CERTIFICATES FOR COMPLIANCE

State wants to show which medical marijuana businesses have met requirements.

The Colorado Department of Revenue has sent out more than 900
certificates of compliance to the operators of medical marijuana
centers and cultivation operations around the state -- certificates
intended to show police and sheriff's deputies that the particular
business has met all the state application requirements for operating legally.

They aren't state medical marijuana licenses, however. Those won't be
available until July and state regulations on operating medical
marijuana businesses still are being developed, said Julie
Postlethwait, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Revenue's
enforcement division.

"Those medical marijuana businesses that have met all the state
requirements thus far are receiving these certificates so they can
demonstrate to law enforcement officers that they are operating
legally, at least in terms of meeting the state's requirements,"
Postlethwait said this week.

State officials set out a schedule of requirements last summer for
any marijuana businesses hoping to operate legally, including
certifying to the state by Aug. 1 that 70 percent of the marijuana
each center sold was cultivated by that business and not purchased elsewhere.

But state officials said there were two parts to legally operating a
marijuana business -- meeting the state requirements and also
obtaining some form of local approval from either county or municipal
officials.

Pueblo County responded by requiring those businesses to demonstrate
by this past July 1 that they had filed the necessary paperwork to
obtain a state sales tax license. That paperwork didn't constitute
formal county approval of a local medical marijuana business, but the
commissioners and the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office are allowing any
of those businesses meeting the existing regulations to operate -- as
long as other crimes do not occur there.

"Right now, we're aware of between eight to 10 businesses operating
in the county," sheriff's spokesman, Deputy Laurie Kirkpatrick, said
Wednesday. "Our narcotics investigators make a point of stopping in
to check on those operations."

Last summer, 17 marijuana business applications were filed with the
county's planning office.

Postlethwait said police and sheriff deputies should not jump to the
conclusion that any business not displaying a state certificate is
illegally operating.

"If they encounter that situation, they should call our department to
make certain a certificate is not forthcoming," she said.

City Council adopted licensing regulations in late summer but has not
authorized any marijuana businesses within the city limits. City
officials do not expect to do that until after state licenses become
available in July.