Legalize it?

Coloradans may get to vote next November on legalizing recreational marijuana use. At an info session in Colorado Springs last week, organizers of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol said they've collected more than enough signatures.

Among medical marijuana business owners and patients in attendance, said Jessica Hogan, spokeswoman for the Colorado Springs Medical Cannabis Council, there was one major concern: What will happen to MMJ if recreational marijuana is legalized for anyone over age 21 to buy?

[continues 344 words]

After we were granted a business license by the town of Eagle and were in business for a year, the town Board of Trustees' newly elected members joined together with some existing trustees and deemed it best to take back our business license to operate, and banned the most heavily regulated industry in Colorado from the town limits.

However, we, Eagle's sole medical marijuana dispensary, gathered enough signatures from the citizens of Eagle to reverse the trustees' split decision and put the matter to vote.

[continues 698 words]

A group pushing for a citizens initiative to legalize small quantities of marijuana will submit more than 155,000 signatures next week to put the amendment on next year's ballot.

Mason Tvert, a proponent of the measure and head of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, said Wednesday he and hundreds of volunteers are nearing the end of the petition-signature stage to get the measure on the November ballot.

Tvert said the group plans to turn in petitions to the Secretary of State's Office next Wednesday.

[continues 549 words]

The head of the Colorado Department of Revenue has written a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration asking that federal controls on marijuana be loosened slightly to account for its "potential medicinal value."

Colorado is the third state with a medical-marijuana program to ask the DEA to reschedule marijuana. But Revenue Department Executive Director Barbara Brohl's letter, written Dec. 22, does not come as a surprise. A law passed last year in the legislature required the state to ask for rescheduling by the end of this year.

[continues 206 words]

First, I have never, nor do I intend to, smoke marijuana for any reason. I agree with Kraige Kinney 100 percent to vote on Jan. 3 to make Eagle a better place. But I would ask that the Eagle citizens vote "yes" in order to do so.

I attended the marijuana panel held on Dec. 12, and I understood Eagle County Undersheriff Mr. McWilliams say that if the marijuana is grown in grow facilities this is safer for residential neighborhoods because there are no illegal and unsafe rigging setups in houses.

[continues 141 words]

No dope. A typographical error has made it impossible for the local municipal court to rule on cases of possession of an ounce or less of marijuana since 2009.

Instead, these cases have been going to county court, said David Smith, the city's attorney. The city has been losing some "minimal" revenue because of the small fines and court fees associated with minor marijuana possession.

By state law, municipal court is supposed to be responsible for minor marijuana possession, but an error occurred when the city revised its ordinances in 2009 to allow for medical marijuana clinics.

[continues 107 words]

It's commendable that Kraige Kinney (Letter: "Just say no to for-profit pot shops," Dec. 21) voted for citizens with serious health issues to use the plant cannabis (marijuana) medicinally.

Many citizens with severe pain (for example) are able to choose using or already have been using significantly more dangerous and extremely addictive narcotics with many side effects (including possible death) that leave them feeling like zombies and unable to function or work.

Cannabis has historically also been used for muscle spasms, nausea and many other ailments with far less side effects than pharmaceutical drugs. Citizens deserve the option to use the natural and safer God-given plant for those medical conditions.

[continues 57 words]

Local Medical Marijuana Retailers Largely Unconcerned by Rumors of Federal Enforcement Action

Summit County medical marijuana retailers say they're not overly worried by reports of pending federal enforcement action in Colorado.

Despite stringent new state regulations on medical marijuana sales, a law-enforcement official said the federal government is considering crackdown on medical marijuana in Colorado early next year, the Associated Press reported last week.

Rumors are rampant among those in the medical marijuana industry locally that businesses located too close to schools have or will receive letters from the U.S. government warning them to move or close their doors, but no one reports having received or seen one of the letters themselves.

[continues 480 words]

For-Profit Pot a Mistake

In 2000, I voted for the constitutional amendment that allowed marijuana to be used, with a physician's advice, as a treatment option.

Like many people in Colorado, I felt that those people who had a debilitating disease such as M.S., Lou Gehrig's disease, HIV-AIDS or the like should be allowed to use any treatment option that would help to alleviate the effects of those diseases.

I was confident in the knowledge that should a loved one or friend or any other Coloradoan truly need marijuana as a treatment option, they could obtain it by growing their own or through not for-profit care-givers as envisioned in Amendment 20. For seven years that model of not for-profit care-givers and growing your own marijuana worked.

[continues 276 words]

The importance of parental involvement in reducing adolescent drug use cannot be overstated. School-based extracurricular activities also have been shown to reduce drug use. They keep kids busy during the hours they're most likely to get into trouble. In order for drug prevention efforts to effectively reduce harm, they must be reality-based. The most popular drug and the one most closely associated with violent behavior is often overlooked by parents. That drug is alcohol, and it takes far more lives each year than all illegal drugs combined. Alcohol may be legal, but it's still the No. 1 drug problem.

[continues 120 words]

Aspen Operator: 'Yeah, It's A Little Nerve-Racking'

ASPEN -- Area medical marijuana providers admit they're a bit unnerved by last week's reports that federal authorities may crack down on the industry in Colorado next year, but operators say they're striving to strictly comply with state regulations while they wait and see what happens next.

