[Otishertz]

Plan O
Crop Circle Club

by Otishertz

Table of Contents

Introduction
                                 
1.  Current Environment in Oregon                  
2.  The Fountain               
3.  Important Sections of OMMP law                           
4.  Crop Share and Bud Banking
       4.1   Crop Share                        
       4.2   Bud Bank                           
5.  Crop Circle Club and Time Bank
       5.1   Crop Circle Club                        
       5.2   Time Bank                           
6.  Investment, Sponsorship, Club Businesses and Services   
       6.1   Investment                           
       6.2   Sponsorship                           
       6.3   Club Businesses and Services                  
7.  Conclusions                                 

Copyright Otishertz 2012

[Otishertz]

Plan O

Disclaimer: Plan O shows a hypothetical organization based on literal interpretation of Oregon medical marijuana laws. I'm not a lawyer. This document in no way constitutes legal advice. This is all pretend. I claim no authority whatsoever. Not responsible for unintended consequences. Do not try this at home.



Introduction:


Oregon's Medical Marijuana Act mandates that cannabis be free by banning the free market. Specifically, OMMP laws prohibit profit and wages. Oregon marijuana patients have two legal ways to procure medicine. They must either garden for no pay under threat of prison or find someone else to garden for free for them. Marijuana gardeners are prohibited from receiving consideration or being reimbursed beyond the costs of supplies and utilities associated with production, even for labor. This forces many sick and injured people to do physical labor for pain medicine or go without.


Plan O primarily deals with the non horticultural issues of deploying land, labor, capital and initiative without normal prices, wages, or profit and how to build incentives into a system where consideration is illegal. Plan O shows how to unleash and utilize skilled labor without wages to create economic activity without money. It models a supply, distribution, and incentive system for marijuana production that can work without money or wages based on literal interpretation of Oregon's OMMP laws (relevant sections of the law are included below and where applicable). Worth stressing that this plan is derived from an effort to model what OMMP laws describe. This organizational structure can more easily be applied to other commodities and crops that do not have legal problems.


Necessary and integral parts of the all encompassing market and monetary system are disallowed around the production of cannabis. This keeps economically sustainable gardens from ever forming. No legal wages has meant low legal supply. No legal price guarantees a black market. No legal profit or return on investment prevents formation of sustainable endeavors that could provide patients with reliably grown strains of standard purity and potency. Without standards for potency the study of marijuana as a medicine never really gets off the ground. Growing a perpetual crop of consistently high quality medicine of uniform potency and purity requires dedicated knowledgeable people. Organizations cannot retain the necessary specialized horticultural skills without wages and no way to pay a wage without a legal profit. Essentially, sharing is the whole of the law. Forced sharing has failed to produce a standardized supply. The OMMP is conflicted between its mandate that marijuana is medicine, the need for any medicine to be standardized, and the outlawing of the skilled labor required to make this medicine in a quality controlled and uniform manner.


The medical marijuana supply in Oregon is thoroughly intermingled with the black market. Although high quality cannabis can be found all over Oregon, there are no guarantees of quality or cultivation method. Consequently, the lack of accountable gardens means almost no testing and grading of medicine happens as would be expected for safety. The resultant lack of reliable long term supply of clean and uniform medicine is a health hazard for patients that hinders scientific understanding of this healing plant. Tremendous opportunity waits for those who solve this supply problem because of the incredible untapped demand for pure and standardized cannabis medicine that is not being met by the current flawed system.

[Otishertz]

1. Current Environment in Oregon


Oregon's medical marijuana law contains punitive rules that disregard reality and botany. Accidents happen when disabled people with limited range of motion have to do the recurring daily physical garden labor of normal healthy people. Fear of arrest if your plants grow too well is unreasonable hardship for ill, old, and injured people that are forced to garden for medicine. Add to this the burden of maintaining secrecy for security. Patients suffer additional restrictions on plant count, plant size, and ounces of useable medicine.


A failed 2010 referendum (M74) asked the general public to establish a market of independent dispensaries for medical marijuana patients. M74 would have fixed the problem instantly in a way everyone could understand and participate. It used profit incentives for growers and merchants to solve the supply and distribution dilemma of OMMP. Profit seeking small growers waiting all over Oregon would have filled the demand through normal market interactions. M74 was good for small craft growers and plant lovers that currently grow charitably and cooperatively. The open market it outlined had low barriers to entry that would have allowed medical growers a chance to get established in advance of eventual recreational legalization. A diverse selection of top shelf craft grown Oregon cannabis is not going to come from soulless big agribusiness or big pharma. It will come from the large number of small growers who risk freedom to keep plants alive.



Things seemed to be changing in 2010 with M74 until the pro vote was split by the mainstream group NORML which promoted a plan for central state monopoly called OCTA instead. OCTA incarnations have been introduced several times. They invariably feature government monopolies, rule by unaccountable committee, price controls, sale limits, consumption monitoring, crop homogenization, forced sales, exclusion of current growers, and/or reductions in the freedoms and allowances currently enjoyed by MMJ patients. Competitive advantage is always tilted in favor of large corporations and their lobbyists. Paid OCTA signature gatherers are at major public gatherings year after year shilling for this same reformulated agenda, coaxing signatures for total domination by asking pedestrians if they favor legalization. Tell a stoner he can buy pot at a store and he will sign anything. In this way the corporate state agenda gets resurrected from the dead every other year like a zombie.


The Zombie Agenda:
http://www.otisgardens.com/forum/index.php?topic=165.0


Some charitable clubs exist that provide internet forums where information and plants are exchanged for free. They distribute seeds, clones, buds, and other medicinal preparations to patients and growers on behalf of charitable gardeners. They provide valuable verifications that serve as additional legal cover for exchanges. Such clubs rely on volunteer labor, charity, member dues and paid events to survive. They are chronically underfunded and limited in their scope because they have no control over the supply that their organizations depend upon. Almost every business entity in Oregon that possesses cannabis, and their landlord, got a letter from the DEA twice essentially demanding they shut down. There was no discrimination between organizations that are clearly doing everything they can to work in the law from those that clearly use the law as cover for retail sales. This fear tactic dramatically curtails the development of ongoing organizations that are needed to provide a safe reliable supply of medicine.


Many private clubs set up by brave punters before and after M74 currently operate as quasi-legal dispensaries. They sell by weight at around $8-10 a gram ($3600-$4500 pound) utilizing various interpretations of legal OMMP reimbursement that rely on past averages. $10 grams equals $280 ounces which most regard as a retail price. It would be a hard price to defend in court. (Update 5-10_12: Recently read news reports of $800 wholesale pounds, = $50oz,  in California due to a glut of invemtory from the plethora of punters in the economic contraction.) Sales by weight are difficult to differentiate from illegal sales without considerable documentation. Most dispensaries have relied on reimbursement sophistry to justify and overlay the prohibited parts of the market system on their business plan. They tend to die from under-capitalization or arrest of the proprietors. Still, many tales of easy money and quick riches in Portland. Stories of fools and fuck ups making $100k delivering by bike and selling in "farmers markets" in dispensaries that are more akin to flea markets. Early dispensaries that were induced into opening by Obama campaign promises and Department of Justice statements have been getting raided with increasing regularity. Some counties are seen as safer than others, Multnomah in particular.


