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Medical Marijuana: Will Colorados green rush last?When people go to the polls two weeks from now they wont just be voting for candidates, in some states, theyll be passing judgment on social issues. In Oregon, Washington and the Rocky Mountain state of Colorado its the legalization of marijuana. Part of this has to do with cash-starved governments looking for new things to tax for more revenue. But much of it has to do with the growing acceptance or at least tolerance for a drug that was once considered the devils weed and a flashpoint for cultural and generational warfare.Seventeen states have now legalized its medical use for the treatment of things like glaucoma, the effects of chemotherapy, and chronic pain; defying federal laws that still consider marijuana more dangerous than cocaine and methamphetamine. If you want to know what legalized marijuana might look like, the place to go is Colorado, which has the most developed medical marijuana industry in the country. In Denver, if you want to find a medical marijuana dispensary, just look for the green cross. You wont have to go far. There are 204 of them in the Mile High City - thats roughly three times the number of Starbucks and McDonalds combined.They come in all sizes and shapes. There is the health food store motif and 70s style head shops. There are storefronts pitching low cost weed, and boutiques offering gourmet ganja. No stems and seeds here, just walnut-sized buds freshly harvested in the cultivation room out back. Matt Cook: When patients arrive, this is where theyll have to show their patient registry card and their drivers license to gain access to the actual marijuana center, itself.Steve Kroft: You could smell it. (laugh)This is all private enterprise, licensed and regulated and taxed by the state. It was enshrined in the Colorado constitution after voters approved an amendment allowing the sale of marijuana to people who can demonstrate that they may benefit from its avowed medicinal properties. Matt Cook, a former narcotics officer, wrote the law and served as the states first director of enforcement. Matt Cook: If youll note, video security cameras in the system-in the ceiling.Steve Kroft: Any reason for that?Matt Cook: There is. We created a very transparent, regulatory scheme and wanted to ensure that what they said they were doing, they were actually doing.No state has gone to the lengths to manage medical marijuana that Colorado has. Every licensed dispensary must grow at least 70 percent of its own product indoors so harvesting and sales can be closely monitored. This crop is worth about a quarter of million dollars. Matt Cook: We track everything from seed to sale. And they have to account for 100 percent of it. Weve got a gentleman here that has a live, if you will, software program that does all of the tracking for this commodity.Each plant has a bar code and is registered to a specific patient. Most dispensaries will cultivate a couple of dozen different strains, some of them proprietary, like ales at a microbrewery - engineered to have particular characteristics as our budtender, Carrie, explained. Carrie: This is called Jack Frost, but its a triple A: alert, awake, and aware. If you needed to medicate in the a.m. before going to work, no one would ever be able to detect that you took any medicine, just as you would any other medicines that you take. So no physical lethargy, is my point.We should point out that those properties are anecdotal and not based on studies by the FDA or the DEA, a subject we will get to shortly. There is also no correlation between the more popular brand names and the ailments they alleviate. Dopium is a medication available at Denver Relief, owned by Ean Seeb. Its gotten high marks from critics - yes, there are medical marijuana critics in Colorado, even competitions. Steve Kroft: You won the Colorado Medical Marijuana Harvest Cup? Couple of years ago?Ean Seeb: We did. In 2009. And our Biodiesel won five out of the six categories and first place. So we won the overall award. It was a sweeping victory, if you will. And then we put-Steve Kroft: Biodiesel?Ean Seeb: Yeah. I-Steve Kroft: Thats the name of it?Ean Seeb: Yes, it is. And its become-Steve Kroft: Doesnt sound like medicine. (laugh)Ean Seeb: Theres a lot of strains out there that dont sound like medicine because this didnt used to be legal. And those strain names have not changed. You know, strains back in the 70s. You know, there was Afghani that we still have, AK-47 that came from the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan originally.But its not all brand loyalty and nostalgia. There are lots of new things on the dispensary shelf, especially for non-smokers. Theyre called edibles, the marriage of botanical science and the culinary arts: marijuana infused cookies, candy, chocolate truffles, even olive oil. And for patients watching their waistline, there are marijuana pills that come in different strengths, just like Tylenol and Advil. Carrie: You simply take it with a glass of water and it puts you where you need to be. The people who have invested money in all of this are known locally as ganjapreneurs. Colorado has had a history of gold rushes and silver rushes, and some people have dubbed this the green rush, not just for the color of medical marijuana, but for the money that might eventually be made here if you are among the first to stake a claim.Kristi Kelly was doing marketing in Washington, when she decided to invest in a medical marijuana dispensary.Kristi Kelly: Theres not a lot of opportunities in any one lifetime where you can be a part of something from such an early stage. And so, ultimately, my partners begged me to come out. And my husband and I packed up our bags and shut down our life in DC and moved out here.Tripp Keber: The companys evolution has been