LAWMAKERS: DISPENSARIES STAY, BUT AS NON-PROFITS

State lawmakers today unveiled a bill that would make major changes
to Colorado's medical-marijuana industry, allowing retail-style
dispensaries to remain open, but forcing them to re-organize as
licensed, non-profit "health centers."

The bill would also place an 18-month moratorium on new commercial
dispensaries. The bill also would require dispensaries to grow the
majority of the marijuana they sell, thus eliminating freelance growers.

Perhaps most significantly, the bill would draw a crucial distinction
between small-scale and large-scale medical-marijuana providers.

Small-scale providers - people growing and supplying marijuana to
five or fewer patients - would not have to be licensed and would
qualify for the protection the medical-marijuana section of
Colorado's constitution gives to "caregivers."

Large-scale providers, like dispensaries, would have less statutory
protection, meaning cities and counties would have broad authority to
regulate or even ban them from their communities.

"That's not a right in the constitution," state Sen. Chris Romer, a
Denver Democrat who is one of the bill's sponsors, said of
dispensaries. "That's a privilege we're going to grant them with a
license. If you want to organize yourself as a medical-marijuana
center, then you have to play by the rules we set forth."

The announcement of the bill, which is expected to be formally
introduced this afternoon, drew sharp reactions from a handful of
medical-marijuana advocates who attended the news conference
unveiling its details.

Afterwards, Carla Boyd, a medical-marijuana patient and caregiver,
told Romer she thought the bill would lead to monopolization in the
industry. Dispensaries that couldn't afford the new requirements for
growing or security would be run out of business, she said.

"You're taking away a lot of jobs," she said. "...This is the Walmart
of medical-marijuana, and it's not right."

Brian Vicente, the executive director of the medical-marijuana
patient-advocacy organization Sensible Colorado, took a milder
approach but still raised concerns.

Of the provision that could allow communities to ban marijuana
clinics, Vicente said, "it could be seen as a significant weakening
of the constitution. We don't need patients bussing to get medicine."

He said his organization has no objection to requiring dispensaries
to operate as non-profits.

However, Vicente said he plans tomorrow to file a proposed ballot
initiative with the state to take dispensary regulations directly to
the voters.

The proposed initiative - which would need about 75,000 signatures to
make the ballot - is a hedge in case lawmakers pass regulations the
cannabis community finds unacceptable.

"State-licensed medical marijuana patients need storefront
dispensaries in the same way that other sick Coloradans need
pharmacies," Vicente said in a statement accompanying the
announcement of the proposed initiative. "Medical marijuana patients
will not go without medicine in Colorado."

The debate over medical-marijuana at the state Capitol this session
has been the focus of an intense lobbying battle between law
enforcement groups, which want to eliminate retail marijuana
dispensaries, and medical-marijuana advocates, some of whom favor as
few government regulations on the industry as possible.

Other medical-marijuana groups have been lobbying behind the scenes
for moderate regulations on the booming industry, hoping that some
government oversight will professionalize and legitimize the business.

Mike Saccone, a spokesman for state Attorney General John Suthers,
said his office needs to review the bill more before taking a formal
position on it. But he said the attorney general believes retail
dispensaries are outside of what voters intended when they approved
Amendment 20, the constitutional provision that legalized
medical-marijuana in Colorado.

"Amendment 20 clearly laid out a model that, until a year ago, was
doing pretty well with just patients and caregivers," Saccone said.