An example of a fairly reasonable sounding reimbursement program:

http://humancollective.org/reimbursementprogrammainmenu.html

Update 10-13-12: The Human Collective was raided last week.

Here is the DOJ policy on Oct 19, 2009:

"It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws"

Attorney General Announces Formal Medical Marijuana Guidelines
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/October/09-ag-1119.html


It was in all the papers.

U.S. sets terms that allow medical marijuana - MarketWatch
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-sets-terms-that-allow-medical-marijuana-2009-10-19

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22It+will+not+be+a+priority+to+use+federal+resources+to+prosecute+patients+with+serious+illnesses+or+their+caregivers+who+are+complying+with+state+laws&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#


Now the IRS denies all cost deductions to the long standing dispensaries. Killing them that way.

IRS Just Says No to Medical Marijuana Deductions – Forbes.com
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2011/10/06/irs-just-says-no-to-medical-marijuana-deductions/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2011/10/07/feds-send-californias-legal-pot-dispensaries-up-in-smoke/


Feds Order California Pot Dispensaries To Shut Down
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/10/06/feds-order-california-pot-dispensaries-to-shut-down/


The same president who said medical programs were safe is now aggressively raiding places all over. Even small ones in Portland are getting threatening letters along with their landlords. The suburban ones are getting hit harder than Multnomah county.

Obama's DOJ Conducts Aggressive Medical Marijuana Raids In Washington
http://the420times.com/2011/04/obamas-doj-conducts-aggressive-medical-marijuana-raids-in-washington/


It was a bait and switch.

Dave Maass: Prosecuted Pot Provider Accuses Obama of Entrapment, Uses Campaign Promises in Defense
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-maass/prosecuted-pot-provider-a_b_396586.html



The OMMP ensures the disabled continually fail to procure safe medicine. Insurance controlled mainstream medicine stigmatizes and discriminates against people who derive benefits from cannabis. In Oregon, medical cannabis patients are taken off the liver transplant list even though a gastroenterologist will say cannabis does not effect the liver and widespread understanding that cannabis is an indispensable aid to some who need to avoid the delicious poison called alcohol. For some cannabis patients this is a death sentence from mainstream medicine. The medical community also deals with a lot of media stereotyping brought on by smoking legalizers with a corporate agenda who get most of the attention in the mainstream media.


Real cannabis medicine is primarily something ingested and not smoked. Some people derive benefits from smoking but it still is by far the least medicinal way to use cannabis speaking from experience. Any benefits in smoking are mostly outweighed by the eventual aerobic distress. If smoking works for you, try to favor the vaporizer for well being. When I smoke it is purely social. Smoking goes mostly to the brain, ingesting goes to the body. The body is usually where people need to be healed but sometimes people also need their thoughts healed. Smoking goes to the head and helps people with PTSD cope and forget. Chronic smoking is counter productive.


When I speak of medical cannabis I refer mostly to ingested forms. This means primarily oil or tincture and not brownies and combustibles. Include topicals for localized pain relief. I have seen that work. In Oregon there are reasonable per patient limits that provide enough plant material to make medicine, provided patients pool their legal allotments and no grower gets paid. Silly states like NJ only allow one ounce per patient and have merely legalized smoking for sick and injured people while laying the groundwork and control systems for recreational legalized smoking and corporatization. They are not serious about healing because one ounce is not even enough to make hash for brownies, much less real medicine from pounds of the whole plant. 


There are over 80 cannabinoids in cannabis that interact with the body's endocannabinoid system. Alcohol extractions capture most of these compounds. Combustion obliterates most of them. Full extract cannabis oil takes a pound to yield 100ml when processed by a pro. A treatment takes several pounds. "Treatment" dosage is as yet undefined because of the legal barriers to standardization. Pot patients are left to experiment on themselves while navigating the black market in a world of fear, intimidation and stigmatization even though their medicine, the anointing oil, has a truly amazing history in human healing going back to ancient times.

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000143


What is happening in marijuana is important to everyone, including non smokers. Corporate interests wish to turn marijuana into a test crop for total control of an agricultural commodity. If the corporate state takes over the industry the implications will be long lasting and applied to other crops and industries.

[Otishertz]

2. Fountain


Consider how life, ecosystems, and ultimately economies form around a shared resource like water. Everyone derives benefit from water use while no one group owns it. Water is a free commodity and a basic ingredient or raw material in practically everything. Plan O began with the idea of a desert spring shared by a village. Our legal source of the free plant can be turned into a fountain of abundance used as the free ingredient and raw material of a crop share barter organization.



Fountain Parable


A spring sprang from the desert and an oasis formed. People settled around the oasis and a village happened. Each villager freely shared the life sustaining water. An unspoken equal right to water was assumed since it is an ingredient in making and growing most things needed for life. A marketplace flourished around exchanges of products made by the villagers. In appreciation of its life giving bounty, the villagers pooled resources and built an awesome fountain statue of a bearded merman colossus with a cheeseburger on a pitchfork that shot water way high in the air. Fountain Town was born.


As the Town grew it became clear that more services and infrastructure were needed for the health and comfort of inhabitants. Ideas began to circulate on how to fund these investments. Albert Hole was the largest merchant in Fountain Town. He made his fortune polluting the oasis with Jet Ski rentals after successfully campaigning to ban the private sale of jet skis. Mr. Hole promoted capping the fountain, filtering the water, and selling the formerly free and clean water back to the villagers. He described a self reinforcing "beneficial" economic system where proceeds from water sales went to promote tourism to grow the town and thereby sell more water that would then be used to build a big jail to accommodate the tourists while providing local employment opportunities. Hole owned local radio station and made the deejay say his words. Many among the easily entertained started to regurgitate this plan like it was good since there was only one radio station to put thoughts in their heads.


A DJ on Windward Beach flew huge kites mounted with wireless loudspeakers daily over the colossus. He argued that greater prosperity comes from keeping water free and that putting a price on water creates artificial scarcity, particularly for people without money like him. He was a pretty good dancer and played catchy music so people began to absorb what he said. In between sets he explained how freely flowing water performs invaluable services that enrich people's lives and is more valuable to the community as a shared resource than if it was sold by the ounce. Forcing a price on water limits all consumption including crucial types like hydration of human beings and plants, creation of sanitary conditions for better health, and the production of lower priced food and other products. Most people would lose quality of life while only a few would get compensated by tourist money.


Mr. Hole was mightily pissed about the light kite guy was shining on his plan but couldn't do anything because people still believed in an unalienable right to fly speaker kites. In fact, radio was seen as an inferior form of speaker kite. Old folks preferred radio because because they could consume it sitting down without all the running around. Hole needed to control kite guy so he started a political campaign to license and regulate all amplified broadcasts through a committee he figured to chair as the leading local radio expert. Paid agents promoted his ideas as progress and Mr. Hole played his leverage over the livelihood of the lifeguards to stifle dissent.


Kite guy made a hip hop song about how selling the public health by polluting the life giving water with tourist thrill rides is not sustainable because eventually bad water makes us all sick and poor and then the tourists will go away because tourists don't like sick ugly poor people. Geezer sunbathers with radios bristled it would take a thousand years for that to happen and that doctors still need to get paid. Kite guy said they were arguing for the slow death of the town and that perpetual prosperity is only possible once the basic health of society is regarded as a valuable public resource and sustained. Kite guy said keeping the water free and clean is what attracts the tourists in the first place and Fountain Town should continue making useful products to sell to tourists instead of making them pay to drink and jailing them. He said taxing sales in the market would be a better way to provide town services because maintaining free water for all is good for community health and employment. Taxing sales would derive revenue from voluntary consumption instead of forcible coercion and a big jail filled with newly minted water thieves would be counterproductive because eventually you jail all your customers and they drink for free in jail anyway.


