GRAY AREAS ON GREEN MEDICINE ADDRESSED

Many questions have no definitive answers when it comes to medicinal
marijuana and the law.

Over the past two weeks, the owner of Medimar Ministries has wrestled
with the ambiguity of Colorado's medical marijuana law.

During a public meeting Friday at Medimar's Pueblo location it became
apparent that Tom Sexton isn't the only one.

Roughly 100 people sat in on nearly two hours of discussion about the
legal gray areas of the law, and Sexton's attorney, Karl Tameler,
tried to answer as many questions as possible.

Tameler also emphasized throughout the evening that the medical
marijuana law is a state law, and that marijuana is still considered
an illegal drug by the federal government.

The bottom line was that if medical marijuana patients or their
caregivers want to remain within the state's exception on marijuana,
they can't possess more than 2 ounces or more than six plants with
three that are mature, flowering marijuana plants. From there,
protections become less concrete, Tameler said.

Many people at the meeting were interested in expanded plant counts
and the ability to possess more than the legal limits when medically justified.

The law allows patients and their caregivers to raise an affirmative
defense that possession of amounts greater than the six-plant,
2-ounce limit are medically necessary.

But an affirmative defense doesn't come into place until after
someone has been arrested or charged.

It can also be attacked from different angles.

Tameler raised the affirmative defense for Sexton at his trial two
weeks ago, and the jury came back last week with a split verdict:
innocent of cultivating marijuana but guilty of possessing it.

"It's not really a razor-clean defense," Tameler said.

Patients and their caregivers must argue that the extra amounts are
medically necessary, but there are few studies about appropriate
dosing for certain ailments and state law makes no assumptions about
the quantities needed to distill marijuana into butter and oils for
cooking and production of lotions and tinctures.

Members of the audience said the plant limitations can be problematic too.

What happens if someone grows one plant that produces more than 2
ounces of marijuana? What happens to the surplus?

They are questions with no solid answers.

"The law somewhat presumes that medical marijuana is manna from
heaven that's going to fall into your hands in 2-ounce quantities,"
Tameler said.

He also noted there is no solid definition of what is usable marijuana.

Investigators in Sexton's trial considered nearly every part of the
plant but the stalk as a usable form of marijuana, while medical
marijuana patients consider only the buds of a female plant to be usable.

There was also talk about dispensaries.

Tameler said most dispensaries are a cooperative of caregivers
growing and providing medicine only for their patients.

But people in the audience talked about being able to go into some
dispensaries, show their medical marijuana registry card and buy
their medicine without ever establishing a patient-caregiver relationship.

Tameler said dispensaries that are doing this are taking a risk.

"The constitution was not built to create business, but there have
been some very enterprising people who are doing it," Tameler said.