Proposed Medical Marijuana Rules Would Rush Compliance

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by: Whiskey Lima Juliet

( – promoted by Danny the Red (hair))

(From Matt Brown the Executive Director of Coloradoans for Medical Marijuana Regulation – CMMR)

Colorado’s medical marijuana industry continues to be a lone bright spot in an otherwise bleak economic landscape. In less than a year, thousands of entrepreneurs across the state have stepped up to shape an entirely new healthcare model serving the previously unmet medical needs for tens of thousands of Coloradans. Perhaps most miraculously, we do it all with virtually no regulation from the state and a federal government that seems to have, at best, a tenuous grasp on its own law enforcement agencies.

Unlike many of my peers, I spent this 4/20 in the capital watching Colorado’s House have their final debate on proposed medical marijuana business regulations. After more than 2 hours of floor debate and more proposed amendments than this year’s state budget, a 72-page bill emerged that clarifies and protects the medical marijuana supply chain. It gave the Department of Revenue authority to bring all stakeholders to the table to write the rules that accompany a new 72 page law. By July 1 of this year all existing caregiver businesses would have to register their existence with the state, and by July 1 of next year all dispensaries would have to submit a formal application to state and local officials pursuant to the new rules. Most importantly, the 2011 General Session would occur before all the new regulations are put into effect to allow for any changes that will be needed.

In the midst of this debate, I watched several people go the podium only to say “it’s all about jobs, jobs, jobs,” which, ironically, was always sure to get a round of laughs from the room. It was less laughable a few weeks before, when GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis spoke about the importance of Colorado’s economic prosperity.

“You know the (jobs) that had 100% medical insurance, the ones that went down to the dealership and bought the big pickups, the ones that were our neighbors, ate in our restaurants… many of us (were) involved in that.”

While Mr. McInnis was talking about jobs lost in the natural gas industry, he just as easily could have been talking about jobs added in the medical marijuana industry. Our industry was built on sweat, equity and personal savings. Bank loans don’t exist for us, and even checking accounts are often hard to get approved. Most dispensaries rapidly reinvest virtually every dollar of profit to upgrade their facilities, hire more employees, and evolve with the industry and it’s regulations. We eat in local restaurants, we hire our neighbors to help build this industry, and the money we earn is quickly reinvested in our community. We are your neighbors, and the benefits felt in medical marijuana are quickly felt across the entire state.

However, two changes made by the Senate appropriations committee on Friday threaten to undo virtually everything beneficial about this bill. No longer does it give everyone – local governments, Department of Revenue, caregivers – a year to pragmatically write and implement this new system. Instead, many of the “new rules” would go into effect roughly six weeks after the bill is signed. Another change eliminates the one-year period for growers and dispensaries to comply with the “70/30 rule”, which says all dispensaries must produce at least 70% of their own inventory. No politician would dream of writing a law requiring Whole Foods to grow at least 70% of the produce they sell, much less on 6 weeks notice, yet the state legislature appears ready to force just such a change on our caregiver businesses.

In contrast, the legislature recently passed HB1365, which incentivizes Xcel Energy to convert three coal power plants to natural gas. This bill requires Xcel to have a plan ready by Aug 15, then allows another 17 weeks for all stakeholders to get ready to implement the change, followed by a full eight years to complete the transition. The bill has bipartisan support from environmentalists, Colorado gas companies, and Xcel and has been praised as a model for other states to follow. Yet such a deal would be unthinkable if Xcel only had a few weeks or months to complete the transition.

Since all actual costs of implementing the program have to be paid by new fees, the chaos of simultaneously writing and enforcing this brand new regulatory structure will require lots of full-time and temporary staff at Department of Revenue, which translates to thousands of dollars in new fees per applicant. So, imagine a new law that not only forced Whole Foods to grow 70% of their own produce, but also that every grocery store in the state would have to pay thousands of dollars in unexpected fees to remain in business beyond next month. Such a sweeping transformation would be unthinkable to force on virtually any other business with only 6 weeks to prepare, yet this is exactly what is now being considered by our state’s Senate.

