Pubdate: Sun, 20 Dec 2009
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2009 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?420 (Cannabis - Popular)

RETURN SANITY TO MARIJUANA RULES

Lawmakers should take up state AG John Suthers' plan, which would 
honor what voters in 2000 had in mind for medical pot.

As Colorado policymakers grapple with how to control what has become 
a barely disguised effort to legalize marijuana, we think the state's 
law enforcement community has come up with the best approach.

Broadly speaking, it would return the medical marijuana mess to the 
more sane situation we had before this year's explosion of patients 
and dispensaries.

The current lack of regulation has created a vacuum, which can be a 
dangerous thing. All sorts of undesirable situations -- and proposed 
remedies -- have arisen.

The main tenets of the law enforcement approach, put forward by 
Attorney General John Suthers, would limit caregivers to five 
patients and impose tighter controls on physicians who recommend 
medical marijuana for patients.

It would require doctors recommending medical marijuana to be in good 
standing, and it would give the state health department the ability 
to sanction doctors who violate new rules. Under his approach, those 
who actually need medical marijuana could contact the health 
department to be put in touch with a provider.

We think it hews more closely to what voters approved in 2000 and is 
a far cleaner approach than that suggested by state Sen. Chris Romer, 
who has proposed a wide range of regulations that would legitimize 
and license dispensaries that weren't even mentioned in the amendment 
passed by voters.

Though we appreciate Romer's effort to gather input from interested 
parties, we think his approach creates a need for an immense 
bureaucratic response -- licensure, regulation and tax collection. We 
are concerned it will devolve into the chaotic medical marijuana 
situation that exists in California, where policy makers are 
struggling to regulate dispensaries.

We hope Democratic lawmakers, who control both the state House and 
Senate, think hard about the intent of the original medical marijuana 
measure and the sentiments of their constituents before supporting 
the bill being pushed by Romer, a fellow Democrat.

Communities all over the state have imposed moratoriums and 
restrictive conditions on the proliferation of dispensaries. They're 
making their feelings quite clear.

Gov. Bill Ritter, a career prosecutor, also should take a leadership 
role on the issue as his fellow Democrats shape how medical marijuana 
will be delivered in this state.

It's one of the biggest issues of the upcoming legislative session, 
and we hope a bipartisan group of lawmakers will step forward to 
champion the Suthers' position.

Or, quite frankly, voters should just legalize marijuana use, because 
that's better than what we have now with people skirting the law to smoke pot.

Though voters approved medical marijuana in 2000, the problems didn't 
begin until this year. The state Board of Health declined last summer 
to formalize patient limits for medical marijuana caregivers. It also 
failed to define what it meant to have "significant responsibility" 
for a patient. That abdication gave enterprising marijuana peddlers 
an opening, and a motivation for getting as many people as possible 
medically certified to use marijuana.

It's time to nudge medical marijuana closer to what voters had in 
mind nine years ago when they approved the small-scale use of 
marijuana for desperately sick people.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom