CITY COUNCIL CONSIDERING BAN ON POT DISPENSARIES

LONGMONT -- City leaders appear to be leaning toward banning all
medical marijuana dispensaries in Longmont.

But they aren't yet sure whether that will include -- or how it will
affect -- the several dispensaries already open in the city.

The Longmont City Council voted 4-3 Tuesday night to have city staff
draft an ordinance that would ban dispensaries in the city but, along
with that draft law, also bring back more information to the council
about how to deal with the eight dispensaries already operating in the
city.

Council members Brian Hansen, Sarah Levison and Sean McCoy voted
against the motion, saying they would prefer to maintain some control
by tailoring local regulations for dispensaries.

House Bill 1284, which went into effect July 1, creates a state
licensing authority that will regulate dispensaries. But that law also
gives local governments the right to create their own regulations, ban
dispensaries outright or refer the issue to voters.

Councilman Gabe Santos questioned what would happen to existing
dispensaries if the council approved a ban.

City attorney Eugene Mei said it's an untested legal area that could
spark lawsuits.

Santos then proposed drafting a ban but also asked for more
information about existing operations -- because it was his
understanding that dispensary owners who already were open would still
be able to do business.

Marijuana is still illegal under federal law, and when voters approved
making medicinal use legal in Colorado, it "put cities in a very
precarious situation," Santos said.

He would prefer that Congress deal with the issue on a federal level
and eventually get the drug regulated and on shelves in pharmacies.
But that hasn't happened.

"Does marijuana have some benefits? It's been proven," he said. "But
until that (federal) law has been changed, my hands are tied."

As a teacher, McCoy said, he's not a fan of marijuana because he has
seen how abusing it is dangerous for kids. But he didn't support an
outright ban by the council or putting it to voters because he would
prefer to create local regulations.

Hansen worried that putting the question to voters, depending on the
ballot language, could keep the council from being able to make
changes to local regulations in the future.

He also pointed to the city's annual community survey; this year's
survey showed 57 percent of residents opposed an outright ban.

"The people who took the survey, they weren't interested in an all-out
ban, but they were interested in having it highly restricted," Hansen
said.

Councilwoman Katie Witt, however, said there were only two groups of
people she cared about in the discussion: children and patients. She
is confident patients can get their medication, even if dispensaries
are banned, but she wants to maintain Longmont's image of being a
family-friendly, hometown city.

"I feel very strongly that it is more important to maintain the
child-friendly atmosphere in Longmont," Witt said. "I honestly believe
our patients will find a way to get their medicine."

Levison said medicine cabinets today -- with bottles of OxyContin and
Vicodin -- present as much, if not more, of a problem for families and
children.

"To understand that there are true medicinal benefits of marijuana and
allowing people access to that since that has been passed by state
law, I still believe we should have that option available to people,"
Levison said.

But Mayor Bryan Baum said patients still will have
access.

He sympathizes with those who use medicinal cannabis for a variety of
ailments and said he would if he needed to. Keeping patients from
legally getting their medication is wrong, but this motion wouldn't do
that, Baum said.

Amendment 20, which voters passed in 2000 to legalize medicinal
marijuana in Colorado, never mentioned dispensaries.

"The law that's on the books really doesn't say anything about
dispensaries," Baum said.

City staff will bring back a draft ordinance to the council at a
future meeting, along with information about how to handle existing
dispensaries.