In those days the only thing people in Fountain town liked more than explosions was year round access to a good water park with the latest water slide technology. Kite guy suggested that food and water were even more important than sliding. When that didn't work he suggested that beer and sausages were more important than sliding. Then kite guy raffled off his equipment and used the proceeds to have a beer and sausage blockbuster barbecue for water freedom. People admitted kite guy had a couple points but ultimately chose water freedom for beer sausages and not wanting to be poor and icky looking. Kite guy shot off into space, leaving his cat. Mr. Hole moved to Florida and became a developer of gated golf course communities.


Long prosperity followed as Fountain Town gained a reputation for quality products made with pure water. Money flowed to the town craftspeople from all over the World. Market fees from the sale of local products built the structures the town needed. Water was intelligently used and reused and the Town grew one hundred times larger than the maximum possible value of all the fountain water priced by the ounce. Fountain town built hospitals, museums, bridges, schools, and for the most part rocked. People are even starting to appreciate the colossus a thousand years later. The End.

[Otishertz]

Skip this section if you do not want to read about minute details of the Oregon Medical Marijuana program.


The mandate in the original OMMP law is for marijuana to be treated like other medicines. At the beginning of the OMMP law (475.300) it states:


(1) Patients and doctors have found marijuana to be an effective treatment for suffering caused by debilitating medical conditions.; and therefore, marijuana should betreated like other medicines;


According to the law, basic characteristics and requirements of "other medicines" apply to marijuana. Medicine is standardized. For cannabis to be useful to doctors and effective as a medicine there must at least be standards of purity, potency, and classification for quality control, research, and proper dosage as with other medicines. These are necessary preconditions for the creation of a medicine.


The law allows some reimbursement but not enough to make any marijuana related endeavor self sufficient. As you can see, labor is specifically prohibited. Removing compensation beyond costs and utilities removes all the profit.


(7) A registry identification cardholder or the designated primary caregiver of the cardholder may reimburse the person responsible for a marijuana grow site for the costs of supplies and utilities associated with the production of marijuana for the registry identification cardholder. No other costs associated with the production of marijuana for the registry identification cardholder, including the cost of labor, may be reimbursed.
[2005 c.822 §8; 2007 c.573 §2; 2009 c.595 §966]


Another major part of the law is that no consideration can be paid for the transfer of marijuana. Consideration means payment. In the OMMP, payment beyond costs for supplies and utilities, also known as profit is illegal. No enterprise can function for long without lawful ways to pay for things that consume resources. The exemption from laws concerning delivery of cannabis is what keeps us out of jail - but only if we share freely and work for free like slaves.


(3) "Delivery" has the· meaning given that term in ORB 475.005.· "Delivery" does not include transfer of marijuana by a registry
identification cardholder to another registry identification cardholder if no consideration is paid for the transfer.



Although OMMP plants are usually in the care and possession of a grower, they remain the property of the patient. If a grower supplies more than one patient they each own a share of the plants in a crop.


(5) All usable marijuana, plants, seedlings and seeds associated with the production of marijuana for a registry identification cardholder by a person responsible for a marijuana grow site are the property of the registry identification cardholder and must be provided to the registry identification
cardholder upon request.


The law is very clear in some areas but leaves more questions than it answers. It contains no mention of reimbursements from cardholder to cardholder. The law primarily refers to the production or cultivation of cannabis into the raw material of dried buds. Production is at the beginning of the chain of production. Nothing is mentioned about processing, refinement, homogenization, and standardization for purity that occur to marijuana after the marijuana is produced. Many of the more medicinal forms of ingestion require significant processing, testing, and expertise. These include tinctures, balms, food additives, hash, and in particular, full extract cannabis oil from the whole cannabis plant. Very useful and needed services currently provide processing for payment around Portland at reasonable prices.


Plant and Weight Limits per card: 24 plants total. Six can be in bloom or over 12 inches tall. 24 oz of useable medicine per patient. Each grower can have four cards and 96 plants, 24 of which can be in bloom. Common practice is to limit gardens to under 99 plants because of a superstition that it wards of federal agents. Four growers with sixteen patients can bloom 96 plants. There is no limit on the number of growers per address.


475.320 Limits on amounts possessed. (1)(a) A registry identification cardholder or the designated primary caregiver of the cardholder may possess up to six mature marijuana plants and 24 ounces of usable marijuana.


...


(2) A person authorized under ORS 475.304 to produce marijuana at a marijuana grow site:
(a) May produce marijuana for and provide marijuana to a registry identification cardholder or that person's designated primary caregiver as authorized under this section.
(b) May possess up to six mature plants and up to 24 ounces of usable marijuana for each cardholder or caregiver for whom marijuana is being produced.
(c) May produce marijuana for no more than four registry identification cardholders or designated primary caregivers concurrently.

...


(3) Except as provided in subsections (1) and (2) of this section, a registry identification cardholder, the designated primary caregiver of the cardholder and the person responsible for a marijuana grow site producing marijuana for the registry identification cardholder may possess a combined total of up to six mature plants and 24 ounces of usable marijuana for that registry identification cardholder.

(4)(a) A registry identification cardholder and the designated primary caregiver of the cardholder may possess a combined total of up to 18 marijuana seedlings or starts as defined by rule of the Oregon Health Authority.
(b) A person responsible for a marijuana grow site may possess up to 18 marijuana seedlings or starts as defined by rule of the authority for each registry identification cardholder for whom the person responsible for the marijuana grow site is producing marijuana. [2005 c.822 §9; 2007 c.573 §5; 2009 c.595 §971]

...

(3) The Oregon Health Authority shall define by rule when a marijuana plant is mature and when it is immature. The rule shall provide that a plant that has no flowers and that is less than 12 inches in height and less than 12 inches in diameter is a seedling or a start and is not a mature plant. [1999 c.4 §7; 2005 c.822 §2; 2009 c.595 §967]



Link to current OMMP law:

http://public.health.oregon.gov/diseasesconditions/chronicdisease/medicalmarijuanaprogram/pages/legal.aspx

http://public.health.oregon.gov/DiseasesConditions/ChronicDisease/MedicalMarijuanaProgram/Documents/statutes.pdf


Current Rules:

http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/rules/oars_300/oar_333/333_008.html

[Otishertz]

4. Crop Share and Bud Bank


4.1 Crop Share:

A crop is a common resource around which people organize and derive value like the village shares water in the Fountain Parable. Crop share is when multiple people support a garden in exchange for a share of harvests. Instead of selling by weight a crop share farm removes prices by distributing harvests in predefined proportions or shares. Elimination of prices makes it easy to conform with the OMMP requirement of exchange without consideration. Delivery and exchange of cannabis between cardholders at zero price approximates the law. Sharing a crop is mainly what the OMMP allows. Cannabis clubs can avoid many legal problems by using crop share structure to separate pay and price from the plant so that cannabis is shared instead of sold.


