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January 11, 2010 07:16 PM UTC

Romer (For Mayor?) Abandons "Middle Ground" Medical Pot Bill

  • 16 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post reports:

The fight to regulate the rapidly growing number of medical-marijuana dispensaries took a drastic swing toward shutting down the hundreds of Colorado storefronts after state Sen. Chris Romer announced Sunday that a pending pot bill would reflect the wishes of law enforcement groups.

The attorney general, sheriff’s organizations and police groups want a five-person limit on the number of patients a pot provider – dubbed a “caregiver” – can serve.

Romer, a Democrat from Denver, said the bill reflecting that cap will likely be introduced once the legislative session starts Wednesday by state Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs, who could not be reached for comment.

It’s a stark departure from Romer’s original bill, which would have required dispensaries to provide other health services and to register their products in a database for law enforcement purposes.

Romer, at one point the dispensaries’ most vocal legislative champion, distanced himself from the new bill and said the concession follows a Friday-afternoon meeting with the governor and law enforcement representatives. He also blamed pot advocates for being too resistant to regulation.

“Almost all the cannabis people thought my bill was too restrictive. Maybe they need to wake up,” Romer said. “When the sheriffs roll their bill out, they’ll understand how reasonable my bill really was.”

It’s an interesting situation now, where the prospect of no legislative guidance on the hot-button issue of medical marijuana dispensaries seems increasingly likely unless something is done. The police-supported bill from Tom Massey is considered by many legislators to be far too restrictive to pass in its current form, but without some kind of regulation of this ‘budding’ industry at the state level, local governments are likely to continue passing starkly variable regulations of their own. On the other side, potential business owners and investors need a regulatory framework to provide security for their investment, and constitutionally-sanctioned medical marijuana consumers need a legitimate source for their medication.

Overarching all of this is a persistent feeling in the legislature that the state has far more important matters to attend to right now than a ‘crackdown’ on medical marijuana. Speaker Terrance Carroll reacted cooly to Chris Romer’s bill for this reason, we can’t imagine he’ll like Massey’s bill any better. Politically speaking, too much of this talk could also be troublesome for Democrats getting out the vote among young liberals–an important component of the Barack Obama electorate.

Our view is pretty uncomplicated: we think patients should be able to get what Amendment 20 guarantees them without having to venture into the criminal underworld to get it (which, curiously, is what the law enforcement-favored bill would seem to do), and we would really, really like to help balance the budget with all this wonderful new taxable economic activity.

As for Romer, it doesn’t seem like he’s made very many friends on either side of this issue despite his attempt to play the broker. Law enforcement thought he was making too many concessions to ‘the potheads,’ and the well-organized dispensary owners thought he was too friendly to interests who would just as soon see the feds shut down medical marijuana in Colorado entirely–constitution or no constitution. In the case of Attorney General John Suthers, like it was for his predecessor Ken Salazar, the latter is pretty much accurate.

Epilogue: Romer’s name is in play (among several) as a possible candidate for Denver Mayor should John Hickenlooper make the jump to the gubernatorial race, and Denver has voted twice to fully decriminalize marijuana–do you suppose that’s why he’s backing away from this issue?

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16 thoughts on “Romer (For Mayor?) Abandons “Middle Ground” Medical Pot Bill”

  2. Conservatives want Freedom and liberty for themselves.

    yet when it comes to THREE votes by the people,

    One Statewide and Two just in Denver, essentially to make it legal.

    more laws restricting medical marijuana distribution are hurriedly brought out. To control the newest Freedom and Liberty rest of us might enjoy.

    The Hypocrisy is deafening.

    1. I keep reading that there are now more pot dispensaries in Denver and Englewood than McDonalds and Starbucks combined. And this almost literally overnight.

      Already shady doctors are charging a few hundred to supply subscriptions with no investment of their time in any attempt to make a legit diagnosis and recommendation. And yes, I know that shady doctors do the same all the time for all kinds of popular and far more destrructive perscription drugs.  Still, no doubt there is some concern among Dem lawmakers about being identified as the party of doper advocacy.

      Granted Romer et al are not exactly covering themselves with glory in their handling of the situation but between municipal, state and fed entities and the lack of spelling out details in the amendment in the first place, it’s not exactly a cake walk. The ultimate solution ought to be legalization across the board with regulation, taxes, just as with alcohol.  We’re not there yet.

      1. Those numbers are misleading. Lies, damned lies and statistics, all that.

        There are more sales tax license applications for medical marijuana dispensaries than for McDonalds and Starbucks (which recently closed several Denver-area locations). That doesn’t mean there are more operating dispensaries.  

        1. But my main points are

          1) Just like Dems don’t like to appear soft on crime or not tough enough on terror, they also might wish to avoid looking like the doper advocate party.

