YES TO DISPENSARIES

State-licensed centers provide safe access and protect our
community

To regulate, or not to regulate. That is the question.

The issue before us is not a referendum on medical marijuana use. That
right is enshrined in our state's Constitution.

Rather, the issue is where legal medical marijuana purchases should
take place. Do we insist that such transactions happen in
state-licensed, highly regulated, secured and taxed Medical Marijuana
Centers (MMCs)? Or do we turn our back on the toughest regulations in
the nation and push the sales into our neighborhoods where they are
not licensed, regulated, secured or taxed?

The people of Colorado voted to make medical marijuana legal in 2000.
Lacking any regulatory framework, entrepreneurs came up with many
schemes for selling marijuana to patients. The situation came to
resemble the Wild West and communities expressed panic and concern. It
was a mess.

In response, the Colorado General Assembly passed HB1284 in 2010. The
Department of Revenue, which oversees the medical marijuana program,
issued 77 pages of rules governing these shops. Colorado's medical
marijuana businesses are now the most heavily regulated and taxed
among all 16 states that allow for medical marijuana use.

The city of Fort Collins also stepped up to the challenge of
regulating this new industry. Our City Council voted to adopt a strict
ordinance, including 12 provisions that are more stringent than the
state law. Specifically, the city ordinance protects our neighborhoods
by severely limiting home growing. Local officials and law enforcement
supported these limits as prudent safety measures.

One year later, the results are both positive and impressive:
criminals are banned from participating in MMCs; standards are in
place; taxes are collected; and law enforcement keeps a 24/7 watch to
ensure compliance. While these regulations are tedious and expensive
for center owners, they know that their customers and community
members feel more secure because of the tight restrictions and security.

Proponents of the MMC ban would like to undo this progress and abandon
the regulatory framework that keeps us safe.

Let's imagine that they get their wish and MMCs disappear. What
then?

Patients will lose out. Treatment protocols will be interrupted when
the products, services and specialists that patients rely upon disappear.

Our economy will suffer. $500,000 a year in sales taxes will go
uncollected; dozens of commercial leases will be abandoned; millions
of dollars in business investments will be lost; bankruptcies will
soar; and more than 200 people will lose their jobs.

Our neighborhoods will become less safe. Currently, medical marijuana
businesses are licensed, regulated, secured and taxed. If we ban these
businesses, medical marijuana sales will be pushed into our
neighborhoods where they will be unlicensed, unregulated, unsecured
and untaxed, and increase the risk of illegal sales, fires and home
invasions.

Do the math: More than 8,500 people hold valid licenses to purchase
medical marijuana in Larimer County. If each home grower follows the
rules and serves only five patients each, 1,500 homes are needed to
serve Larimer County's 8,500 registered patients. That's 200,000
unregulated and unrecorded sales taking place in 1,500 private homes
in our neighborhoods!

This will be a disaster.

State-licensed Medical Marijuana Centers and commercial cultivation
facilities are the safest way to ensure that only legal patients have
access to cannabis while protecting our community and our kids.

Please protect our neighborhoods by keeping medical marijuana
businesses legal in Fort Collins.

Terri Gomez is a former United Way vice president. She owns HealthWise
Colorado, a medical cannibas education company. She wrote this on
behalf of Citizens for Safer Neighborhoods, which is opposing a
proposed ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in Fort Collins.