fairly dynamic.Tripp Keber is CEO of Dixie Elixirs, the leading manufacturer of cannabis-laced edibles. It supplies most of the states 537 dispensaries from this factory, which he calls state of the art for the industry, which means small scale.Tripp Keber: So here we have Lexi, who is one of our production specialists. Shes preparing our medicated chocolate rolls, which are certainly one of our most popular edibles products.Steve Kroft: Smells really good. It looks good.Female voice: Thank you. (laugh)Dixie Elixirs product line includes ice creams and medicated beverages that come in 10 different flavors. Tripp Keber: We have a 75-milligram, 12-ounce sparkling red currant, would be the equivalent of four or five doses of medicine for a patient.Steve Kroft: What would happen to me if I drank one of these?Tripp Keber: You would have a very long, but mellow afternoon. (laughter)Keber and his partners have poured a million dollars into this business, and have also pioneered edible products and capsules they say contain all of the medicinal benefits of marijuana, but without the high. Steve Kroft: Whats your business plan?Tripp Keber: So our plan- you know, and Im-Steve Kroft: Long-term and short-term.Tripp Keber: Sure, the long-term plan for this business for Dixie Elixirs and Edibles as Ive never been really shy to share is ultimately to sell it. I truly believe that whether its Big Alcohol, Big Tobacco or Big Pharma, a company like one of those is going to look very, very closely at medical cannabis. Its about a two billion dollar market in 2012, growing to just under nine billion dollars in 2016. So youre seeing hockey stick growth. And I think companies like Dixie are well-positioned to be acquired as the industry develops.Its a risky proposition. The industry requires a big capital investment and the medical marijuana marketplace is already saturated. But Matt Cook, who wrote the rule book for all this and is now a consultant to the medical marijuana industry, says its helped pull Denver out of the recession - occupying once vacant retail and industrial space, providing thousands of jobs and new revenue for the state of Colorado. Steve Kroft: Whats the economic impact been?Matt Cook: Its huge. Theres over a million square feet of leased space in the Denver area. Look at all the electrical contractors, the HVAC contractors, a number of ancillary businesses. Its huge. Tax revenues exceeded- I believe the last number I heard was in excess of $20 million.But in spite of all the euphoria, there is a cloud hanging over the cannabis industry in Colorado, and its not marijuana smoke. Its the federal Controlled Substances Act, which still lists marijuana as a Schedule One drug, every bit as dangerous as heroin, with no medical benefit. And the Justice Department is not happy with the wide-scale commercialization of Colorado cannabis. Sam Kamin is a law professor at the University of Denver, and one of the reigning experts on the subject.Steve Kroft: In Colorado, you can grow it if youre licensed and you can sell it if youre licensed to people who have a card to buy it.Sam Kamin: Yes, but-Steve Kroft: And all of those people are violating federal law.Sam Kamin: Exactly. And thats the really strange thing is that we have this, you know, sort of hundreds of dispensaries servicing as many as 100,000 people and every transaction that occurs is a federal crime and every - all the manufacturing of the product, from the growing of it to the making of the products and everything else, all of those are serious federal crimes.Steve Kroft: Even though the state of Colorado has passed a constitutional amendment- amendment allowing it-Sam Kamin: Exactly.Steve Kroft: -sanctioning it.Sam Kamin: Exactly. Right? The federal government sees it as a serious crime. They say, We know that California and 16 other states, the District of Columbia - we know you guys think its medicine. Its not. We hear that you want to legalize it. You cant. We cant make you undo your statutes, but we can sure come in and prosecute your citizens that are violating federal law.Steve Kroft: But they havent.Sam Kamin: But they havent. And theres a reason for that. Some might call it the triumph of the marketplace. The federal government doesnt have enough manpower to shut down the medical marijuana business in Colorado or prosecute all the purveyors and patients. And the voters dont want it.Boulder County District attorney Stan Garnett says its virtually impossible to impanel a jury on a marijuana case here, let alone get a conviction. Stan Garnett: What we deal with is what prosecutors call jury nullification, where juries say, I know what the law is, but Im not going to follow it. This community has made it very clear that criminal enforcement of marijuana is not something they want me to spend any time on.Steve Kroft: It is really an issue here?Stan Garnett: Its really not an issue.And that is more or less the position of Justice Department in Washington. Deputy Attorney General James Cole has told U.S. attorneys not to waste resources prosecuting patients or caregivers that are in clear compliance with state medical marijuana laws. James Cole: Our focus is really on keeping it away from children. Our focus is keeping it out of the hands of organized crime. Our focus is making sure that people arent, through marijuana dispensaries, using it as a pretext to do large-scale interstate drug dealing. These are the areas where were really trying to focus.Steve Kroft: So the message is, if youre licensed in the state of Colorado and you follow the law, then you should be okay.James Cole: Each case is going to rise and fall on its own unique facts. Any of that is still in violation of the Controlled Substances Act of the federal law. Were not interested in bothering people who are sick and are using it in the recommendation of a doctor. We are concerned with people who