          2) The amendment didn’t offer much in the way of detailed guidance on implementation so the state legislature is now stuck having to do something.

          It’s not all about hypocrisy. Squeamishness is more like it.

  3. What silliness all this blustering about “out of control” dispensaries “running amok” is. If doctors are licensing patients who don’t need medical marijuana, go after the doctors. If dispensaries are serving unlicensed patients, go after those dispensaries.

    But the five-patient caregiver limit just forces more people to grow marijuana in order for Colorado’s medical marijuana patients to get their medicine. If dispensaries are a problem because they might encourage crime, what about having thousands of caregivers growing marijuana in their homes? Not only that, but this means people with severely disabling conditions will get their medicine from likely inexperienced people with no medical training, rather than from establishments which employ doctors, as many dispensaries do.

    The dispensaries are only causing a problem in that they’re making the pro-prohibition crowd look like nincompoops. It’s hard to argue in favor of marijuana prohibition when thousands of people are quietly, legally using marijuana for medicinal purposes and continuing to go about their lives as productive Coloradoans.

    For the record, I’ve never used marijuana or any illegal drug. I don’t even smoke and I very rarely drink. But I don’t think the sky is falling just because some people are opening storefronts to legally sell medicine to patients.

    1. Too bad this topic doesn’t generate more like it.

      As opposed to BlueCat’s “doper advocate party”

      and “shady doctors” claim with no evidence or link.

      Like you, I’ve never smoked anything, or ingested anything illegal in my long life.  But I’ve hated the so-called “War on Drugs” since its inception. It’s one of the costliest, with the least good outcome, of any of the stupid wars this country has engaged in.  Hugely expensive in dollars and lives.  The current attitude of law enforcement is retrograde and just continues the stupid.  

  4. Dispensaries should be treated like Pharmacies liquor stores ad Bars. Take the Pharmacy and liquor store, caddy corners from Moore elementary school @9th and Corona for example. Essentially they are across the street.

    not the far more restrictive LAWS that are sure to be implemented.

    besides who cares how many crop up. Wont the “Free market” decide who stays open and who Closes, in the long run? Based upon Sound or unsound Business practices?

    1. A lot of people are looking in the mirror and seeing a mayor:

      Carol Boigon, Michael Hancock, Rick Garcia (unless he finally gets his federal appointment), Doug Linkhart, Cole Finegan, Walter Isenberg, Pen Tate (though he has some problems that lessen his support and might keep him out), Don Mares (he was already planning to run for the city council).

      How many of these are realistic?  Who knows.  How many would actually jump in?  Who knows.  But at this stage, anyone can fancy themself mayor.

  6. I can never seem to keep the court rulings on medical marijuana straight, but wasn’t there a ruling recently that specifically allowed for a caregiver to have as many patients as they wanted on a constitutional (CO-state, not US) basis?

    I definitely see a lot of back and forth court rulings on anything that passes the legislature on medical marijuana.  

  7. If you don’t like the 600 or so medical marijuana dispensaries in Colorado today, you are going to hate Attorney General Suthers’ plan to limit medical marijuana caregivers to five patients.

    It’s an equation that spells disaster for neighborhood safety and state government regulation.  Here’s the math: at five patients per caregiver, cities and neighborhoods will be inundated with 12,000 neighborhood operations statewide today. As more patients are prescribed medical marijuana, more neighborhood-based caregivers will be servicing patients-potentially in someone’s backyard.  

    The fact is, the Suthers plan would be virtually impossible to regulate without an army of new government workers. Last time I checked, the state is running a multi-million dollar deficit, so who’s going to pay for that?

    What we need is smart, efficient regulation that protects neighborhoods and public safety, taxes medical marijuana providers and growers and provides patients with safe access to medical marijuana.

    And why all this about a plant that NO ONE EVER OVER DOSED ON or DIED WHILE TAKING!!!!!

    Is it worth all of this?  I am even sick of speaking about it.

    1. in Lake County where the chair of the Planning Commission is desperate to limit dispensaries because “they all” are being robbed and “they all” are having shootings. She is also concerned because a 17 y/o, who can’t even get a MMJ card, had gotten a brochure of one of Leadville’s dispensaries. She wants to “limit” them like booze. Yet, Lake County has never, since the first Prohibition, prevented a bar or liquor store from opeing.

      Leadville has recently had 2 dispensaies open. No problems. One owner told me that the average age of their clients is over 40. But, Leadville, concerned that there might be one on every block, recently put in a moratorim so their P&Z can make recommendations.

      Clearly, the fact that dispensaries are legal is not deterring tose with their own “moral” agendas from attempting to impose “limits” that will create more lawbreakers.  

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