BRECKENRIDGE YOUTH RAISES ISSUES WITH HOMEGROWN MARIJUANA

Town Council Tackles Issue After Young Resident Raises Concerns

BRECKENRIDGE - A 13-year-old boy's letter of concern with the smell
of home-grown marijuana permeating his neighborhood has the
Breckenridge Town Council grappling with the logistics of regulating
medical marijuana growth in private homes.

Council members considered a highly restrictive ordinance at a work
session Tuesday inspired by the 13-year-old's letter, which would set
tight regulations around the residential growth of medical marijuana.

"My big concern is smell," Councilman Jeffrey Bergeron said Tuesday.

But the council, which has tried to keep medical marijuana out of
residential parts of town, is somewhat limited in its ability to
restrict home-growing operations by an amendment to the Colorado
Constitution. Amendment 20, approved by voters in 2000, allows
licensed patients and their live-in caregivers to grow marijuana
plants in their homes for private use.

Tim Berry, the town attorney, told council members he was concerned
about the possible legal ramifications of an extremely restrictive
private growing policy.

"You could look at a flat prohibition against residential growth,"
Berry said at Tuesday's work session. "I really, really don't think
we have the right to do that. I think this is about as tight as we can get it."

Concerns raised The home-grown marijuana issue was first raised in
December, after the council received the letter from the Breckenridge
teenager, who asked that his name not be used in this story. The
letter explained his frustration with marijuana in his community,
from the smell on the gondola to the neighborhoods where children live.

The boy's neighbor, who was growing pot residentially, had an exhaust
system that blew the marijuana smell near the boy's front door. The
boy said he got tired of the smell and finally wrote the letter to council.

"That was the first time residential growing had ever come to our
attention," Councilwoman Jennifer McAtamney said. "We gave (the
staff) direction to figure out what we could do about it."

The town staff put together the ordinance presented to the council
Tuesday. The council has not yet voted on the measure, but if
adopted, it would prohibit privately grown marijuana from being
perceptible outside the residence in any way.

Under the policy, medical marijuana could not be perceptible by
smell, visually or even by "undue vehicular or foot traffic" near the
house where it is grown.

The ordinance would also restrict private growers to the letter of
the law as it is set forth in Amendment 20 and would prohibit
residential growing in any location accessible to children, visitors
or anyone not licensed to possess medical marijuana.

Patients or caregivers growing in a property they do not own would be
required to get written permission to grow from the property owner
under the ordinance, which also sets guidelines for where and how
medical marijuana can be grown on the private property.

Violation of the ordinance regulations would be a misdemeanor.

The proposed ordinance is only the most recent local chapter in the
statewide saga of medical marijuana regulation, which has created a
maze of questions around the perimeters of federal, state and local
regulatory authority.

Breckenridge and the county have tabled discussions concerning the
regulation of commercial medical marijuana centers and related
questions until summer, anticipating amendments to a medical
marijuana bill passed during the 2010 Legislative session.

The bill does not address residential growth of medical marijuana or
local governments' authority to regulate it.

The town council will take a first vote on the residential grow
ordinance presented Tuesday at its next meeting, Jan. 25.