Crop share is also referred to as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA):

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

    "There is an important concept woven into the CSA model that takes the arrangement beyond the usual commercial transaction. That is the notion of shared risk. When originally conceived, the CSA was set up differently than it is now. A group of people pooled their money, bought a farm, hired a farmer, and each took a share of whatever the farm produced for the year. If the farm had a tomato bonanza, everyone put some up for winter. If a plague of locusts ate all the greens, people ate cheese sandwiches.

    [...]

    Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community's farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. Typically, members or "share-holders" of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer's salary. In return, they receive shares in the farm's bounty throughout the growing season "

A share confers ownership which satisfies this part of OMMP law:

(5) All usable marijuana, plants, seedlings and seeds associated with the production of marijuana for a registry identification cardholder by a person responsible for a marijuana grow site are the property of the registry identification cardholder and must be provided to the registry identification
cardholder upon request.


Exchanging without money satisfies this part:


(3) "Delivery" has the· meaning given that term in ORB 475.005.· "Delivery" does not include transfer of marijuana by a registry identification cardholder to another registry identification cardholder if no consideration is paid for the transfer.



Cannabis crop shares can be apportioned based on community goals like charity, hospice, member consumption, events, etc. Also, crop shares, expressed as weight, could be effortlessly donated to pool resources for ill members who need treatments with resource intensive preparations such as the life saving full extract cannabis oil which takes many pounds of raw material to produce a treatment. This kind of legal gifting and re-gifting is already the basis for our OMMP exchanges. Exchange of interchangeable ounces allows for easy transfer without consideration between cardholders.


Organizational goals gravitate towards maximizing yield and minimizing costs when allocation of goods between people is not primarily determined by individual stores of money. Similarly, community emphasis can return to maximizing quality when cheap price is not the primary emphasis of production. As a garden becomes successful the overall level of activity and prosperity around the garden will grow and the value of a crop share grows based on success of the keepers.

[Otishertz]

4.2 Bud Bank:


Crop share organizations distribute products to members in various ways. Some prepare periodic baskets with a variety of produce that are shipped to members or picked up by them. Others set up markets where members can substitute products by utilizing some form of member account balance to facilitate exchange. Such balances can be denominated in money or in a share of a crop. OMMP law requires money to be separated from the plant. We separate the money with a bud bank.


Centralized production allows medicine to be standardized into uniform purity and potency. This standardization provides the basic free commodity around which larger systems of self help can develop like the water in Fountain Town. When a crop is uniform and interchangeable it becomes a fungible commodity. Such commodities can be communally stored, withdrawn in portions as needed and transferred between members as fractional shares (or ounces). A bud bank stores value and directs bud flow through the community. The buds in the bank are the blood that flows through the organization. More buds means more blood pumping through the club and thus a healthier club. Increasing exchanges grows the organization built around those exchanges.


Centralized storage of interchangeable buds in a bud bank facilitates exchange, provides variety, and provides working stock for making refined medicine. Interchangeability allows implementation of sales and inventory management software to reconcile customer accounts. A Bud Bank can use point-of-sale (POS) software to facilitate exchange by recording that transfers of cannabis shares between member accounts occurred without payment. The controlled component of a transaction is recorded at zero price on a receipt with quantity adjustments to the Bud Bank accounts of the crop share owners. Cannabis Bud Balances reconciled along the chain of possession provide accounting of individual crop share consumption and documentation of transfers between cardholders. This creates an auditable trail that provides ongoing proof for compliance that transfers between cardholders occurred for no consideration. These records make compliance verifiable and indisputable. Once a basic model for exchange that ensures compliance is established that mode can then be elaborated to increase exchanges.


Members can effortlessly re-donate portions of their crop share to other members in need via transfer individual Bud Balances on a ledger instead of in person. This makes other things possible like bud drives for urgent care, oil, hospice, research, etc. Portions of the total crop could also be set aside for community purposes, even traded with other approved clubs. A patient's Bud Balance would be available on demand to share with other cardholders, for personal consumption, or as a raw material for refined medicinal products. Members can use their Bud Balance and shared equipment to produce hash, medibles, or oil for themselves or others. Members would have all or part of their crop, mix and match as they wish.


A Bud Bank gets cardholders their property on request as the law says:

(5) All usable marijuana, plants, seedlings and seeds associated with the production of marijuana for a registry identification cardholder by a person responsible for a marijuana grow site are the property of the registry identification cardholder and must be provided to the registry identification
cardholder upon request.


The raw material, expressed as a Bud Balance, has a shelf life. Therefore, ounces at the bud bank should depreciate over time. The rate of depreciation could be expressed as negative interest applied to the quantity of ounces in a bud balance. If buds have a two year shelf life and hash has a ten year shelf life it implies different negative interest rates related to their rate of decay in the natural world. Due to their shorter shelf life, buds held on account would have a larger negative interest rate than the same buds expressed as hash held on account. Increasing the rate at which ounces expire increases the velocity of bud denominated transactions thereby increasing overall exchanges. Worth noting that, unlike electronic money balances of the fiat monetary system, a bud balance is tied to a tangible asset and has a maximum legal value per cardholder.


This is actually a very old idea that is closely related to grain receipts in Ancient Egypt being used to store value.

The building of the pyramids

In the bible there is a story about a pharaoh having a bad dream about seven fat cows being eaten by seven lean cows. This dream was explained to the pharaoh. He was told seven good years would come and after that seven bad years would follow. Joseph advised the Egyptians to store food on a large scale. They built storehouses for food. Farmers bringing in the food, got receipts for corn. Bakers who wanted to make bread, brought in the receipts, which could be exchanged for corn. It did not take long before the receipts where generally accepted as money. Because of the degradation of the corn and mice eating it, the value of the receipts was steadily decreasing. This enticed people to spend the money fast.

The grain receipt system lasted for many centuries. It made sense to store food to provide for hard times. If we assume this this worked like in Wörgl, we can assume that also Egypt was building capital at maximum speed using full employment. At some point, irrigation systems were in place, houses were built, and there was nothing left to do. Because there was no limit on the ego of pharaohs, and they were worshiped like gods, the pharaohs could use this wealth to build pyramids. The people building the pyramids were probably no slaves but economically free men. The Egyptian civilization lasted for more than 2000 years, far longer than any civilization ever.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-far-more-efficient-econo-by-Bart-Klein-Ikink-081104-808.html

These practices continue today. The United Nations commissioned a paper in 2009 called, "Review of Warehouse Receipt System and Inventory Credit Initiatives in Eastern & Southern Africa."

http://www.ruralfinance.org/fileadmin/templates/rflc/documents/Review__of__Warehouse_pdf.pdf



These concepts are related to depreciative money ideas called Free-Money or Freigeld.  The concept was invented by Silvio Gesell. The most famous use of Freigeld was in Wörgl, Austria during the great depression in 1932. The link in the above quote contains some info on what has been called "The Miracle at Wörgl." Furthermore, it is easy to argue that modern commodity futures contracts are essentially uber depreciative grain warehouse receipts. However, it is common knowledge that comex warehouses keep only a fraction of inventory in the actual commodity compared to the amount of rapidly expiring contracts sold by Wall Street. Almost no participants take delivery in the highly fictionalized and speculative futures markets whereas everyone would probably claim their shares at a bud bank.   

