Application and New License Cost $1,000 Each for Dispensaries, Manufacturing, Growing

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado -- Medical marijuana businesses in operation in Glenwood Springs will have to pay a series of license and registration fees once the city's moratorium on such businesses expires on Oct. 1.

The Glenwood Springs City Council approved the fee structure at the council's regular meeting Thursday.

Earlier in the evening, a group of about a dozen area residents appealed to the council to participate in a community dialogue on the hazards of medical marijuana. They say the presence of medical marijuana businesses is making the drug more available to youth.

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Vote Joins Similar Ballot Questions in Steamboat, Oak Creek, Routt County

Steamboat Springs -- After the Nov. 1 election, every municipality in Routt County -- as well as the county itself -- will have a final verdict on whether to allow medical marijuana dispensaries and grow operations in their jurisdictions.

The Yampa Town Board approved last month the language for a ballot question prohibiting medical marijuana centers and grow operations in the town.

There are no dispensaries or grow operations operating in Yampa.

November's election also will see ballot questions on banning medical marijuana businesses in Steamboat Springs, Oak Creek and unincorporated areas of Routt County.

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Cortez Medical Marijuana Ad Hoc Committee starts

After more than an hour of deliberations Tuesday, the new Cortez Medical Marijuana Ad Hoc Committee made a vote -- deciding where to start.

The committee is charged with the daunting task of determining the best medical marijuana policy for Cortez to recommend to the city council. With federal and state policies toward medical marijuana continually shifting underfoot, the committee must determine what, if any, municipal regulations to throw into the mix.

Although other Colorado municipalities have taken their own approaches to the issue, it is plausible the committee could enter uncharted waters for public policy.

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Larimer County Sheriff's Office investigators have arrested two Livermore residents after discovering a substantial marijuana grow at their rental home in the 1700 block of County Road 82E.

Lacy Ann Patterson and Anthony Michael Ryker were arrested Sept. 1 after approximately 220 live marijuana plants, numerous baggies of packaged marijuana, drug smoking paraphernalia, psilocybin mushrooms, numerous legal guns of different makes and caliber, and equipment used to cultivate marijuana were found at their residence.

The couple was arrested on suspicion of possession and cultivation of marijuana, criminal mischief and several other offenses.

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Today, while I was thinking about the Aug. 28 Celebrate Life walk/run/bike fundraiser organized by the Fairplay Pregnancy Resource Center, I was AM radio station-surfing in my car and heard a radio commentator advocate blanket legalization of marijuana.

He said he has never smoked pot and never will, but he believes it to be infinitely less dangerous than alcohol.

Now, like just about everyone in Colorado, which has legalized medical marijuana, I know people who have the credentials that allow them to buy pot at dispensaries. And to my knowledge, not one of those individuals has committed a crime while stoned. In fact, if I didn't know many of them had the cards, I wouldn't even know they smoked marijuana.

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Medical marijuana sounds like an oxymoron to me.

Even though under federal law marijuana is illegal, and I believe it has dangerous consequences for society, Amendment 20 to the Colorado Constitution was passed by the voters and gives legitimacy to the business of medical marijuana.

The pro-pot crowd did a good job of selling the idea that there are some sick people in our state who need this pseudo-medicine to overcome pain. The truth is that pain can be handled in many ways that do not induce intoxication.

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Students Can Help Themselves, Each Other, in Getting Treatment

GYPSUM, Colorado -- Schools are on the front lines of the war on drugs and that makes it worth fighting, says an Eagle Valley High School administrator.

"Is it a war worth fighting? "I say yes. Absolutely yes," said Eric Mandeville, assistant principal at Eagle Valley High School.

As part of that fight, Eagle Valley High School put together a Student Assistance Program designed to help kids dealing with drug and alcohol abuse, and other problems.

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Business Licensing Gets Approval, but More Future Discussion Is Welcomed

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado -- A new ordinance spelling out licensing procedures for medical marijuana dispensaries, commercial growing operations and other related businesses is the latest in the city's attempt to regulate the industry locally.

The measure closely mirrors the rules and regulations spelled out in the state of Colorado's licensing requirements. The ordinance was adopted Aug. 18 by Glenwood Springs City Council on a 5-1 vote.

But the latest move by the city to permit and regulate medical marijuana businesses didn't come without some questions about the message the permissive environment is sending to young people in the community.

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The problem with Mr. Suthers' position is that while he's "been on these panels a long time," he's been there to talk about his opinions and hasn't been there to listen to what others had to say. People like Suthers start and finish any discussion about marijuana with "marijuana must remain illegal," and any logic or reasoning that's presented during the discussion is ignored. They are unable to ever entertain the possibility that they might be wrong. Their position is simply that "marijuana must remain illegal because marijuana must remain illegal," and that's that.

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Mr. Rovig's opinionated My Side column of Aug. 15 about the evil effects of the killer weed on our very impressionable youngsters called on all "decent" citizens to fight ever on in our inane crusade against drug use. Isn't it strange, I thought, for a member of the school board to be so unaware of history.

