Greedy Investors in MJ Stocks vs.

Savvy Investors in MJ Organizations

The Marijuana Anti-Prohibition Project (MAPP) is just a small local Inland Empire organization with the distinction of being the oldest active medical marijuana patient support group and marijuana law reform organization in the IE.

MAPP began in December 1999 with its first meeting at a small headshop called the The Hemp Store in Desert Hot Springs. We have always been local and have never had aspirations to grow beyond the IE. The IE is a big enough pond to deserve one organization devoted entirely to IE issues surrounding marijuana. I am proud that MAPP has been that organization for the last 16 years.

As for the closure of our bank account, it sure says a lot for the omnipotent power of banks when they can close an account, with what appears to be complete impunity, for no other reason than they do not approve of the organization’s goals. The denial of financial services can be the death knell of an organization such as groups like NORML which rely on contributions made from all over the U.S. (a substantial sum of NORML’s contributions comes from credit card charges via their website).

Fortunately MAPP has such a small financial footprint that the closure is more an affront to decency than it is to MAPP’s existence. Our finances are a trifling – less than $250 monthly - mainly costs associated with our phone, website, radio show and meetings. These costs are covered each month by donations made at the meetings, small donations made at our website and by members of our 420 Club.

Once in a while we undertake a larger project that costs a bit more – like sending a contingent of 12 – 15 medical marijuana patients to Sacramento to participate in Americans for Save Access’s Citizen’s Lobby Day. These costs are substantially covered by a very select group of donors who over the years have generously underwritten these special projects. If you would like to join this “select” group of donors, I look forward to hearing from you.

At this point I would like to segue for a moment to a fascinating article that I read last week with the headline:

Marijuana Investors Lost $23.3 Billion in Penny Stocks Last Year

Published online by Motherboard, a news service operated by the expanding and growing Bill Maher produced VICE media, the article was totally mind blowing reporting that in 2014 over $23.3 billion went up in smoke in essentially worthless marijuana stocks and no one even got a buzz.

This figure is amazing especially considering that the total of all legal sales of marijuana in the US, according to data released by the ArcView Group, an organization which specializes in tracking cannabis markets, was $2.7 billion in 2014 and $5.4 billion in 2015.

There is more money being spent in the U.S.A. on what are presumably legal marijuana stocks than is being spent on legal marijuana. Granted significantly more is spent on illegal marijuana – no really knows how much with estimates running from $10 billion to $120 billion – but still whoever would have thought that people would invest $23.3 billion on something that is federally illegal and legally problematic at best on the state level.

Here is what is going on according to the article:

Investors in small cannabis companies lost $23.3 billion in 2014 because shady stock promoters are capitalizing on the slow tide of legalization in the US by manipulating the penny stock market with “pump and dump” schemes.

Penny stocks are stocks in small companies that trade for less than five dollars apiece. They’re quoted and traded on dealer networks like OTC Markets because they don’t meet the requirements to be traded on more formal exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange. They’re also extremely volatile. Shady stock promoters capitalize on this volatility by convincing others to buy stock in worthless companies to increase their value temporarily—the “pump”—before selling them—the “dump”—leaving naive investors holding the bag…

To read the full article CLICK HERE

I wonder how many of these people who invested in and lost $23.3 billion in penny marijuana stocks ever gave a dime to an marijuana organization. If that $23.3 billion had been given to organizations like NORML MPP and DPA, marijuana would now be legal across the nation and those stocks might actually have been worth something.

Now to seamlessly segue back to MAPP, I received an email about this article in which the correspondent wrote “this sort of craven greed creates an opportunity for public interest organizations to promote their form of advocacy instead - e.g. our method of progress might be slow but at least we won't defraud you."

MAPP is slow but steady and doesn’t need a billion dollar investment to continue its mission in the IE, but would you be willing to risk an investment of 14 cent a day in MAPP by joining our 420 Club and donating $4.20 a month. I would point out that all donations to MAPP keeps your money local - all contributions are used locally for local projects – supporting MAPP supports your local community and you.

The 420 Club donations are made through PayPal which has not closed our account. All funds will remain safely in our PayPal account until as such time as a new bank account is opened. I guarantee a new account will be opened even if we have to change the acronym for MAPP from Marijuana Anti-Prohibition Project to Mothers Against Philandering Politicians (if you have suggestions for a new acronym for MAPP without the “scare” word marijuana, please send them to me).

As an added incentive to start investing 14 cents a day in MAPP, we will use a rational portion of these funds that you most generously contribute to celebrate the opening a new bank account and re-entry into the financial services world with a party - cannabis friendly of course.

14 cents a day – that’s all it takes to Join Our 420 Club and to show your support and confidence that MAPP will continue on in spite of the dastardly actions of J.P. Morgan Chase Bank. Plus it’s gonna be a really swell party.

To join the 420 Club, CLICK HERE. Your contributions are greatly and sincerely appreciated.

Lanny