The big question at a gathering of local government officials Thursday was whether local officials should ban medical marijuana dispensaries and growing operations or if the issue should go to a vote of the people.
However, there were plenty of other issues discussed as municipal officials from Fort Morgan, Brush, Wiggins and Hillrose met with county leaders Thursday to discuss how to handle the changing factors involved with medical marijuana.
The Board of Morgan County Commissioners invited these representatives to a joint brainstorming meeting, because it would be wise for the cities and the county to act in concert to avoid problems of differing statutes, said Commission Chairman Brian McCracken.
Colorado legislators passed two bills regarding medical marijuana, one on regulation of dispensaries and growing operations and another concerning doctor-patient relationships. Gov. Bill Ritter has not yet signed the bills, but they will go into effect whether he signs them or not.
While the regulation bill treats medical marijuana much the same as liquor laws treat alcohol, many believe it will be challenged in court, several said at the meeting.
There will likely be a challenge to a provision that would allow cities, towns and unincorporated counties to ban dispensaries or growing operations, based on a conflict with Colorado Constitution Amendment 20, which allows the use of medical marijuana, they said.
That means that regardless of a city or county ban on dispensaries or even an election result banning medical marijuana operations, the Colorado Supreme Court could nullify bans, several said.
Both McCracken and County Commissioner Laura Teague said they would prefer a ban one way or another.
However, Teague wanted to know the legal ramifications of various municipal or county actions.
"I'd start with (a local ballot) initiative," said Carl McGuire, an attorney who is advising Log Lane Village, Hillrose, Akron and Iliff in regard to the medical marijuana issues.
If the provisions allowing bans were overturned by the court, there are other options to control the proliferation of medical marijuana operations, McCracken suggested.
For instance, it might be possible to require them to go into commercial zones and make the requirements tough to meet, he said.
Restrictive zoning is an option, said David Callahan, Fort Morgan's community development director.
However, municipal and county governments have to be careful, said Fort Morgan City Manager Pat Merrill.
If a government makes conditions too restrictive, it could face a lawsuit and lose, he said.
"If you accept it in use, you can't zone it out (entirely)," Merrill said.
"That is a risk," said Barbara Gorrell, Morgan County planning administrator.
Regulations
If bans are overturned, municipalities and counties would have to start over with regulation unless they also draft regulations ahead of time, McGuire said.
If local governments work for a ban, they should also plan in case bans are overturned by the courts so they do not have to start over, said Jerrae Swanson, assistant Fort Morgan attorney.
There is no safe position to take, McGuire said.
If municipal or county governments ban medical marijuana operations by fiat, they could take a political hit, but if they put the issue to a vote the electorate may approve dispensaries and growing operations,
McGuire said.
If dispensaries and growing operations do start locally at some point, there are some pretty good guidelines in the new state laws, Gorrell said. Existing medical marijuana operations are not grandfathered in under the new legislation.
Owners of these kinds of businesses would have to undergo strict background checks and be licensed by the state, and the state would do all that work, which means the county would not be stuck with that cost, she said.
In addition, medical marijuana operations must be "vertically integrated," which means that they must grow their own marijuana and the product cannot be transferred to another dispensary, said Karen
Schminke, assistant city administrator for Brush.
Another tactic could be to require dispensaries and growing operations to stay out of densely populated areas, but that might just spread the stores out, which would make it more difficult to watch them, McGuire said.
Yet another tactic for the short term is to continue extending moratoriums, saying the municipality or county needs time to create good regulations, he said.
That way the Morgan County governments could watch while other governments pave the way with regulations which are acceptable to courts, Gorrell said.
However, doing that for too long could be seen as an effective ban by the courts, and it could cost a city or county, McGuire said.
Youth concerns
Teague said she worries, as the parent of pre-teen kids who have already been offered marijuana, whether or not medical marijuana operations could lead young people to even stronger drug use.
While a 40-year-old may stick with marijuana, marijuana might just lead to harder drugs for a 14-year-old child, she said.
There is also the problem of nuisance, Teague said.
One Washington County commissioner told her that the Washington County Sheriff's Department gets calls every day from neighbors of a dispensary in Akron complaining about activity, and the traffic is higher in the area now, she said.
Morgan County Sheriff Jim Crone wanted to know if officials were dead set on a ban or not, because law enforcement has to take its cue from laws.
"We're going to have to work within (the laws)," Crone said.
From a law enforcement perspective, police consider marijuana a Schedule I drug, which is ranked with the very strongest drugs, said Fort Morgan Police Chief Keith Kuretich.
