BILL SEEKS TO OUTLAW MMJ FOOD

Patients Could Smoke - Not Eat - THC

Medical marijuana users could no longer buy edibles that contain the
drug, if a bill introduced into the Colorado Legislature Wednesday
becomes law. Call it the Brownie Bill.

Cindy Acree, R-Aurora, introduced House Bill 11-1250, which would
enact "a prohibition on ingestible medical marijuana-infused
products," including brownies, cookies, candies, and a seemingly
endless array of other food and drink products that contain marijuana.

It is time for state politicians to stop trying to work around the
will of voters, who approved medical marijuana with an amendment to
the Colorado Constitution 11 years ago. For the past year, since the
Obama administration announced it would respect state medical
marijuana laws, the medical marijuana industry has thrived in
Colorado. It has not led to mayhem and not one person has died as a
result of medical marijuana consumption. Hundreds of Coloradans have
died as a result of alcohol consumption in the past year.

Entrepreneurs all over Colorado have invested in businesses that
produce marijuana-infused foods and beverages to serve the needs of
marijuana patients who do not want to smoke or who cannot smoke. If
the entrepreneurs are impoverished by an arbitrary law, they will sue and win.

Is there abuse of medical marijuana? Of course, just as there is
widespread abuse of much more serious prescription drugs, such as
addictive and highly destructive opioid-based narcotic painkillers.

The Brownie Bill would do almost nothing to curb marijuana abuse. It
would mostly force thousands of medical marijuana users to inhale
harsh smoke or steam. It's an attempt to give the state a frightening
amount of control over consumers, who should decide for themselves,
in conjunction with their physicians, how best to ingest the drug.

Even one of the state's most anti-drug politicians agrees that
forbidding edible marijuana is a bad idea.

"We've agreed that medical marijuana is right, just and proper," said
State Rep. Mark Waller, R-Colorado Springs, who is a tough-on-crime
former prosecutor. "I struggle with it, but the people have spoken.
All this bill would do is cause people to smoke it rather than eat it."

Greg Campbell, author of "Blood Diamonds," has researched medical
marijuana for his upcoming book "Pot of Gold." Campbell, of Fort
Collins, said edibles are extremely important to medical marijuana
patients who can't inhale smoke, or who don't want the smell of it in
their hair and on their clothes. Campbell's interest in the subject
is based in part on the fact marijuana spared his cousin a life of
pain while she died of mesothelioma.

Rep. Acree, please rescind this bill. We highly commend you for
wanting to reduce drug abuse. But the solution isn't in efforts to
push marijuana back underground, re-creating the old black market
monopoly once enjoyed by criminals. Nor is the solution in forcing
people to smoke a drug they are otherwise able to eat.