Medical marijuana dispensaries face a looming deadline in Denver. On Monday, March 1, any dispensary that hasn’t applied for a medical marijuana dispensary license must “cease operations,” according to an announcement sent by the city yesterday.

Cease operations, or what? The release doesn’t say, but it does reveal that by the end of Tuesday, only 81 dispensaries had filed their applications (and paid upwards of $5,000 to do so) — which means that another 400 could be walking through the doors of the Wellington E. Webb Building over the next two days.

Do the math: By early February, when the city started accepting dispensary applications, close to 500 businesses that said they were operating, or planned to operate, as a dispensary had already gotten sales-tax licenses from the city. So more than 400 current or would-be dispensaries still need to take the next step if they want to operate in Denver.

Eighty-one dispensaries at $5,000 each works out to $405,000… 500 of them in compliance would be $2.5 million for the city.  Looks like someone at city hall figured out there’s gold in them thar buds!  And that’s in addition to the 4.64% in sales taxes Denver takes in for itself, the mass transit, the museums, and the football stadium.

Cities making millions, non-profit dispensary owners paying themselves hundreds of thousands, it’s like medical marijuana is the only manufacturing jobs and growth industry we have left in America.

So is this the end-around for the feds to instigate more raids?  Promise they won’t raid those in compliance with state law, let states write expensive regulations and zoning codes that make compliance nearly impossible, then feds can raid and say “ah, but you’re not in compliance with state law.”