If you are a patient or provider that has checked out of this process until now, today is the day to get involved. Our legislators still seem to think that the only thing that gets “the marijuana vote” is a ballot initiative with the word “Marijuana” in its title. What they don’t understand is that in 2009, “the marijuana vote” expanded to include everyone that feels the trickle down effects of this new opportunity. Landlords, publishers, contractors, accountants and business lawyers have begun to work with us. Local governments once consumed with quickly implementing moratoriums are now planning their local regulations for after the state has acted. And most importantly, our state’s 100,000+ medical marijuana patients and providers deserve to have a system they can rely on. In return, Colorado can lead the nation in medical marijuana public policy and research into the science of marijuana.

Between July 1 and December 1 of last year – the height of our industry’s growth – 50,400 people across the state found a job and got off unemployment. While medical marijuana certainly didn’t account for all those new jobs, our industry was a catalyst that supported a lot of them. Now is the time to lock in the compromise reached in the House, to provide fair business regulations to Colorado’s medical marijuana industry and to move forward on rationally implementing these new regulations.

Remember, it’s all about jobs, jobs, jobs.

Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/co_mmj_regs

15 thoughts on “Proposed Medical Marijuana Rules Would Rush Compliance”

Whiskey Lima Juliet says:

May 3, 2010 at 8:01 pm

Sen. Romer is in bed with the larger out of state dispensaries. Their hope is that Romer’s bill will put all of their competition out of business so that they can pave the way for the large California Dispensaries with millions of dollars and the ability to run the MMJ business as a monopoly.

Before Sen. Romer claims he had no idea, allow me to stop him in his tracks. He has had clear idea of what he is doing, in no unmistakable terms. He has heard from me and many other legitimate business owners.

How can someone decide to run for Mayor of a town that has been built on small business enterprise and be the resounding force that will shut down the only growing industry in that city?

Maybe Michael Hancock is the better choice for Mayor of Denver. I have 100,000 friends that might just agree with me.

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1. Danny the Red (hair) says:
  
  May 3, 2010 at 8:14 pm
  
  One thing I’ve noted in this debate is how the MMJ community turns on anyone who has any disagreement with their position.
  
  I have discussed privately my views on MMJ with you. I agree that the implementation period is too short, but I also believe the dispensaries should control 100% of the production chain, not the 70% compromise. Trading product amongst growers would be acceptable to me, but I don’t like the hollowed out houses in suburban neighborhood phenomenon and other MMJ coming from rogue sources.
  
  Sorry I missed you last week, I’ll try and stop by again this week.
  
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  1. Whiskey Lima Juliet says:
    
    May 3, 2010 at 8:25 pm
    
    We do grow our own, let me be clear. But this doesn’t even good the businesses a chance. It does give the California guys the leg up. Dispensaries in Califonia have millions, their grows are untracable. If you have dispensary that can grow 22,000 square feet in Colorado, have even larger grows in Cali, how much is coming here from out of state? There will be no way to track it.
    
    Give the Colorado dispensaries an opportuntity to grow. Cali has been doing this for over 10 years. Making Colorado businesses be up to 70% by July 1 is clearly saying, “Hey, Cali come take over Colorado!”
    
    Not turning on Romer. He has just decided to get in bed with people from out of state and is not listening to the people who are creating local jobs and hiring local people. I have tried to help him as much as I can. But like most politicans he has head in a place where he can only hear the sound of money being dropped in his campaign war chest. I don’t support that.
    
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    1. Whiskey Lima Juliet says:
      
      May 3, 2010 at 8:28 pm
      
      If this passes there will be more grows in houses, not less. You will effectively push everything back underground. If you want legal, clean grows, put somethng in place that allows that to happen.
      
      Trust me. The pot industry knows how to grow underground without you knowing about it. They have been doing it since 1937!!!!!
      
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Ray Springfield says:

May 3, 2010 at 8:04 pm

n/t

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cunninjo says:

May 3, 2010 at 11:00 pm

Would the medical marijuana community be open to moving towards prescribing TCH in pill form rather than smoking/consuming marijuana? If TCH is the active ingredient that provides all the health benefits, a pill would allow for more accurate measuring of TCH.

I would love to hear your thoughts because from the marijuana advocates I’ve spoken with they are opposed to this. They are also opposed to selling medical marijuana in pharmacies under the supervision of medically trained pharmacists.

It seems to me that marijuana advocates are more concerned with being able to SMOKE the product than truly helping those who benefit from TCH. A pill would go a lot further than a joint.

