BILL REVISING MEDICAL-POT REGULATIONS IN COLORADO ADVANCES

Colorado's medical-marijuana wars began anew at the state Capitol on Thursday
with the first public hearing on a bill that makes changes to the
state's dispensary regulations.

When the hearing opened, the measure - House Bill 1043 - would have
made a number of industry-friendly changes to the rules, including
making it easier for felons to own dispensaries and exempting
long-standing dispensaries from buffer-zone rules around schools.

But Rep. Tom Massey, a Poncha Springs Republican who is sponsoring the
legislation, quickly announced that he had rewritten the bill. Gone
were the loosened restrictions on felons. Gone was the grandfathering
of dispensaries in buffer zones.

What was left was a bill that was less industry-friendly but one that
owners of large dispensaries still joined with law enforcement
officials in cautiously supporting.

"A good compromise," said Josh Stanley, owner of the Budding Health
chain of dispensaries, "is when everybody is not exactly happy."

But the bill outraged marijuana activists and some small-dispensary
owners, who said the changes would force dispensaries to close, hurt
patient access and boost the black-market trade in marijuana.

A number of activists used the hearing as an opportunity to express
concerns about issues not addressed in the bill.

They criticized a different bill filed this week at the Capitol that
would ban the sale of marijuana-enhanced food and drinks, a major
industry niche in Colorado. They blasted proposed Department of
Revenue regulations that would require all medical-marijuana
transactions at dispensaries to be videotaped.

"We have a situation where our medical-marijuana program is run by the
state tax collector, and you've really taken all the medicine out of
it," said Laura Kriho of the Cannabis Therapy Institute.

After nearly six hours of testimony and debate, the House Judiciary
Committee voted unanimously Thursday night to approve the revised bill.

"It's a good piece of legislation that furthers a business model that
we have been very unique in Colorado in establishing," Massey said.

The bill would make a number of changes to Colorado medical-marijuana
law. The measure requires small-scale caregivers to register the
location of their marijuana-growing spaces with the state. It caps at
500 the number of plants that makers of marijuana-enhanced products,
such as brownies or balms, can grow. It increases penalties for people
who make public medical-marijuana patient records. And it extends for
an extra year a statewide moratorium on new dispensaries that was set
to expire this summer.

Proponents said the extension was necessary to give the new
regulations time to settle in before the industry gets any bigger. But
medical-marijuana attorney Sean McAllister said the change is
detrimental to investment in the industry.

"Businesses had expectations they would be able to open this summer,"
McAllister said.

The bill still loosens some regulations. It makes the two-year
residency requirement apply only to owners of dispensaries, not their
employees. It allows medical-marijuana businesses to provide cannabis
to labs for scientific testing. And it creates a process by which
doctors with caveats on their licenses can appeal to the state Medical
Board to be allowed to recommend marijuana.

The bill must next go to the House Appropriations Committee for a vote
approving its price tag before it can go before the full House.

Meanwhile, House Bill 1250, which would ban marijuana-enhanced food
and drinks, is scheduled for its first public hearing March 1.