stonedmetalhead1
Well-Known Member
Colorado's medical-marijuana laws could be relaxed to make it easier for felons to own dispensaries and exempt long-standing pot shops from buffer rules around schools.A bill unveiled this week at the state Capitol makes a number of changes to Colorado's medical- marijuana laws that are friendly to the cannabis industry. The bill also would ease rules for doctors with restricted licenses who want to recommend medical marijuana and would allow patients to shop in a dispensary immediately after sending in their medical-marijuana applications. It also would limit state residency requirements only to dispensary owners. State Rep. Tom Massey, a Poncha Springs Republican who is the bill's House sponsor, said the proposal came from listening to medical-marijuana business owners, state regulatory officials and law enforcement officers. "We're trying to do everything we can to make this a more workable system for the state," Massey said. House Bill 1043 also contains provisions creating new regulations. Caregivers — small- scale providers of medical marijuana to patients — would have to register with the state. The locations of commercial marijuana-growing facilities would be made public. And a cap would be placed for the first time on the number of plants a marijuana-infused-products maker could grow.Norton Arbelaez, the board chairman of the Medical Marijuana Industry Group, said the bill merely ties up "a lot of the loose ends that the Colorado medical- marijuana code left open." "It legitimizes the industry, and we support more clarity in the parameters that the industry should abide by," Arbelaez said. Mike Saccone, a spokesman for state Attorney General John Suthers, who has expressed skepticism about the medical-marijuana industry's growth, said his office had not yet taken a position on the bill.Arbelaez said loosening the residency requirements — the bill clarifies that only dispensary owners need to have been Colorado residents for at least two years — is the most important change the bill makes. Dispensary owners had worried they would have to fire employees who didn't meet the residency rules.The bill also prohibits only those who finished up a sentence for a drug-related felony within the past five years from owning a dispensary. Previously, all people convicted of a drug felony, and people discharging a sentence for any felony within the last five years, were prohibited.Meanwhile, the bill tweaks which restrictions on a doctor's license prevent the physician from recommending marijuana. The bill would require the state Medical Board in the future specifically to note when a doctor should be barred from writing medical-marijuana recommendations.Massey said he expects the bill to be the biggest medical-marijuana bill to come before the legislature this session, though he said additional, narrower efforts also are possible. He also hopes the bill won't generate the deeply contentious debates of last year's regulatory proposals.
"I hope this is a little easier," he said.
"I hope this is a little easier," he said.
