A HEADY DEBATE ON MEDICAL POT

If you were trying to be diplomatic, you might say the
teleconferenced state meeting last week on medical marijuana was chaotic.

Anonymous participants who had called in to the proceedings dropped
F-bombs, talked about a barbecue and a stolen car, and at one point
hijacked the call for five minutes by playing loud music.

This was supposed to be an emergency meeting of the state Board of
Health to consider the definition of a medical marijuana caregiver.
Instead, it sounded like a frat party.

Welcome to the medical marijuana policymaking process.

As momentum builds for the state legislature to address problems that
have emerged due to the growth in the medical marijuana business in
recent months, expect this cacophony to grow louder and uglier.

"The problem with the legalization crew is that they don't understand
that the voters didn't approve legalization in 2000," said state Sen.
Chris Romer, D-Denver.

Be that as it may, it's important that spectacle not get in the way
of substance.

Romer is at the forefront of a group of policymakers who are
determined, as Romer put it, to put a "robust regulatory framework"
on the state's exploding medical marijuana industry.

The major concerns that have emerged since this summer, when the
Board of Health gave up on the idea of limiting caregiver patient
loads, involve the vast expansion of dispensaries and new patients.

The suspicion is the system is being gamed by those who see an
opportunity for de facto legalization and big profits that go along
with catering to marijuana users.

"It's like somebody ripped up the cattle guard and the livestock is
out," said Denver City Council member Charlie Brown, who is moving
forward with city regulations on medical marijuana.

Before legislators dive into the nitty gritty of regulation
proposals, they will have to make an important public policy decision
that will set the stage for the remainder of the debate, and
determine the definition of a caregiver. A state appeals court
recently said a caregiver had to be more than someone who just
supplied marijuana for medical use.

The key question for legislators is whether they think the 2000
constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana would
accommodate the recognition of dispensaries as caregivers, keeping in
mind the amendment makes no mention of dispensaries. Or, whether they
want to define a caregiver -- who is supposed to have significant
responsibility for managing the well-being of a patient -- as someone
with a limited patient load.

The latter route seems more in keeping with how Amendment 20 was
written, mentioning caregivers would be able to keep six plants on
behalf of a patient. That decision will profoundly shape the delivery
of medical marijuana in Colorado.

Limiting caregivers to a relative handful of patients would keep the
enterprise small-time and grassroots, which is how it had been until
the state Board of Health abandoned the idea of limiting the number
of patients a caregiver could have. Allowing dispensaries would
provide for commercialization and, some would say, the
professionalization of the business.

Romer wants to go the route of dispensaries -- licensing them and
closely regulating them. He is exploring a range of ideas that are
designed to shape the industry in a "medical model," as opposed to
the convenience store model. His ideas include disqualifying people
with criminal backgrounds from working in dispensaries or owning
them, prohibiting them from targeting advertisements to people less
than 21 years old, and requiring the product be grown in Colorado by
licensed farmers.

But you might expect that people who believe in the medicinal powers
of medical marijuana probably used it before. And if they're regular
users, it's not unlikely they've been busted. A criminal screen would
have to be carefully thought through, and not just applied as a
blanket excluder.

Requiring medical pot to be grown in Colorado by licensed producers
could help with quality control and cut down on illegal imports. It's
probably worth considering if legislators went the dispensary route.

As for a ban on advertising targeted to those younger than 21, that
would seem awfully tough to enforce. And at this point, is it really
a problem? Sticking to a clean set of justifiable regulations would
seem the best course.

Some, including Denver Council member Brown, want to explore taxing
medical marijuana. That is something state Attorney General John
Suthers plans to issue an opinion on.

If lawmakers wanted to impose something above the normal sales tax,
like a liquor tax, that would have to go to a vote of the people,
according to the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.

Beyond the fiscal implications, medical marijuana poses zoning and
land use issues, too, which will be largely local matters. Next to a
school? Probably not a good idea.

It won't be long before the debate in Colorado once again shifts to
whether marijuana ought to be legalized in the state. Voters shot
down the idea in 2006. But just last week, Breckenridge voters
overwhelmingly decided to legalize possession of an ounce or less.
Denver voters did the same in 2005.

It very well may be that those in the medical marijuana business are
shaping public opinion about legalization, for better or worse, by
how they handle the loosening of the legal leash afforded by medical marijuana.

That's something to think about the next time medical marijuana
proponents descend in droves on a public meeting.