[Otishertz]

5. Crop Circle Club and Time Bank


5.1 Crop Circle Club:



A Crop Circle Club is a production and allocation system for a free commodity that separates pay, price and profit from the plant. Cardholder members use individual bud balances at shared community resources to make refined medicinal products for themselves and other members. For simplicity, the diagram above assumes the founders own slave growers who donate all labor under force of law.


OMMP legality for this part of Plan O relies on the interpretation that once cannabis has been cured and allocated it is no longer being produced. Since the law is predominantly concerned with production, refinements made post production fall outside of the scope of the law with the weight of the refinements counting towards a patient's 24 ounces. A half pound of brownies containing a couple grams of hash is a gray area. Legality is further assumed for costs incurred to suppliers of services who only transform marijuana and do not produce or own the involved marijuana. Very useful and needed services currently provide examples of processing for payment around Portland at reasonable prices (Call Davidj at NGF) and have been doing so for years. Sale of refinements by members is regarded the same as a club charging a fee to use refining equipment. It's further assumed that membership dues for a club do not constitute consideration for cannabis. Feel free to insert your own non cannabis crop.


A Bud Bank repurposes retail sales and inventory management software as a non-price allocation and accounting system that functions alongside normal business transactions to document chain of possession through customer accounts thereby creating records that make compliance indisputable. In practice this means using split transactions on the POS system to record the quantity of cannabis transferred for no consideration at zero price. Crop share members own their cannabis and can legally trade with eachother for free. When claiming their fractional standardized bud content in a product members are not selling or buying cannabis but legally transferring possession without consideration between cardholders.



(3) "Delivery" has the· meaning given that term in ORB 475.005.· "Delivery" does not include transfer of marijuana by a registry identification cardholder to another registry identification cardholder if no consideration is paid for the transfer.


Increasing the number of possible cardholder exchanges requires a POS system for records to adjust crop share balances and account for the transfer at zero price. Transfer between cardholders of interchangeable ounces in a market where the cannabis component of any transaction is delivered at zero price with bud balances appropriately adjusted and recorded would structurally ensure compliance. There is no sale by weight, only accounting for the transfer of weight. Segregated charges for reimbursement are not for delivery or cultivation because the controlled component was already legally owned by the purchaser and had no price when exchanged. The resulting paper trail of the chain of possession showing the controlled component totally separated from the transaction frees the value added part of the transaction to find a market price.


For example, a community might make its own standardized butter to foster standard potency of medibles using club hash machines and commissary. The budder becomes a basic ingredient in many member's privately owned confections. A member baking brownies using club made hash butter and her own ingredients at the club commissary would have the standardized cannabis component of the butter consumed deducted from her bud balance. When the brownie is sold the purchasing cardholder would have the same weight deducted from their balance while the baker would have the ounces added back to her balance, enabling the baker to bake more brownies. In all cases the cannabis component of a transaction is segregated and passes through members for free. This requires a rate of conversion that represents the bud weight in any given amount of butter. Similarly, a member might rent a hash machine to refine their own crop share of raw buds into hash for personal use.


Business models that develop around member's continual access to a valuable crop will perpetuate the club and the garden. Facilitating commerce financially sustains the system by creating self employment opportunities for small patient run business. Local product development with low barriers to entry creates diffuse and diverse endeavors that are the best hope for preserving Oregon craft cannabis and protecting against monopolizing corporate interests.



Receipt Examples:

To understand these transactions it's helpful to look at some receipts. In these examples, member refinements are sold between cardholders with controlled content passing at zero price and only weight on the receipt. All cannabis portions of transactions balance out to zero except for reimbursable parts. The main point in all these transactions is controlled content passes through members with ownership eventually ending at the final user.


Basic transaction – Otis buys a brownie from Sexpot:
*1/2 gram hash per brownie.





Effects of exchange on Bud Bank accounts:





Alternate more detailed receipt: Otis buys a hash brownie from Sexpot.






Legal restrictions limit both garden and humidor size depending on the number of growers and patients attached to an address. A professionally run garden can produce multiple times its limit annually. Clubs that turn over their limit more times per year through efficient growing and surplus management can support a greater number of cardholders than the number of cards specifically attached to an address. Patient and grower cards attached to the core garden would be reserved for founders and original shareholders who have preferred equity that confers greater voting privileges to safeguard their legal interests through oversight of their crop.


A grower is limited to growing for four patients but there is no limit to the number of growers per address. Superstition has it the federal boogiemen will put you in prison for more than the magic number of 99 in bloom. So, take four growers with four cards each as an example. 16 cards x 6 blooming plants per card = 96 mature blooming plants. A skilled indoor gardener can average 6 dried ounces per plant for every 60 days of bloom time. Harvesting half of the blooming plants a month yields 48 x 6 = 288 ounces. This works out to 3456 ounces a year. A club of this size can produce 24 ounces for 144 cardholders yearly.


The bud bank manages harvests and disbursements to keep club weights within limits. The bud bank in this example would have a maximum capacity of 24 ounces X 16 patients = 384 ounces. The Bud Bank therefore needs to turn over its 384 ounce inventory 9 times a year to remain in compliance (3456 / 384 = 9). This should not be hard since members can be called to collect surplus buds. At any given time the 144 cardholders can hypothetically store the entire year's production collectively at home within their combined personal weigh limits (24 oz X 144 cards = 3456 ounces).


Once the maximum garden size by weight is reached another inventory management solution for maintaining compliance is trading surplus ounces with other clubs. Physical ounces do not necessarily need to be exchanged if the humidors of the clubs are deemed to be equivalent quality. Similarly structured organizations could exchange Bud Bank ounces by issuing credits to members of other clubs in exchange for the same. Club A could trade an equal amount of weight credits to Club B in anticipation of a surplus. Visiting cardholders from Club B then consume excess ounces at Club A, aiding compliance. This mechanism could also increase supply for a club that suddenly faced an increase in demand.


The 4x4 garden above can have 288 plants under 12" in a vegetative state. 12" clones can be grown in a month. The club's internal need for clones is 48 a month. Running this garden at maximum potential leaves 240 extra clones a month that can be provided to members of the club who might themselves be growers or have a grower. True strains chosen by community can be kept in a living library with a reliable selection of readily available clean clones for members. A living library for cuttings and clones is a shared resource that adds value by reducing member vegetative grow space requirements, veg labor, veg equipment, veg electricity, plant counts, expenses, etc. A strain bank lets members garden when they wish without having to maintain a clone crop all year to keep from losing valuable strains. Most Oregon medicinal growers can not shut down their garden and take a vacation without losing needed strains. Compliance for members is aided by reducing plant counts or eliminating veg entirely. An ongoing library of approved and recognized strains is preferable to exchanging random clones from disparate donors due to pest issues, identification errors, and frequent lack of donors and clone shortages.


Living plants are exchanged using the same cashless procedures as buds except there is no corresponding debit to a member account when a member gains a clone as with buds. There is only a debit to the garden's clone account. Free clones are rung through the POS system primarily to adjust inventory for accurate forecasting of demand and compliance. Limits on clone withdrawals should be related to how many plants one card can legally grow such as no more than six clones every 60 days.



Receipt for clones: Sexpot gets 6 clones for a Summer grow at home.