A law-enforcement official told The Associated Press last week that enforcement action is under consideration for Colorado early next year despite state laws that regulate and tax the industry -- moves that marijuana advocates hoped would spare the state from the kind of crackdown that occurred in California. There, dozens of medical marijuana businesses, landlords leasing property to growers, and retailers selling medicinal pot over the counter were targeted in Drug Enforcement Administration raids.

[continues 560 words]

In what can only be considered one of those "duh?" moments, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said last week that more than 4,200 medical marijuana registry applications are on hold after law officers observed potential patients being seen by someone other than a doctor.

State law requires a legitimate doctor-patient relationship before a doctor can recommend medical marijuana. However, most Coloradans have long suspected or perhaps even personally known that the system of obtaining medical marijuana registry cards is subject to manipulation and fraud.

[continues 206 words]

With extensive new state regulations and hefty fees in place this year, the first of Breckenridge's medical marijuana dispensaries has secured its business license.

After shelling out more than $9,000 in state and local licensure fees, Alpenglow Botanicals is the first medical marijuana center in Breckenridge to be permitted under the new rules.

"It will be an annual fee to renew (our license)," Alpenglow Botanicals owner Charlie Williams said. "That's a lot of T-shirts."

Marijuana dispensaries in Breckenridge paid less than $300 in licensure expenses before the new regulations were in place, Williams said.

[end]

The Dec. 9 column by Jeff McAbee - "Use vs. abuse" - the letters to the editor written by two current SHS students and a former SHS student, and Cindy Bargell's Dec. 14 column "Know the parental 'code'" had me doing some serious thinking. The students noted their knowledge of substance use by high school students. This is no shock to anyone living in Summit County - or any other community, for that matter.

Having served on Building Accountability Advisory Committees throughout my children's tenure in Summit Schools, I know our schools are safe and administrators take their roles in keeping our students safe very seriously. However, I am extremely concerned that we have a population of parents, students and other community members who believe that to "smoke a little weed and a drink a little beer" is acceptable, and heaven forbid, harmless. Each and every toke, each and every drink of alcohol, each and every drug affects a developing brain - - and not in a good way. Teen brains are rapidly developing in areas that help them regulate emotion and build analytic and reasoning skills.

[continues 471 words]

Another reason to legalize and regulate the extremely popular and relatively safe plant cannabis (marijuana) that doesn't get mentioned ("McKinnon: Drop marijuana laws," Dec. 11, is because it is biblically correct since God (the Ecologician) indicates he created all the seed-bearing plants, saying they are all good, on literally the very first page (see Genesis 1:11-12 and 29-30).

The only biblical restriction placed on cannabis is to accept it with thankfulness (1 Timothy 4:1-5).

Exactly what kind of people cages its citizens for using what God says is good?

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.

[end]

Consuming the Drug Can Be Harmful but Rarely Fatal

Some veterinarians in Durango have seen a spike in the number of dogs poisoned by marijuana since the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries made the drug more accessible.

"We used to see maybe one case a year," said Stacee Santi, a veterinarian at Riverview Animal Hospital. "Now we're seeing a couple a month."

Dogs can be exposed to marijuana through smoke or eating cannabis-laced foodstuffs.

Recently, a large-breed dog was brought to the hospital stumbling, dribbling urine and exhibiting the classic symptoms of dilated eyes and slow heart beat, Santi said.

[continues 355 words]

A State Crackdown on Fraudulent Pot Referrals Will Lead to a Cleaner System and Less Federal Attention.

We're glad to see the state's health department probing medical marijuana referrals to see whether they are on the up and up.

Ensuring Colorado has a clean system will help ward off federal enforcement action that has been so controversial.

And despite what those who favor broader legalization of marijuana might think, a closely regulated system probably would help their cause with voters who are on the fence about making pot legal.

[continues 376 words]

A judge said a Longmont ban on dispensaries was not an illegal "taking" of property.

Three medical-marijuana dispensaries have lost their fight against the city of Longmont.

Boulder District Judge Ingrid Bakke on Friday dismissed the dispensaries' lawsuit against the city in a ruling that mirrored her Aug. 19 decision to not block the city's ban of marijuana-related businesses.

Bakke ruled the ban neither violated constitutional rights nor constituted an illegal "taking" of property.

"The court concludes that there is no state constitutional right to dispense medical marijuana," Bakke wrote in her decision. "In addition, there is no federal constitutional right to operate a medical-marijuana facility or to dispense medical marijuana."

[continues 167 words]

Matthew Amos has wide, boxcar shoulders and steam-engine arms. On Friday he stood before a federal judge in Denver pleading for his life.

If he went to prison, Amos told the judge, he would have to pay fellow inmates for protection. Or he would be "whored out." Or worse.

It's what happens to former prison guards who end up behind bars.

"There's no way I would be able to stay out on that yard without providing some kind of service," Amos said, voice unsteady. "To be asked to go into that system will be asking me to be something I don't want to be."

[continues 535 words]

Re: "Making medical marijuana legit," Dec. 13 editorial.

The problem with Colorado's medical marijuana laws is that they don't conform to modern medical practice. Not everyone sees a doctor each time they go in for an appointment - patients are also treated by paraprofessionals like physician's assistants and nurse practitioners. This is especially true in busy primary care practices. Since paraprofessionals practice under the supervision of a licensed physician, they should be able to certify the need for medical marijuana - and that is not fraudulent, as the police are trying to assert.

[continues 73 words]