlaw.com. Brandy like the wine, Austin like the city, law as in what we do. And our phone number, 817-841-9906. Thank you so much for joining us, and have a great weekend. Happy Friday. Hello, YouTube. Still standing. Uh-huh. I mean, for real.
YouTube is… Wait, which one?
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