[Otishertz]

5.2 Time Bank:

Some examples of organizing labor without money come from nations whose unsustainable economic systems have run their course. Places like Argentina and Greece had fiat currency regimes based on infinitely compounding credit expansion. Such systems always collapse in disaster after saturating a society in debt. This short story explains why: http://www.michaeljournal.org/myth.htm . Another: http://michael-hudson.com/2007/08/why-the-%E2%80%9Cmiracle-of-compound-interest%E2%80%9D-leads-to-financial-crises/ In these places people had to work and survive without a money or wages. Their ideas are valuable to Oregon pot patients who are forced to transact without money and labor for free. One such idea is a time Bank.


A time bank is a volunteer labor exchange network where services are traded. Individual exchanges for services and needs are coordinated through offers and requests. Time banks are an empowering way to harness fallow skills and convert them into community prosperity. There is no reason for skilled people to sit around waiting for a dollar to validate their abilities. Tremendous latent productivity from the collective unpaid skill base can be tapped to do useful work without money by a community that trades volunteer labor. Such a volunteer labor network facilitates progress and production that is not dependent on money or the monetary system. The bonus for outcast medpot patients is a time bank can be used to eliminate grower wages as required by law. OMMP law requires pay to be separated from the plant. We separate the pay with a time bank.




From the Athens Time Bank:

http://athenstimebank.com/what.html

    "TimeBanking is a way to exchange services without using the cash economy. For every hour you spend doing something for someone else you earn a TimeDollar. You can then use your TimeDollar having someone spend an hour doing something for you. All services are equal; one hour is always equal to one hour. Anything you are willing to do can be an offer, and anything you need can be a request.
    [...]
    Exchanges in the TimeBank are usually indirect, rather than back and forth between the same two members. In this respect it is different from simple bartering. So for example you might provide art lessons to one person and receive help with grocery shopping from someone else. Your shopper might receive handyman help from another member, who in turn receives pet-sitting from someone else, and so on.

    Because the TimeBanking exchange model is circular, rather than back and forth, a strong coordination system is needed. The Time Bank serves this function in two important ways. First, it keeps track of TimeBank accounts for each member - crediting individual accounts with TimeDollars when services are performed and debiting TimeDollars when services are received. Secondly, the Time Bank coordinates individual exchanges. It does this by helping members connect with others who have services that they would like to give or receive. This is done in part through online software where members can post offers and requests, and in part through having a coordinator who personally meets with each member and assists them in finding ways to give and receive. "

Alternative Exchange Systems inContemporary Greece

http://www.ijccr.net/IJCCR/2011_%2815%29_files/06%20Sotiropoulou.pdf



http://timebanks.org/videos/timebanking-is-changing-lives-2


A time bank can attract volunteer skilled gardeners by having services available for trade that gardeners need or find useful. Five hours per month of volunteer labor might be required of members. Time banks are scalable and can be easily hosted by online forums. A cannabis only time bank might remain relativity small due to choice or legal restrictions. There is also some limit on the number of members a crop share can support due to the limited quantity of crop available. Members in small communities can be selected by application or based on services needed by the club. Smaller time banks might further focus on specific specialized skill sets such as those surrounding the production and refinement of marijuana.


Increasing choices creates additional value for time banks. Successful time banks have members with a wide variety of popularly needed skills. Every new type of exchange is another choice. Larger time banks that have greater membership have more available services and can become dominant hubs with self reinforcing advantages of scale derived from the higher number of exchanges that happen in their domain. An ideal time bank would be open to all participants with any skills to offer. The time bank in Plan O need not be open only to cannabis patients if the time bank is in a separate structure or is a separate business.


Time can either trade equally hour for hour or freely by negotiation. Small time banks are the best candidates for equal time value setup. Larger time banks may have variable time prices set by negotiation. Trading differently skilled services on an equal basis creates inefficiencies. The gain on a trade for more skilled time arbitrages work value out of the system because there is less incentive to provide skilled labor for unskilled labor. Equal time could be a disincentive to skilled labor who might be unwilling to exchange their time on an equal basis for work of lesser perceived value. Equal time set ups risk having low skilled service offerings drive out higher skilled ones in a sort of Gresham's Law for labor. This might be overcome by scale with larger time banks having enough free services that their higher skilled members can get other skilled services comparable to theirs when needed, assuming people need higher skilled services less often.


Clear differences in labor value ultimately will lead to negotiation. This negotiation is a good one to have. CEOs will find difficulty negotiating their time at 400 times the average employee wage as frequently happens when time is represented by money wages. Variable time prices for labor thus tend toward egalitarianism where abstract money prices for labor tend towards inequality. Negotiated time prices let time function like money. Hours can be banked but are expected to be used and not hoarded. Existing time banks have solved this problem by having time bank hours expire after six months. In other words, they use a negative interest rate.




Time Bank > Garden > Bud Bank






Building a time bank and a bud bank around a collectively owned crop gets the pay and the price away from the plants. A Crop Circle Club elaborates this model by adding shared processing equipment, a hybrid barter marketplace and a lounge. The model operates with or without money and also works with time money. Time is itemized on a receipt and reconciled with a time price for labor and a corresponding time bank deduction. 

The expanded model shows money in the flow. Those funds represent permitted OMMP economic activity such as "reimbursements" that must be legally segregated from cannabis transactions and other types of sales that fall outside of the scope of OMMP law. The reason there is money flowing in the diagram is because there are still bills to be paid in the real world. However, it is possible to adapt the basic framework to be completely cashless. Differing diagrams are shown to impart the hybrid nature and malleability of the model and its practical application. Any barter market in our current market system will need some source of legal tender funding in order to become sustainable, whether that be from donations or internally generated money surpluses from sales, services, rentals, or events.




* Note ironic drive-thru window on Time Bank.



Basic receipt with time price:
Prices expressed in time, weight and money. Hours are negotiable and freely set portion of price. Hours transfer between members when they perform/consume services for eachother.







Detailed Combo Receipt:
Prices expressed in time, weight  and money with detailed effects of zero balancing exchanges on Time and Bud bank accounts. Value of goods in hours set by negotiation and consensus. Partially paying with time yields a discount. The same receipt would apply to Sexpot buying budder from the commissary. Note that price still $5 but quantity doubled to four because of the implied cross rate of two brownies per half hour time in the above transaction.







Commissary time receipt for raw unmedicated budder:
Usually cash is required to buy inputs. To get inputs without cash the organization can exchange timemoney for raw material inputs. Price in hours set through buyer and seller negotiation. Suppliers may take labor as payment to gain access to services available to members through the time bank.








Receipt for Swap between Clubs:
Members of CCC and 420 Farm Store swap 100 ounces and 100 hours. Buyers from either club can then shop the others market on behalf of their club.






The automated system to facilitate and account for transfers within the legal oasis of the crop share club opens up these new types of cashless exchanges. Increasing exchanges grows the community. Crop share is the foundation for the club built around a shared free resource where products and services are made and traded without wages or money.


Creating ancillary structures and services around the core crop helps ensure the survival of the crop by adding value for the keepers of the crop. Added value of services provides other reasons for members to pay a club than solely to procure medicine. Allocating the scarce resource with crop share and utilizing volunteer labor with time bank provides security through organization that keeps the keepers safe and keeps our plants alive.