No medical purpose that cannot be done with other drugs has been shown, he said.
However, proponents of medical marijuana have said that there was a ban on testing for medical uses, so there is no way to know if there really are genuine medical purposes, McGuire said.
If the local community accepts the idea of medical marijuana and operations related to it, police would work to regulate it rather than fight it, Kuretich said. He worries, however, about how this would affect minors in such areas as truancy, crime and high school graduation rates.
Also, he asked how police could keep youths from loitering near dispensaries.
One problem is that so many people in the state are applying for medical marijuana licenses – about 1,000 applications per day – that it may be hard for dispensaries to keep up with the demand, he said.
That means that illegal marijuana from criminals is making it into the medical marijuana system, Kuretich said.
Under Amendment 20, medical marijuana users or their caregivers can grow six plants at a time for each patient to meet their medical needs, but any one caregiver can only care for five patients, Crone said.
There is a proviso, though, which also says "as much as medically needed," and there are not clear rules on what that would be, McGuire said.
The medical marijuana industry wants regulations, so it can become legitimate, he said.
Criminal aspects
The end use of medical marijuana by a patient is not the real problem, but there could be a problem if the criminal element is bringing marijuana to the dispensaries, Crone said.
Law enforcement wants to keep the criminals out of it, he said.
He wondered if there would be an official way to mark legitimate marijuana, much as liquor has tax stamps. That might allow for inspections to keep illegal marijuana out of the dispensaries.
Probably, since the new legislation is stringent in its record keeping requirements, Gorrell said.
Although the Colorado Department of Revenue is ready to go with regulations, it is unlikely that the agency would have the manpower to do much inspection, said Morgan County Assessor Bob Wooldridge.
He wondered if a municipality or county could make restrictions so severe that they would effectively make medical marijuana operations impossible.
"That's where you suffer in court," Callahan said.
Cities and counties cannot make something legal impossible to do, he said.
Wooldridge suggested that perhaps they could regulate the size to make it unprofitable.
It does not take a big operation to make money, Crone said.
As much as she would like a ban, Teague said, that is not necessarily what is best for the residents of Morgan County in terms of the legalities. Officials have to see what will work.
Fort Morgan City Councilman James Powers suggested putting dispensaries and growing operations to an election in November to deal with the issue quickly, although the municipalities and the county could not do that themselves. An independent group would have to start an initiative.
There is a possibility that an election will mean that the voters will approve medical marijuana operations, Kuretich said.
If one community approves it, and another does not, that would have an impact in itself, he said.
Law does not allow for a countywide election which is binding on all the towns, cities and the county, which means each would have to have its own election, McGuire said.
That could lead to quite a mix of results, he said.
Nonetheless, medical marijuana is already here, and it is entirely unregulated right now, Crone said.
Moving forward
Powers wondered if the city could make its own dispensary and take all the profit for the good of the residents.
That might be considered restraint of trade, and it caused trouble in a similar situation, Wooldridge said.
Crone wondered about requiring medical marijuana operations to be in lowly populated areas, where the nuisance would be minimized.
Courts would ask for a rational public basis for such a regulation, Callahan said.
Medical marijuana businesses would want population centers for the trade they would offer, Merrill said.
This is not an issue that Morgan County officials can ignore, Gorrell said.
She had a call Thursday from a person who wanted to know if he could buy a piece of land and grow medical marijuana on it, she said.
Hillrose Assistant Town Clerk Barbara Nichols said she has heard her children talking about marijuana and there is a caretaker in the town, which worries her.
McGuire said he hears stories of people who say they do not have a medical marijuana license, but have friends who do share the marijuana.
It might be a good idea to look at what Adams County is doing, since it has not had the proliferation of dispensaries other urban areas have had, Kuretich said.
Morgan County Commissioner Tony Carlson said he is going to a Colorado Counties Inc. conference next week, and plans to watch the debate on medical marijuana carefully.
Crone said he will be going to a Colorado conference of sheriffs soon, and suggested the officials at Thursday's meeting get together again after those conferences and talk more about issues.
There is a time constraint, however, McGuire said. If municipalities or the county want to put an issue on the November ballot, they will have to get started soon.
Whether officials agree with medical marijuana operations or not, it might be better to hold elections, he said.
Something will have to be done eventually, Crone said.
"Let's just put it to the people," he said.
Teague reminded the crowd that everyone should move forward together in a consistent way.
NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Fort Morgan Times
Author: DAN BARKER
Contact: Fort Morgan Times
Copyright: 2010 MediaNews Group
Website: Should med marijuana go to vote?
