DRAFT OF COLORADO POT RULES IS A 90-PAGE TOME

Medical-marijuana advocates and government representatives on Monday
hammered out the final details of proposed new rules that would give
Colorado the most comprehensive seed-to-sale cannabis business
regulations in the nation.

The rules would govern everything: how state officials regulate
marijuana cultivation; how dispensary owners keep track of their
sales; what makers of marijuana-infused pastries should put on their
labels. Several of the rules would place Colorado in unprecedented
territory - for instance, requiring marijuana growers to install
security cameras through which state auditors could remotely monitor
their crop. Others would take action on areas of long-standing
concern, including inventory-control rules designed to prevent
medical marijuana from leaking into the black market.

"This is a historic moment," said Norton Arbelaez, the owner of the
River Rock Wellness Center and the chair of the Medical Marijuana
Industry Group. "We are taking huge steps here in normalizing marijuana laws."

The rules, which take up more than 90 pages, are in draft form and
could change. They can't be adopted until after formal rule-making
hearings, which could take place as early as next month and at which
the public could offer comments.

The drafts were put together during more than 60 hours of meetings by
the state Department of Revenue's medical-marijuana rules work group,
a collection of state officials, law-enforcement officers, local
government representatives and medical-marijuana business owners and patients.

"When we actually get to the hearing, there should be very little
surprise out there," said Matt Cook, the Revenue Department official
who oversees medical-marijuana business enforcement. "There should at
least be common knowledge as to where the industry is heading."

The proposed rules, which grew out of laws passed last year in the
legislature, aim for thoroughness. Dispensary owners must catalog
every plant they grow and then weigh it at various steps of the
production process to create a trail state auditors can follow. At
sale, they must list any chemical fertilizers, pesticides or
herbicides they used during cultivation.

The rules would also establish the nation's first regulations for
making hash - a form of concentrated marijuana - and would spell out
how dispensaries can transport their products or make changes to
their business structure.

Medical-marijuana advocates raised concerns with some of the rules.
Jason Lauve, a medical-marijuana patient, said he worries rules that
allow for the tracking of individual purchases could invade patient
privacy. Arbelaez, who is a member of the rules work group, took
issue with the so-called "7 0/30" rule, which requires dispensaries
to grow 70 percent of what they sell. As currently written, the rule
could lead to surplus marijuana that dispensaries couldn't sell, he said.

But Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden, who is also a work group
member and who has expressed skepticism of the medical-marijuana
industry in the past, said he was surprised at how much collaboration
there was.

"Our charge," he said, "has been to make it work."