Marijuana Has Been A Tricky Issue At Airports Across The State The Telluride Regional Airport Authority has decided to handle the issue of marijuana at the airport with an advisement to passengers. The board voted at its March meeting to install signs at TEX that advise anyone boarding flights that they risk prosecution if they enter federal airspace with marijuana. The new warning signs will be placed in various locations at the airport. Sales and possession of retail marijuana might be legal in Telluride, but marijuana is still federally illegal, which puts TEX in a tough position. According to TEX Board Chairman Jon Dwight, the board is attempting to walk a fine line between conflicting federal and state laws. [continues 414 words]
Telluride plans to regulate retail stores in town Even though the passage of Amendment 64 has made it legal for adults 21 and older to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana in Colorado, retail pot shops have yet to open their doors. That's because the state has been drafting the rules for exactly how recreational pot should be grown and sold. This week, the process hit a milestone when the Department of Revenue released those rules, which address everything from potency labels to expiration dates and who can work in the marijuana business. [continues 646 words]
Measure would legalize marijuana and regulate it like alcohol The San Miguel Board of County Commissioners last week became the first county in Colorado to pass a resolution supporting Amendment 64, which aims to regulate marijuana like alcohol. The amendment, which will be put to Colorado voters on Nov. 6, would make the personal use, possession and limited home-growing of marijuana legal for adults 21 years of age and older, establish a system in which marijuana is regulated and taxed like alcohol and allow for the cultivation, processing and sale of industrial hemp. [continues 441 words]
New cannabis land use code to be approved by June 30 In an effort to prevent San Miguel County from becoming a cannabis-growing Mecca and large-scale exporter of medical marijuana, county commissioners are revisiting land use codes in unincorporated areas. In an April 4 meeting, Planning Director Mike Rozycki presented commissioners - and a roomful of medical marijuana business owners - with the department's recommendations for definitions of permitted medical marijuana businesses. There are currently no specific land use regulations for these businesses. [continues 640 words]
'I Don't See Why We Should Put an Extra Tax on Marijuana If It's Medical' An anti-tax sentiment that has gripped much of the country in recent months resonated in the chambers of Rebekah Hall on Tuesday, when the Telluride Town Council rejected the idea of putting a new excise tax measure before voters. Up for consideration was an ordinance that would have placed a measure on the November ballot that asked voters whether to approve a 5-percent excise tax on the sale of medical marijuana, medical marijuana paraphernalia and medical-marijuana infused products. [continues 406 words]
Public Hearing Scheduled for June 21 For decades, Telluride has had a liquor licensing authority to regulate the sales of booze in town. Now, it appears it will create a similar authority for the regulation of medical marijuana. The Telluride Town Counsil gave preliminary approval this week to an ordinance that would create a licensing authority as well as tweak some of the town's existing medical marijuana regulations. Council gave unanimous approval to the ordinance on Tuesday. A final reading and public hearing is scheduled for June 21. [continues 344 words]
And activists say, 'legalize it' The Town of Telluride will continue to refine its medical marijuana policies as the State of Colorado drags its feet in forging overarching rules. Last week, the Telluride Town Council gave direction to the town attorney to continue crafting local rules that will provide a blueprint for governing the industry, which has proven problematic across that state as it surged in popularity. As it stands now, the town's medical marijuana ordinance draft spans some 41 pages and, once passed, will take several key positions, regulating the age of dispensary workers and further regulating signage. [continues 609 words]
Waiting for regulations from the state The Mountain Village Town Council has extended its emergency moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries through next summer. "It's not a statement for support or lack of support for medical marijuana," said Mayor Bob Delves. "It's just a cautious step to allow the state to develop a clear set of guidelines and regulations so we know what the state wants to do before we allow it to happen in our community." The vote to extend the moratorium took place on Oct. 21, just weeks before it was set to expire. The extension could run through July 1, 2011 or until town council takes further action once the State of Colorado outlines its regulations for licensing towns and counties. [continues 342 words]
County finds interim solution for cannabis grow operations As the state of Colorado tries to figure out exactly how to regulate its booming medical marijuana industry, San Miguel County is struggling with how to regulate grow operations in unincorporated parts of the county. For now, the county has found an interim solution for growers seeking county approval: two will be approved and two others will have to move, but the county will allow them to stay open until July 1, 2011. [continues 695 words]
As Dispensaries Look To Grow Product In County, State And County Codes Conflict New legislation regulating Colorado's budding medical marijuana industry is leaving local dispensary owners and county officials in a grey area, as dispensaries try to meet a new requirement that they cultivate at least 70 percent of their cannabis on site or at an "optional premises cultivation operation." A number of Telluride dispensaries are turning to unincorporated county land to set up these operations, which leaves the county grappling with how to regulate grow operations. [continues 784 words]
New State Regulations Leave Many Questions Unanswered After placing a temporary moratorium on cannabis dispensaries in unincorporated San Miguel County in April, officials must now address a new question that is cropping up: how to permit applications for grow facilities. The Board of County Commissioners will discuss permitting "Optional Premises Cultivation Operations" and other issues concerning the booming medical cannabis industry during a work session on Wednesday. County Planning Director Mike Rozycki said three businesses that are licensed through the Town of Telluride are looking for county approval to grow the majority of their cannabis in facilities in unincorporated San Miguel County under an "Optional Premises Cultivation Operations" permit. However, the county is unclear about land use codes and has little direction from the state. [continues 426 words]