are using it as a pretext to become large-scale drug dealers. Steve Kroft: So it sounds like the federal government is tolerating it.Sam Kamin: It is tolerating it. And at the same time is below the surface, trying to make it very difficult for these folks. Its doing it through banking regulations. If you talk to dispensary owners, one of the things that they will lament is, no one will do business with us.The Justice Department has let it be known if financial institutions do business with medical marijuana centers, they could be at risk for civil or criminal prosecution under the Controlled Substances Act or federal money laundering statutes. Its made it difficult, if not impossible for dispensaries to get loans, open company bank accounts or process patients credit cards. Sam Kamin: It cant stay like this. Either we have to have settled expectations that this is a federal crime, the federal governments not going to tolerate it. Or the federal government is going to let states like Colorado regulate it, tax it, experiment with it. To have it exist in both worlds simultaneously is unsustainable. We cant have a multimillion dollar industry built on criminal conduct. A federal appeals court in Washington D.C. is currently hearing a case that could remove marijuana from the list of the most dangerous drugs, and into a category that would allow it to be prescribed by doctors. On the political front, the referendums in Colorado and Washington state to legalize marijuana for recreational use are considered too close to call.Goldman Sachs VP explains why he quitMany of us have, at some point in our lives, dreamed of quitting our jobs very loudly and telling our bosses exactly what we really think. Very few of us ever do it. But seven months ago, a vice president at the legendary investment bank Goldman Sachs did just that, resigning in an article on the op-ed page of The New York Times. The article caused a sensation - not just because its author Greg Smith was saying, three-and-a-half years after the financial crisis, that the bank was headed on the wrong ethical course, but also because its so unusual to learn anything at all about the inner workings of Goldman Sachs. When people leave Goldman, they tend to do it quietly. Though the firms gold-plated reputation took a big hit after the 2008 financial crisis, its still regarded as the smartest, most profitable and politically well-connected firm on Wall Street, and the toughest place to get a job. Now, on the eve of publishing a book about his experiences at Goldman, Greg Smith is talking for the first time about what led him to leave the firm, and to do it in such a public way.Greg Smith: I literally wanted to hit the board of directors over the head, and say, Listen, I was proud of Goldman Sachs. I worked here for a long time. Anderson Cooper: So an op-ed resignation, you hoped it would be a wake up call?Greg Smith: I really did. Because there are a lotta people who acknowledge things internally. But no one is willing to say it publicly. And my view was the only way, you force people to change the system, is by saying something publicly.At the time he left Goldman Sachs, Greg Smith was 33 years old, and making roughly half a million dollars a year as a vice president, a mid-level position in the division of Goldman Sachs that trades securities for hedge funds, pension funds, and other big investors. Hed been at the firm for about 12 years, and could hardly have scripted a more dramatic exit. Integrity? It is eroding, he wrote in The New York Times. The environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.it makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off.Greg Smith: You know, this might be hard for people at Goldman Sachs to understand, but I loved the place. I put a lot of my heart and soul into it. I dont view it as a betrayal. I actually think the leaders of Goldman Sachs today dont have the long run interests of the institution at heart.Anderson Cooper: Did anybody within the firm know you were going to be leaving?Greg Smith: No.Anderson Cooper: So, the first time many people within Goldman Sachs learned you were leaving was when they opened up The New York Times and saw this op-ed.Greg Smith: Yeah, I mean the idea of the op-ed was not to do any destruction. Anderson Cooper: I think some people are- just arent going to believe that, that- to not give notice to a company youve worked for for 12 years, and in the most public way possible in the page of The New York Times, to say that they are going against all the values that they once held, how can that not be seen by- as a betrayal?Greg Smith: Well, its true. I mean, I think the company is going against the values it once held. Goldman Sachs recruiting video: Join a culture of excellence, with a reputation for integrity.Goldman Sachs.For years Greg Smith was one of the companys true believers. He was selected to appear in this 2006 recruiting video, in which he talked about the business principles Goldman teaches to every new employee.Born and raised in South Africa, Smith was an economics major at Stanford University when Goldman recruited him as a summer intern in 2000 and hired him the following year. Smith rose through the ranks at a time when Goldmans revenues from trading increased five-fold in five years. It was the result of a boom in complex financial products and a loosening of financial regulations that enabled Goldman and other banks to vastly increase profits by doing transactions for their clients while trading with their own money as well.Greg Smith: Goldman Sachs, and other firms on Wall Street, started learning how to use the information they were getting from their clients, in order to bet with their own money. At times, betting against their clients. And you know, thats a real changed mentality from how do we do what our client wants to do? Not how do we take advantage