ACROSS STREET FROM PRO-POT RALLY, HOUSE ROLLS OUT MEDICAL-MARIJUANA RULES

As a cloud of skunky smoke wafted over a pro-marijuana rally across
the street, lawmakers at the state Capitol on Tuesday battled over
regulations for the medical marijuana industry.

The debate inside, where the full state House ultimately passed a
bill to create rules for marijuana dispensaries, focused largely on
the nuts and bolts of the new regulations: licensing requirements,
tax policy and signage rules. The major changes the House made to the
bill mostly rolled back concessions dispensary owners had won earlier
in the legislative process.

Lawmakers restored language to the bill, House Bill 1284, that would
let local governments or local voters ban dispensaries in their
communities. They removed the ability for medical marijuana patients
to consume cannabis-infused products at dispensaries. And they
toughened criminal background-check requirements to bar anyone ever
convicted of a drug-related felony from operating a dispensary.

At one point during the hours-long debate, a lawmaker argued against
a proposal by saying it was unprecedented, to which Rep. Jack Pommer,
D-Boulder, remarked: "We're essentially setting up street-corner
marijuana shops. If the intent of this bill is not to break new
ground, we've already gone beyond that."

The bill still needs one more vote in the House before going to the
Senate for debate.

The broader impact of the legislature's groundbreaking bill was most
clear, though, across the street at Civic Center, where thousands of
pro-legalization marijuana activists gathered for the annual April 20
rally, which this year took on a decidedly medicinal tone. There were
booths for dispensaries and fliers advertising doctor referrals and a
speech by a researcher who specializes in the medical benefits of marijuana.

Legalization activists acknowledged how closely their cause has
become entwined with the boom in medical marijuana, which has created
not just new networks for activists but also legal revenue streams to
fund them.

"It has helped the legalization of marijuana 10,000 percent," said
Richard Eastman, a medical-marijuana patient and cannabis activist
from California who was one of the rally's speakers.

"It's certainly familiarized the public to (marijuana) so it's not
quite the villain they thought it was," said Dave Penny, a Colorado
medical-marijuana patient at the rally.

Activists, though, said legalization proponents must be wary of
riding medical marijuana's coattails too much, saying expanded
medicinal access can only take their cause so far.

"Medical marijuana doesn't get us there," Allen St. Pierre, the
executive director for the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws, told the crowd. "We have to change these laws. We
have to legalize marijuana."