In light of the recent passage of state medical marijuana legislation, the Town of Mountain Village is considering how to license and regulate medical marijuana dispensaries in Telluride's sister city once its moratorium expires in November. James Nerlin, an attorney with the law firm Reed & Gilbert, presented House Bill 1284 to the council and explained what it means for Mountain Village. "There are a lot of options in terms of allowing restrictions on the local level," Nerlin said. HB 1284 is the end product of months of back and forth between Colorado lawmakers that addresses Colorado's booming medical marijuana industry. [continues 289 words]
County Land Use Code Needs Revisions Last week, San Miguel County commissioners placed a temporary moratorium on the licensing of medicinal cannabis dispensaries in unincorporated areas for up to six months. The board, somewhat reluctantly, chose to do so because the county has nothing in its land use code when it comes to businesses selling and dispensing medical marijuana. The county also placed the moratorium to track the progress of House Bill 10-1284 in Colorado Legislature that would outline how the state licenses dispensaries. [continues 348 words]
Just as blue eyes and stubborn spirits are genetically inherited from parents, botanical genes code for flower color, seed shape, and stem size as well as the production of molecules important for fragrance, flavor, and natural chemicals. Cannabis sativa, a plant cultivated for thousands of years, contains a genomic region responsible for the production of the psychoactive chemical, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). It is this chemical that earned Cannabis its illicit label, “marijuana,” and motivated United States lawmakers to outlaw Cannabis cultivation over seventy years ago. The resultant debate to legalize Cannabis stems from social, political, and economic issues that, quite possibly, only modern science can ameliorate. [continues 579 words]
Once A Drug Buster, Now A Prominent Critic Of The 'War On Drugs' When he's hiring new deputies, the test is simple. The sheriff asks them to write their life stories. "Most of this job is writing," Bill Masters says. "If they can't write, they're a constant pain in the ass." So if Masters wrote his own life story, what would he write? Masters grew up a straight-laced kid in L.A., joined the Coast Guard, kicked around and decided he didn't want to go back to L.A. It was hot there, and you had to wear a tie to job interviews. So he said screw this, "I'm going to Telluride and go ski for a year." [continues 384 words]
Dear Editor, If health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Like any drug, marijuana can be harmful if abused, but jail cells are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents. The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican immigration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been counterproductive at best. White Americans did not even begin to smoke pot until a soon-to-be entrenched federal bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda. [continues 62 words]
Dear Editor, Reilly Capps got a bull's-eye (What Drives Cop Shop, Dec. 17, 2008) calling to end cannabis (marijuana) prohibition. Although the cannabis initiative failed a few years ago, all the ski town / counties pass it; Summit with 62% and San Miguel with a very respectable 74 percent. One of the most luciferous consequence of cannabis prohibition though is how it affects "climate change" and America's economy by also prohibiting and exterminating hemp (without THC). The United States uses corn for ethanol because hemp is illegal. America has had technology to build and fuel cars using hemp since the 1930s. Nearly every product produced from petroleum can be made with hemp resins. Some estimates indicate using 10 percent of America's farmland to cultivate hemp would eliminate any need for foreign petroleum. Before greedy ignoids conspired to prohibit hemp, it was referred to as the billion-dollar crop, when the B-word wasn't thrown around so loosely. A sane argument to perpetuate prohibiting free American farmers from utilizing the plant doesn't exist. Even communist Chinese farmers grow hemp; You know, that country America has the highest debt with. And consider how many factories and factory jobs America has lost overseas due to hemp prohibition. If America still grew hemp as it did back in the day, We'd still have those factories because hemp fields need factories nearby. America's future political atmosphere may be more conducive to changing hemp's status as a Schedule I drug along side heroin and LSD. Americans must work hard the next few years to re-introduce hemp as a component of American agriculture. In fact, environmentally conscientious Americans must fight harder than big oil and other mega corporations which profit immensely off hemp prohibition and spend huge fortunes to guarantee its existence. Because hemp prohibition is anti-American and it's shucking the country. Truthfully, Stan White Dillon, Colorado [end]
Every week I write the Cop Shop -- my favorite task at this paper. My life is so boring, and some of my neighbors' lives are so interesting in all these incredible, horrible, spectacular ways. The Telluride cops sometimes capture, in their police reports, a side of this town in a way official records rarely do. Every week we brawl over little things, we pass out on the sidewalk, we steal our roommate's stuff and pilfer little girls' bicycles. And why are we acting so boneheaded? [continues 603 words]
TELLURIDE, COLO. - Like all sometimes-great notions, this one was born in a bar. It was March, and a group of scientists who'd been lecturing in Telluride decamped from their esoterica and headed out to the New Sheridan to get a drink. There, a talkative chemist named Thomas Cheatham started talking about drugs in this new and novel way -- about the connections between prescription drugs, illegal drugs, natural medicines and the chemicals your Very Own Body produces every day. Nana Naisbitt, director of the Telluride Science Research Center, was there that night and recalled how the conversation sparked an idea: Bring this Cheatham guy back to Telluride, and get him to talk about the science of drugs. [continues 469 words]
Dear Editor, As a Christian it's definitely time to stop caging responsible adult humans for using the relatively safe God-given plant cannabis (Denver Did It - Could Telluride Legalize Marijuana? Nov. 7, 2007) and one reason that doesn't get mentioned is because it is Biblically correct. Christ God Our Father, The Ecologician, indicates He created all the seed-bearing plants, saying they are all good, on literally the very first page. The only Biblical restriction placed on cannabis is that it is to be accepted with thankfulness (see 1 Timothy 4:1-5). What kind of people support persecuting, prohibiting and exterminating what God says is good? Truthfully, Stan White Dillon, Colo. [end]