* Thanks to MedicalNeed for submitting this article
However, there were plenty of other issues discussed as municipal officials from Fort Morgan, Brush, Wiggins and Hillrose met with county leaders Thursday to discuss how to handle the changing factors involved with medical marijuana.
The Board of Morgan County Commissioners invited these representatives to a joint brainstorming meeting, because it would be wise for the cities and the county to act in concert to avoid problems of differing statutes, said Commission Chairman Brian McCracken.
Colorado legislators passed two bills regarding medical marijuana, one on regulation of dispensaries and growing operations and another concerning doctor-patient relationships. Gov. Bill Ritter has not yet signed the bills, but they will go into effect whether he signs them or not.
While the regulation bill treats medical marijuana much the same as liquor laws treat alcohol, many believe it will be challenged in court, several said at the meeting.
There will likely be a challenge to a provision that would allow cities, towns and unincorporated counties to ban dispensaries or growing operations, based on a conflict with Colorado Constitution Amendment 20, which allows the use of medical marijuana, they said.
That means that regardless of a city or county ban on dispensaries or even an election result banning medical marijuana operations, the Colorado Supreme Court could nullify bans, several said.
Both McCracken and County Commissioner Laura Teague said they would prefer a ban one way or another.
However, Teague wanted to know the legal ramifications of various municipal or county actions.
"I'd start with (a local ballot) initiative," said Carl McGuire, an attorney who is advising Log Lane Village, Hillrose, Akron and Iliff in regard to the medical marijuana issues.
If the provisions allowing bans were overturned by the court, there are other options to control the proliferation of medical marijuana operations, McCracken suggested.
For instance, it might be possible to require them to go into commercial zones and make the requirements tough to meet, he said.
Restrictive zoning is an option, said David Callahan, Fort Morgan's community development director.
However, municipal and county governments have to be careful, said Fort Morgan City Manager Pat Merrill.
If a government makes conditions too restrictive, it could face a lawsuit and lose, he said.
"If you accept it in use, you can't zone it out (entirely)," Merrill said.
"That is a risk," said Barbara Gorrell, Morgan County planning administrator.
Regulations
If bans are overturned, municipalities and counties would have to start over with regulation unless they also draft regulations ahead of time, McGuire said.
If local governments work for a ban, they should also plan in case bans are overturned by the courts so they do not have to start over, said Jerrae Swanson, assistant Fort Morgan attorney.
There is no safe position to take, McGuire said.
If municipal or county governments ban medical marijuana operations by fiat, they could take a political hit, but if they put the issue to a vote the electorate may approve dispensaries and growing operations,
McGuire said.
If dispensaries and growing operations do start locally at some point, there are some pretty good guidelines in the new state laws, Gorrell said. Existing medical marijuana operations are not grandfathered in under the new legislation.
Owners of these kinds of businesses would have to undergo strict background checks and be licensed by the state, and the state would do all that work, which means the county would not be stuck with that cost, she said.
In addition, medical marijuana operations must be "vertically integrated," which means that they must grow their own marijuana and the product cannot be transferred to another dispensary, said Karen
Schminke, assistant city administrator for Brush.
Another tactic could be to require dispensaries and growing operations to stay out of densely populated areas, but that might just spread the stores out, which would make it more difficult to watch them, McGuire said.
Yet another tactic for the short term is to continue extending moratoriums, saying the municipality or county needs time to create good regulations, he said.
That way the Morgan County governments could watch while other governments pave the way with regulations which are acceptable to courts, Gorrell said.
However, doing that for too long could be seen as an effective ban by the courts, and it could cost a city or county, McGuire said.
Youth concerns
Teague said she worries, as the parent of pre-teen kids who have already been offered marijuana, whether or not medical marijuana operations could lead young people to even stronger drug use.
While a 40-year-old may stick with marijuana, marijuana might just lead to harder drugs for a 14-year-old child, she said.
There is also the problem of nuisance, Teague said.
One Washington County commissioner told her that the Washington County Sheriff's Department gets calls every day from neighbors of a dispensary in Akron complaining about activity, and the traffic is higher in the area now, she said.
Morgan County Sheriff Jim Crone wanted to know if officials were dead set on a ban or not, because law enforcement has to take its cue from laws.
"We're going to have to work within (the laws)," Crone said.
From a law enforcement perspective, police consider marijuana a Schedule I drug, which is ranked with the very strongest drugs, said Fort Morgan Police Chief Keith Kuretich.
No medical purpose that cannot be done with other drugs has been shown, he said.
