COLORADO'S BILL WOULD EASE STATE'S MEDICAL-POT LAW

Colorado's medical-marijuana laws could be relaxed to make it easier
for felons to own dispensaries and exempt long-standing pot shops
from buffer rules around schools.

A bill unveiled this week at the state Capitol makes a number of
changes to Colorado's medical-marijuana laws that are friendly to the
cannabis industry.

The bill also would ease rules for doctors with restricted licenses
who want to recommend medical marijuana and would allow patients to
shop in a dispensary immediately after sending in their
medical-marijuana applications. It also would limit state residency
requirements only to dispensary owners.

State Rep. Tom Massey, a Poncha Springs Republican who is the bill's
House sponsor, said the proposal came from listening to
medical-marijuana business owners, state regulatory officials and law
enforcement officers.

"We're trying to do everything we can to make this a more workable
system for the state," Massey said.

House Bill 1043 also contains provisions creating new regulations.
Caregivers - small-scale providers of medical marijuana to patients -
would have to register with the state. The locations of commercial
marijuana-growing facilities would be made public. And a cap would be
placed for the first time on the number of plants a
marijuana-infused-products maker could grow.

Norton Arbelaez, the board chairman of the Medical Marijuana Industry
Group, said the bill merely ties up "a lot of the loose ends that the
Colorado medical-marijuana code left open."

"It legitimizes the industry, and we support more clarity in the
parameters that the industry should abide by," Arbelaez said.

Mike Saccone, a spokesman for state Attorney General John Suthers,
who has expressed skepticism about the medical-marijuana industry's
growth, said his office had not yet taken a position on the bill.

Arbelaez said loosening the residency requirements - the bill
clarifies that only dispensary owners need to have been Colorado
residents for at least two years - is the most important change the
bill makes. Dispensary owners had worried they would have to fire
employees who didn't meet the residency rules.

The bill also prohibits only those who finished up a sentence for a
drug-related felony within the past five years from owning a
dispensary. Previously, all people convicted of a drug felony, and
people discharging a sentence for any felony within the last five
years, were prohibited.

Meanwhile, the bill tweaks which restrictions on a doctor's license
prevent the physician from recommending marijuana. The bill would
require the state Medical Board in the future specifically to note
when a doctor should be barred from writing medical-marijuana recommendations.

Massey said he expects the bill to be the biggest medical-marijuana
bill to come before the legislature this session, though he said
additional, narrower efforts also are possible. He also hopes the
bill won't generate the deeply contentious debates of last year's
regulatory proposals.

"I hope this is a little easier," he said.

The bill is scheduled for its first committee hearing Feb. 3.