County commissioners have ruled out letting medical-marijuana businesses grow their crops in unincorporated Boulder County's agricultural zoning districts.
Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to restrict "medical marijuana centers" – businesses that sell, grow or distribute medical marijuana – to the county's business, commercial, light industrial, general industrial and transitional zoning districts.
During a public hearing before the vote, several medical-marijuana advocates and business owners urged the commissioners to allow them to cultivate cannabis crops in ag zones, something several indicated already is going on.
Tom Luecke, a partner in a Boulder dispensary, complained that with the moratoriums or pending bans in place in many area cities and towns, Boulder County and the city of Boulder are the only places left where dispensaries can grow the medical marijuana they sell to patients on the state's registry.
David Cahoon of Lafayette said medical marijuana could be integrated into an organic farming operation.
Limiting the locations where medical marijuana can be grown will make less of it available to the Boulder County patients who need it and will drive up prices, Cahoon argued.
"This is a plant," said David Platt of Boulder, adding that it makes more sense to grow medical marijuana in a greenhouse in a rural setting than in a warehouse in an industrial area.
Douglas Hayes of Lafayette said he has a 60-acre farm in unincorporated Boulder County where such a crop would be appropriate, would benefit from solar-paneled greenhouses or other structures, and would be far from any schools.
The county's new rules specify that a property occupied by a medical marijuana dispensary or growing operations can't be closer than 1,000 feet to an alcohol or drug treatment facility, a licensed child-care facility, or an educational facility with students below college level.
Commissioner Will Toor said he'd be open to allowing outdoor marijuana crops in agricultural zones, or possibly even indoor crops raised in existing greenhouses or other structures already on those farms. But he said he wouldn't favor permitting warehouse-style growing operations on ag land.
However, Toor deferred to concerns that Commissioners Cindy Domenico and Ben Pearlman expressed about letting commercial medical marijuana in ag zoning districts, at least for the time being.
"A medicinal crop like this and food crops are very different," Domenico said.
Pearlman said that, though marijuana is a plant, "by and large it's not grown as a plant." He said growing marijuana is "not an agricultural use as we traditionally understand it."
Pearlman also said permitting medical marijuana to be grown in greenhouses or other farm outbuildings would raise security issues not posed by other crops.
"There's not a lot of people breaking into greenhouses to steal cucumbers," he said.
NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Longmont Times-Call
Author: John Fryar
Copyright: 2010 Longmont Times-Call
* Thanks to MedicalNeed for submitting this article
Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to restrict "medical marijuana centers" – businesses that sell, grow or distribute medical marijuana – to the county's business, commercial, light industrial, general industrial and transitional zoning districts.
During a public hearing before the vote, several medical-marijuana advocates and business owners urged the commissioners to allow them to cultivate cannabis crops in ag zones, something several indicated already is going on.
Tom Luecke, a partner in a Boulder dispensary, complained that with the moratoriums or pending bans in place in many area cities and towns, Boulder County and the city of Boulder are the only places left where dispensaries can grow the medical marijuana they sell to patients on the state's registry.
David Cahoon of Lafayette said medical marijuana could be integrated into an organic farming operation.
Limiting the locations where medical marijuana can be grown will make less of it available to the Boulder County patients who need it and will drive up prices, Cahoon argued.
"This is a plant," said David Platt of Boulder, adding that it makes more sense to grow medical marijuana in a greenhouse in a rural setting than in a warehouse in an industrial area.
Douglas Hayes of Lafayette said he has a 60-acre farm in unincorporated Boulder County where such a crop would be appropriate, would benefit from solar-paneled greenhouses or other structures, and would be far from any schools.
The county's new rules specify that a property occupied by a medical marijuana dispensary or growing operations can't be closer than 1,000 feet to an alcohol or drug treatment facility, a licensed child-care facility, or an educational facility with students below college level.
Commissioner Will Toor said he'd be open to allowing outdoor marijuana crops in agricultural zones, or possibly even indoor crops raised in existing greenhouses or other structures already on those farms. But he said he wouldn't favor permitting warehouse-style growing operations on ag land.
However, Toor deferred to concerns that Commissioners Cindy Domenico and Ben Pearlman expressed about letting commercial medical marijuana in ag zoning districts, at least for the time being.
"A medicinal crop like this and food crops are very different," Domenico said.
Pearlman said that, though marijuana is a plant, "by and large it's not grown as a plant." He said growing marijuana is "not an agricultural use as we traditionally understand it."
Pearlman also said permitting medical marijuana to be grown in greenhouses or other farm outbuildings would raise security issues not posed by other crops.
"There's not a lot of people breaking into greenhouses to steal cucumbers," he said.
NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Longmont Times-Call
Author: John Fryar
Copyright: 2010 Longmont Times-Call
* Thanks to MedicalNeed for submitting this article