Doesn't he remember what a dismal and deadly failure prohibition was? Our own war on drugs has ruined millions of lives and wasted a trillion dollars for over 40 years. Every new drug law is in reality a price support for production and distribution.

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VAIL, Colorado - Marijuana can be bad and it generates half the Mexican drug cartels' money - but what to do about it?

Legalize it, say Jared Polis and Dr. Ethan Nadelmann.

Increase enforcement, say John Suthers and Anthony Coulson.

They had a rhetorical battle royale.

The four offered a preview Tuesday night of what could be one of Colorado's least mellow debates - legalizing marijuana. The Vail Symposium hosted the event Tuesday at Vail Mountain School. It will be broadcast on C-Span.

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NEDERLAND, Colo. The Green Rush has gone bust in the town Rolling Stone dubbed "Stonerville, USA."

Kathleen Chippi, who runs the One Brown Mouse boutique but recently shut down her medical marijuana dispensary and smoking room, cursed as she blamed the government.

"I refuse to give up my ... constitutional rights to the Colorado Department of Revenue," she fumed, indignant over what she called intrusive oversight and abusive taxation of marijuana.

More than 8,200 feet high in the Rockies, state regulation arrived in this famously mellow, pot-friendly town after Colorado passed landmark legislation over the past two years to tax, license and govern the state's wild, for-profit medical marijuana trade.

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Coming Monday: Check out Colorado's famously mellow, pot friendly town dubbed Stonerville, USA.

DENVER After 15 years as a white-collar "corporate nomad," Dan Rogers found his new career in the thriving green-collar industry of Colorado, the only state in America with a for-profit medical marijuana market.

The equities trader and former investment banker now produces pot breeds "Reclining Buddha" and "Heartland Cream" in a converted printing press warehouse near downtown Denver.

In the nation's most heavily regulated medical cannabis industry, he also works under constant video surveillance.

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Legalization - or decriminalization, or regulation, or whatever the hell you want to call it - efforts are all the rage these days, and two efforts have emerged on the state level: the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act of 2012, backed by SAFER, NORML, Sensible Colorado and others, and the Relief for the Possession of Cannabis Act, proposed by Cannabis University's Michelle LaMay.

The first proposes a legalized, limited amount of marijuana possession, while the second limits the courts "from imposing any fine or sentence for the possession, and cultivation and sale of cannabis."

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Colorado Taking Welcome Step in Scrutinizing Policies

The only place a zero-tolerance policy looks good is on paper. This is particularly true when it comes to children -- a community doesn't want its schools to tolerate bullies, or campus drug abuse, or underage drinking and driving. We just won't tolerate that!

In practice, the policies get all tripped up in reality, with some children being punished in outrageous ways for minor infractions and some authorities being hamstrung by the policies they've either enacted or are ordered to follow.

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Drug-Related Hearings Had Been Increasing With Medical Marijuana Boom

University of Colorado student Andreas Wion got caught with a marijuana-packed pipe outside of his dorm room last school year.

To satisfy the sanction from the school's judicial branch, Wion paid fines and performed five hours of community service by helping with a school recycling project. Wion said he took a survey about his marijuana usage and the sophomore, who now has a medical marijuana license, said he wrote a paper about how he wouldn't smoke pot -- on campus.

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Official: Prospective Business Owners 'Know If They're Going to Make It'

While Boulder has so far rejected about 34 percent of the applications for medical marijuana business licenses under its new rules for the industry, the state -- which has taken heat from medical pot businesses owners for its strict rules -- only has rejected around 10 percent.

"Boulder has the right to have more stringent standards," said Julie Postlethwait of the Colorado Department of Revenue's Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division.

Operators of medical marijuana businesses must be licensed by both the state and their local municipalities, if those local government have such regulations -- as Boulder does.

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Professionals, Unemployed Among Industry Hopefuls

A former satellite engineer, a father-and-son team and an airline instructor are all among the often colorful cast of business owners, financiers and employees seeking to claim a slice of the burgeoning medical marijuana industry in Boulder.

City records show that the individuals behind Boulder's dispensaries and greenhouse operations come from all over the world and have a wide variety of backgrounds.

They include Colorado natives, recent transplants from California and people who were born abroad in places such as the Philippines, France and South Korea.

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City Rejects One-Third of Business License Applications So Far

Boulder officials have rejected more than one-third of the applications from people seeking to run medical marijuana dispensaries or growing operations in the city, slowing the pace of what once was seen as a Wild West-style rush for riches.

Ten months after the initial 119 business-license applications were turned in by Boulder's November deadline -- set when the City Council last year approved sweeping new regulations for the budding industry - -- 40 medical marijuana companies have licenses to operate.

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Issue still divides proponent, council

The possibility of a revote on the medical marijuana ban in Fountain appears to have gone up in smoke.

Former Fountain City Councilman Al Lender said last week that a family emergency in Connecticut will force him to set aside his efforts to collect nearly 400 signatures from registered voters to place a question on the November ballot to overturn a voter-approved ban.

"I'm pretty devastated over this; I've spent so much time and money. But my sister-in-law has terminal cancer, and that's more important," he said.

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