[Otishertz]

6. Investment, sponsorship, club businesses and services.

6.1. Investment:


There is no limit to what an individual can invest in their own garden and by extension no limit to how much a group of owners can invest in a community garden. Investment occurs before production. It is not reimbursement because that comes after production. The law is concerned with profit and pay connected to the production of marijuana and does not apply to or mention investment.


Things like equipment and facilities are also not addressed in the law clearly there are necessary investments before any plant can be grown. Equity investments by founding members must be large enough that foreseeable start up, capital equipment and ongoing expenses can be met, particularly since most normal routes to a self sustaining cannabis business have been cut off. There is no limit on the dollar amount of an initial investment in a crop share. However, there could be a limit on the term of the crop share offered for any given price. Known gardens might be able to sell one year crop shares. Known gardeners might be able to work a year here and a year there.


A Crop Circle Club can be structured as an LLC where members are legal owners of the club. Organizing as an LLC provides some liability shielding for members and the shared ownership structure matches that of a communally owned crop share garden. There is no limit on the number of LLC members. A Series LLC may allow for asset segregation to further reduce liability. LLC Clubs are for profit ventures that share earnings with members based on predefined percentages. Members include their share of income or loss on their taxes. If there is a loss the members get the tax deduction for the loss – deducted from the same place they would deduct if donating to a non profit but without the limitations on non profit activity. If there is a gain then hooray. Non profit is not the preferred type of ownership structure. Every individual and organization is now in direct competition with large liability free corporations in several aspects of their daily lives. Competing for survival without the same corporate protections and profit potential as your competitors would be foolish.


Different forms of voting shares are possible with managing and non-managing LLC member types. LLC can have various classes of members analogous to preferred shares and membership units which are like shares of common stock. Subsequent members might be common stockholders, while founding members would be preferred stockholders or equivalent. Membership structure of a CCC would have different levels beginning with the founders. The first members keep a larger share so they will be rewarded if the group intention they set in motion has power. Each level has a higher equity stake than that comes after. New levels created only by super majority decision (70%) to keep growth in line with the interests of most. New members might be sponsored by the initial members.


Extended personal networks have levels of commonality based on links of affinity or family. Social networking through online hubs and forums eliminates communication distance, shortens path lengths between people and creates super-hubs of connectivity. Social networks allow people to cheaply identify like minded collaborators from contacts in their extended network. Mining contacts for business investment is soon to become an an entire industry called crowdfunding with its own science of small world networks. There is a crowdfunding bill in congress now to make this kind of thing more possible. Crowdfunding is a game changing way to harness group intention to advance some cause, whether that cause be about charity or self reliance, the latter being prerequisite for charity. www.profounder.com helps people do this legally now using exclusions from securities laws intended for small group fundraising.


Business founders using crowdfunding will influence the future makeup of their investor community by carefully limiting seed or core members to those in networks related to the mission of the endeavor. Crop Circle Clubs would seek initial investors among networks that include growers, patients, processors and confectioners. Potential participants ideally have an established public presence in online networks. Exchanges conducted in open arenas select out participants of poor reputation over time even when people operate with a pseudonym provided there are impartial feedback mechanisms that are accountable and hard to game.


Crowdfunding could also be used for art. Examples of crowdfunded art and theater can be found on the site www.kickstarter.com . Business as theater is possible with people buying a share in a limited time LLC like they buy season tickets to a series of events. 144 willing people found through online social networks might pay $250 for ticket to a year long crop share business. 144 people X $250 = $36,000. This is enough to rent a private clubhouse with a nice big garden, a commercial kitchen and oil lab.

[Otishertz]

6.2. Sponsorship:



Dues and membership fees are forms of sponsorship. The part of the law that refers to reimbursement only pertains to costs for producing marijuana. Funds to sponsor grow costs and utilities must be segregated from other club funds in separate bank accounts to provide traceable proof of compliance. Any remaining dues or fees can then go to a separate account to cover organizational expenses. 144 members paying $30 a month = $4320 per month, about enough to pay rent and power.

The law:



(9) A patient or the designated primary caregiver of the patient may reimburse the grower for the costs of supplies and utilities associated with production of marijuana for patient. No other costs associated with the production of marijuana for the patient, including the cost of labor, may be reimbursed.


If a cost is not associated with the production of the plant it is assumed it can be paid by anyone, including sponsorship by non cardholders. Charity and research are areas that might attract outside sponsorship. Outside sponsorship might not constitute payment for delivery of a controlled substance if the contributor does not receive any pot, any measurable consideration, or directly contribute to production expenses. If so, equipment companies could sponsor clubs indirectly and compassionate individuals from the public could donate towards a charitable garden's regular, non production expenses.


Alternately, equipment that requires large outlays could be leased through a subsidiary instead of purchased to reduce capital expenditure and reclassify the expense as a short term periodic bill for supplies. Another possibility is to legally separate just the garden as non profit subsidiary and fund it entirely with tax deductible donations from the for profit club.

[Otishertz]

6.3. Club Businesses and Services:



Rules about consideration only apply to transactions including delivery of cannabis. Sales of related items and accessories are not mentioned in the law and assumed legal if substantially and demonstrably separate from the controlled substance. These sales are segregated to ensure that they do not go towards supplies, utilities or other costs associated with the production of marijuana. Again, it is assumed raw marijuana that has already been produced can be legally processed and refined by suppliers who charge for their service and do not have an ownership stake in the crop.


Related club businesses that are separable from the production of the plant include services for patients like processing, curing, crop storage, soil sales, equipment sales and leasing, accessory sales, lounge sales, event space rentals, membership dues, compliance services and transaction fees for use of a market or shopping club. Transaction fees are related to storage and compliance services provided by the bud bank at the marketplace. Volunteer labor can be part of an agricultural school that charges tuition. Growers who can't be paid to grow can be paid to teach. Garden inspection and certification for inter club bud banking is another business opportunity. Ancillary business opportunities centered around and utilizing the free plant will provide many ways to make money.

[Otishertz]

11. Conclusions:



Plan O fits current OMMP laws because no plant ever sold by weight, there are no wages for growing, and the entire crop is disseminated to its patient owners. It gets the pay and profit away from the plant, allowing members to make medicine from the steady supply of a free ingredient. No price per ounce or sale by weight satisfies the requirement of the OMMP that there be no consideration paid for the transfer of cannabis. No where in this plan will you find selling by weight. There is only the transfer of individual crop share balances at zero price.


Key components of this plan:

1. Crop share CSA structure
2. A standardized supply
3. House gardens
4. Bud Bank
5. Time Bank
6. No sale by weight and no wages
7. Barter market.


Plan O makes self help, self health, self sufficiency, and self employment possible by creating a non-monetary system to perform functions the rest of society legally does with money and profit. Adding value from shared resources is the best way to grow a durable organization. Each additional shared resource increases organizational sustainability. The value is in the exchange, not the intermediary currency. Facilitating exchange adds value by increasing options. Coordinating open exchanges creates a market whether or not there is a medium of exchange.


Plan O is a tax free version of a dispensary system that only requires people to think differently. Independent barter markets that trade between themselves create a similar result to M74 without all the pesky taxes while simultaneously strengthening community ties. Nothing in this idea requires anyone to submit to any new authority or generate any new law. No law change is required and compliance is ensured by the structure of the system. The power of this proposal is in its independent duplication.