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1. Middle of the Road says:
  
  May 3, 2010 at 11:10 pm
  
  comes immediately to mind–if the patient is nauseous, keeping a pill down is going to be next to impossible. I’m guessing that’s one of the primary benefits of smoking it.
  
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2. RedGreen says:
  
  May 3, 2010 at 11:16 pm
  
  For one thing, it’s THC, not TCH, and that’s not the ingredient that provides the health benefits. The entire premise of your question is wrong.
  
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  1. cunninjo says:
    
    May 4, 2010 at 12:06 am
    
    THC is one of the two most abundant cannabinoids and is most directly responsible for the ‘high’ – http://www.lycaeum.org/~sky/da…
    
    While I apologize for getting my C and H mixed, you failed to answer the question, which I think is quite legitimate. If the goal of the marijuana community is not to simply use ‘medical’ marijuana as a stepping stone for the legalization of ALL marijuana, then why would they be opposed to a more scientific, and thus, more economical distribution of those beneficial ingredients found in marijuana?
    
    And if the goal is not the legalization of ALL marijuana then why not allow for the distribution of this medicinal product at pharmacies?
    
    I personally don’t care whether it’s legal or not. I’m not convinced that the medical benefits of marijuana can’t be treated more effectively with other products. And I KNOW, from personal friends of mine, that many ‘medical’ users smoke it more for the ‘high’ than for the medical benefits.
    
    The industry has NOT regulated itself, as this diary suggests. It has provided permits to people with very minor pain, and who’ve been long-time users, not for medical purposes, but for recreational purposes.
    
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    1. Canines says:
      
      May 4, 2010 at 12:40 am
      
      Pretty broad brush you’re painting with. Here are some Colorado Springs supporters of medical marijuana who are looking into various pharmaceutical uses:
      
      http://www.gazette.com/article…
      
      Is it solely up to medical marijuana supporters to see to it that it can be sold at pharmacies? Please. Take it up with your Senator and congress people. That’s where the change comes from.
      
      By the way, how effective is smoking marijuana? Golly, hard to say since the federal government doesn’t allow it to be studied, as the New York Times points out:
      
      http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01…
      
      Despite the Obama administration’s tacit support of more liberal state medical marijuana laws, the federal government still discourages research into the medicinal uses of smoked marijuana. That may be one reason that – even though some patients swear by it – there is no good scientific evidence that legalizing marijuana’s use provides any benefits over current therapies.
      
      I love it how people who are puking their guts up due to cancer or AIDS chemotherapy are being told to take a pill for nausea — a pill which takes an hour or so to take effect — rather than smoking cannabis. Doh!
      
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3. Canines says:
  
  May 3, 2010 at 11:28 pm
  
  Because cannabis is a Schedule I drug, strictly prohibited from being prescribed by doctors or sold by pharmacists. So I guess it doesn’t matter whether cannabis using patients would prefer to buy it there or not. If you don’t like it, change federal law.
  
  THC is one ingredient in cannabis. There are health benefits from other chemicals (like CBD) as well. Some people find the THC pill too overwhelming, especially newbies. Some find it ineffective. While I wouldn’t rule out the use of a pharmaceutical pill for those who do find it effective, it’s nice to have options which patients and doctors can discuss: smoked or vaporized cannabis, edibles, tinctures. But perhaps you disagree.
  
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4. SSG_Dan says:
  
  May 4, 2010 at 12:00 am
  
  And it’s a Schedule III drug – info here:
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T…
  
  And yes, it takes a full hour for the drug to take effect, versus a few minutes if smoked.
  
  Opates such as Morphine are prescribed for pain, but no one is smoking heroin…..
  
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  1. DavidThi808 says:
    
    May 4, 2010 at 1:22 am
    
    Worked great. And I was sick as a dog but was able to swallow the pill.
    
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    1. Canines says:
      
      May 4, 2010 at 1:40 am
      
      Worked shitty.
      
      I’m glad some people find it effective — and I think it ought to be offered by doctors. But it doesn’t work well for everyone and there ought to be other options.
      
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sxp151 says:

May 3, 2010 at 11:59 pm

I got confused; I thought this diary was going to be about Rush Limbaugh finally complying with drug laws. Guess we still have to wait for that.

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