CLARIFY ROLE OF POT PROVIDERS

State Lawmakers Must Define a Medical Marijuana Caregiver in a Way
That's True to the Measure That Voters Approved in 2000.

Efforts by Denver's City Council to impose some order on medical
marijuana dispensaries through zoning regulations are understandable.

While we've advocated for the state legislature to regulate the
growing industry in some way, the longer the council waits, the more
difficult it will be to get a handle on the dispensaries popping up everywhere.

However, dispensary owners may not want to get too comfortable with
these new city rules since dispensaries are never even mentioned in
the medical marijuana constitutional amendment.

Indeed, the legislature could, and should, define a medical marijuana
caregiver in a way that's true to the measure voters approved in 2000.

If they do return to the model Colorado operated under for years, in
which a caregiver was defined as having no more than five patients,
it would most certainly end the proliferation of dispensaries. But
more importantly, it would follow more closely what voters intended in 2000.

Frankly, it's not the exact patient limit that is as important as
ensuring that whoever is providing medical marijuana to people "has
significant responsibility for managing the well-being of a patient
who has a debilitating medical condition." That wording comes
directly from the constitutional amendment approved by voters and is
at the center of the vacuum that has allowed hundreds of dispensaries
to pop up seemingly overnight. It is a phrase crying out for careful
definition.

Legislators must spell out what those words mean in keeping with the
spirit and letter of the amendment. The amendment's discussion of a
patient and primary caregiver collectively possessing 2 ounces of
marijuana and six plants sends the message that medical marijuana
would be a small-time, personal effort to quell, say, the effects of
cancer or glaucoma.

Nowhere is the word "dispensary" used, or the idea of a "Dr. Reefer"
commercial operation ever evoked.

Denver is one step away from requiring dispensaries to get special
licenses and keep them from opening too close to schools and
child-care facilities. Other cities have considered similar limits.

Legislators would do well to hear the frustration from cities that
are taking matters into their own hands. Their residents are troubled
by the explosion of dispensaries.

Though medical marijuana is a messy issue to address -- it will draw
big, loud crowds -- this is why we elect and pay state lawmakers. It
would be intolerable if they passed on it, leaving the issue to be
decided, case by case, in the courts.

However, as we've noted before, Sen. Chris Romer's bill -- the one
bill everyone seems to be focusing on -- is not the answer. It ranges
too far and wide, creating a swath of regulation for an industry that
we don't think ever was envisioned by voters.

We hope legislators can come up with a bipartisan solution that hews
closely to the letter and spirit of the amendment voters approved,
while ensuring those who are constitutionally guaranteed access to
marijuana can get it.