Sustainable community self employment is the top goal of Plan O. Tens of thousands of existing current medical growers are waiting for their labor to become legal in the future Oregon cannabis industry. Plan O makes self help, self health, self sufficiency, and self employment possible by creating a non-monetary system to perform functions the rest of society legally does with money and profit. Adding value from shared resources is the best way to grow a durable organization. Each additional shared resource increases organizational sustainability. The value is in the exchange, not the intermediary currency. Facilitating exchange adds value by increasing options. Coordinating open exchanges creates a market whether or not there is a unit of exchange.


Adoption of these business practices could ensure the future Oregon cannabis market is diverse and broad based by deeply establishing our growers, confectioners and processors in advance of recreational legalization through their employment, maintaining their capacity, and providing an arena for their own Made in Oregon products. Our plant is not free in this society until there is a free market for it in which we can all participate. The best hope for top shelf craft marijuana is an open marketplace with low barriers to entry that is deliberately structured to reduce corporate advantage.


We can build community self-help structures to grow organizational roots that last far beyond legalization and provide long term employment for cardholders that will still be here in 50 years as the legacy of our community's intentional emphasis on cooperation over competition. We have the knowledge, the genetics, the equipment and capacity to grow more high quality cannabis in an organizational setting than anyone has ever seen. We can find ways to survive in larger structures that we build around the free plant. We can employ ourselves, supply ourselves, and entrench our ideals in the history of marijuana.

[Sexpot]

                 ____
                (      )           |^|^|^|^|
                 ====            \|/|\|/|\|/
                (____)            |O     O |
             /\    /\   /\          |   <    |
             \ \  | |  / /          |  \_/  |
              \  \| | / /             \{{{/                     FOUNTAIN
               \_     _/          ____|{|____                  TOWN!
                  | |_~        /                  \
                 (==~  \     /                     \
                  | |   \  \  /  /   o      o    \  \
                  | |    \  \/  /                | \  \
                  | |     \___/|               |   \  \
                  | |            |       o       |  (    )
                  | |            |                |   !!!!`
                  | |            |~ ~ ~ ~ ~ |
                  | |            |                |
                  | |            \                \
                  | |              \               \
                  | |                \              \
                  | |                  \             \
                  | |                  /               \
                 |__|               /         \         \
                                   /          _/\_         \
                                 /~`~`~`      `~`~`~\

[Smokeyhot]

Lololol how cute the little tin tin ......

[Missy]

count me in!

[sativa]

wow .. beautiful,  I love this !  blessed, beautiful day everyone! love sativa

[Sexpot]

Not Tintin, lol! The statue of a bearded merman colossus with a cheeseburger on a pitchfork!   

[Smokeyhot]

 

[Otishertz]

On first glance this open source software Cyclos appears to do everything needed to run a Crop Circle Club with a Time Bank. It includes online banking, mobile banking, POS, e-commerce, and credit/debit cards as well. The program would need to be altered to throttle accounts at maximum legal weight per member cardholder. Cyclos does not have capability to handle IRS reporting requirements (see below). This capability would need to be custom built into the software. Transactions below $1.00 in market value are exempt. OMMP cannabis has no legal value so the money free exchanges described in Plan O may be exempt. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer or a tax specialist but a random guy with crazy ideas who claims no authority whatsoever. Do not try this at home.

The Cyclos project

http://project.cyclos.org/



Cyclos is a project of the Dutch non profit organization STRO.

http://www.socialtrade.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=20&Itemid=8&lang=en



The objective of the project is to develop open source complementary currency software that is easy to use and maintain, flexible, secure, and highly customizable. The Cyclos structure is entirely dynamic. This means that it is possible to 'build' a monetary system from scratch. Organizations that want a standard system can use the default database that comes with basic configurations and can be easily enhanced. Cyclos is used for mutual credit systems like LETS, Barter systems, administration of Micro credits or remittances, Time banks and backed currency systems such as a C3 (consumer and commerce circuit). Cyclos just started to be used as a back-end for mobile banking services in Africa, and various Universities are studying the possibility to use Cyclos as a campus payment system.

Free Online Demo:

http://project.cyclos.org/cyclos-demo

IRS Barter Reporting Info:

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=188094,00.html

Tax Requirements for Barter Exchanges


Barter exchanges, whether Internet based or with a physical location, are required to file Form 1099-B for all transactions unless certain exceptions are met. Barter exchanges are not required to file Form 1099-B for:

    Exchanges through a barter exchange having fewer than 100 transactions during the year
    Exempt foreign persons as defined in Regulations section 1.6045-1(g)(1)
    Exchanges involving property or services with a fair market value of less than $1.00

For calendar year 2008, Copy B of Form 1099-B is due to barter exchange participants by February 2, 2009. Copy A of the form is required to be filed with the IRS by March 2, 2009. If filing electronically, the due date is March 31, 2009. Software that generates a file according to the specifications in Publication 1220, Specifications for Filing Forms 1098, 1099, 5498, and W-2G Electronically (PDF) must be used by barter exchanges. The IRS does not provide a fill-in form option.

Caution: Paper forms are scanned during processing by the IRS. Forms 1096, 1098, 1099, or 5498 that are printed from IRS.gov will not be accepted.

Non-corporate client or member bartering is reported on a transactional basis on Form 1099-B, but additional information is to be added to the form by the barter exchange. Under Regulation 1.6045-1(f)(i), barter exchanges are required to make a return of information reporting the name, address, and taxpayer identification number of each member or client providing property or services in the exchange, the property or services provided, the amount received by the member or client for such property or services, the date on which the exchange occurred and other information required on Form 1099-B. This means that multiple Forms 1099-B may be required for member clients with multiple bartering transactions during the year. To learn more about 1.6045-a(f)(i), Returns of Information of Broker and Barter Exchanges, visit the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations site, click on "Simple Search" and enter 26 in the Title and "Returns of information of brokers and barter exchanges." in the "Search for" field.

Corporate client or member bartering is reported on the aggregate for the year, rather than on a transactional basis.  Under Regulation 1.6045-1(f)(ii), barter exchanges are required to file annual Forms 1099-B including the aggregate or total amount received by a corporate client or member during the year for property or services provided by the corporate client or member in all barter transactions through the barter exchange.  Form 1099-B additionally requires the name, address, and taxpayer identification number of the corporate client or member.
Penalty for Not Filing or Filing Incorrect Forms 1099-B

Failure to file Forms 1099-B can result in significant penalties under Internal Revenue Code Section 6721. The penalty is based on when correct information returns are filed. The penalties are:

    $15 per information return if filed correctly within 30 days of the specified due date with a maximum penalty of $75,000 per year ($25,000 for small businesses, defined below).
    $30 per information return if filed correctly more than 30 days after the due date, but by August 1 with a maximum penalty of $150,000 per year ($50,000 for small businesses).
    $50 per information return if filed after August 1, or not filed, with a maximum penalty of $250,000 per year ($100,000 for small businesses).
    A minimum of $100 for each unfiled information return for intentional disregard.

International Reciprocal Trade Association

IRS Reporting:

http://www.irta.com/irs-reporting.html


Other Software:


http://p2pfoundation.net/Complementary_Currency_Software

http://www.complementarycurrency.org/software.html



A large collection of my links concerning alternative economic systems, crowdfunding, community currencies, time banks, barter, and open source exchange software can be found here:

http://www.otisgardens.com/forum/index.php?action=links;cat=1