However, proponents of medical marijuana have said that there was a ban on testing for medical uses, so there is no way to know if there really are genuine medical purposes, McGuire said.
If the local community accepts the idea of medical marijuana and operations related to it, police would work to regulate it rather than fight it, Kuretich said. He worries, however, about how this would affect minors in such areas as truancy, crime and high school graduation rates.
Also, he asked how police could keep youths from loitering near dispensaries.
One problem is that so many people in the state are applying for medical marijuana licenses – about 1,000 applications per day – that it may be hard for dispensaries to keep up with the demand, he said.
That means that illegal marijuana from criminals is making it into the medical marijuana system, Kuretich said.
Under Amendment 20, medical marijuana users or their caregivers can grow six plants at a time for each patient to meet their medical needs, but any one caregiver can only care for five patients, Crone said.
There is a proviso, though, which also says "as much as medically needed," and there are not clear rules on what that would be, McGuire said.
The medical marijuana industry wants regulations, so it can become legitimate, he said.
Criminal aspects
The end use of medical marijuana by a patient is not the real problem, but there could be a problem if the criminal element is bringing marijuana to the dispensaries, Crone said.
Law enforcement wants to keep the criminals out of it, he said.
He wondered if there would be an official way to mark legitimate marijuana, much as liquor has tax stamps. That might allow for inspections to keep illegal marijuana out of the dispensaries.
Probably, since the new legislation is stringent in its record keeping requirements, Gorrell said.
Although the Colorado Department of Revenue is ready to go with regulations, it is unlikely that the agency would have the manpower to do much inspection, said Morgan County Assessor Bob Wooldridge.
He wondered if a municipality or county could make restrictions so severe that they would effectively make medical marijuana operations impossible.
"That's where you suffer in court," Callahan said.
Cities and counties cannot make something legal impossible to do, he said.
Wooldridge suggested that perhaps they could regulate the size to make it unprofitable.
It does not take a big operation to make money, Crone said.
As much as she would like a ban, Teague said, that is not necessarily what is best for the residents of Morgan County in terms of the legalities. Officials have to see what will work.
Fort Morgan City Councilman James Powers suggested putting dispensaries and growing operations to an election in November to deal with the issue quickly, although the municipalities and the county could not do that themselves. An independent group would have to start an initiative.
There is a possibility that an election will mean that the voters will approve medical marijuana operations, Kuretich said.
If one community approves it, and another does not, that would have an impact in itself, he said.
Law does not allow for a countywide election which is binding on all the towns, cities and the county, which means each would have to have its own election, McGuire said.
That could lead to quite a mix of results, he said.
Nonetheless, medical marijuana is already here, and it is entirely unregulated right now, Crone said.
Moving forward
Powers wondered if the city could make its own dispensary and take all the profit for the good of the residents.
That might be considered restraint of trade, and it caused trouble in a similar situation, Wooldridge said.
Crone wondered about requiring medical marijuana operations to be in lowly populated areas, where the nuisance would be minimized.
Courts would ask for a rational public basis for such a regulation, Callahan said.
Medical marijuana businesses would want population centers for the trade they would offer, Merrill said.
This is not an issue that Morgan County officials can ignore, Gorrell said.
She had a call Thursday from a person who wanted to know if he could buy a piece of land and grow medical marijuana on it, she said.
Hillrose Assistant Town Clerk Barbara Nichols said she has heard her children talking about marijuana and there is a caretaker in the town, which worries her.
McGuire said he hears stories of people who say they do not have a medical marijuana license, but have friends who do share the marijuana.
It might be a good idea to look at what Adams County is doing, since it has not had the proliferation of dispensaries other urban areas have had, Kuretich said.
Morgan County Commissioner Tony Carlson said he is going to a Colorado Counties Inc. conference next week, and plans to watch the debate on medical marijuana carefully.
Crone said he will be going to a Colorado conference of sheriffs soon, and suggested the officials at Thursday's meeting get together again after those conferences and talk more about issues.
There is a time constraint, however, McGuire said. If municipalities or the county want to put an issue on the November ballot, they will have to get started soon.
Whether officials agree with medical marijuana operations or not, it might be better to hold elections, he said.
Something will have to be done eventually, Crone said.
"Let's just put it to the people," he said.
Teague reminded the crowd that everyone should move forward together in a consistent way.
NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Fort Morgan Times
Author: DAN BARKER
Contact: Fort Morgan Times
Copyright: 2010 MediaNews Group
Website: Should med marijuana go to vote?
* Thanks to MedicalNeed for submitting this article
