DENVER Friday will be another big day for the owners of medical marijuana shops, as new rules and a new state law take effect.
Dispensaries will have to comply with 72 pages of new rules that require detailed controls over shops inventories and record-keeping. The shops also will have to install 24-hour video security cameras, and they will face penalties for not growing at least 70 percent of their own marijuana.
The Department of Revenue wrote the rules after the Legislature in 2010 set up a licensing scheme for the hundreds of medical marijuana shops that opened in the past few years.
When the Legislature passed the bill, both opponents and supporters predicted it would drive a large fraction of the shops out of business.
I still think things are shaking out, and I think July 1 is going to be an important date in that process, said Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, who has worked on medical marijuana bills the past two years.
Some dispensaries will not be able to comply with the rules and will have to shut down, he said. But he predicted that hundreds of shops will stay in business, and the industry will get more legitimate as a result.
Not everyone agrees. A group called The Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project is planning to sue the state soon over the new rules.
Steadman sponsored a follow-up bill this year that also takes effect Friday.
House Bill 1043 extends the statewide moratorium on new marijuana shops for another year. However, it allows people who applied for a license before August 2010 and paid hefty fees to transfer their license to another city if their hometown has banned dispensaries.
Its really a fairness issue to people that got iced out, Steadman said.
HB 1043 also:
Makes public the location of large growing operations, but keeps secret the location of private caregivers plants.
Slightly loosens the ban on marijuana shop employees with certain criminal records.
Relaxes the requirement that shop employees must be Colorado residents for two years.
Allows patients who make less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level to avoid the license fee and the sales tax they pay on marijuana.
Finally, the bill requires private caregivers who can grow up to six plants each for up to five patients to register with the state.
Bill Delany of Pagosa Springs used to be a private caregiver until he opened his dispensary, Good Earth Meds, this year.
Although Delany said it is hard to get information from the Department of Revenue, he welcomed the new rules because they will make the industry more legitimate.
You have to have health instead of profit as your primary motivation, Delany said.
Delany says marijuana is the only treatment that has relieved his years of pain from Crohns disease, and most of his customers are older people with real medical needs.
As of May 31, 127,444 Coloradans possessed cards that allow them to buy medical marijuana. They are spread across the state less than half a percent of the population of Southwest Colorados five counties has a card.
Reach Joe Hanel at joeh@cortezjournal.com.
