Pubdate: Tue, 18 Dec 2012
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2012 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Dan Frosch
Note: A version of this article appeared in print on December 18, 2012, on
page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: In Colorado,
Getting Down To Business of Marijuana.

IN COLORADO, GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS OF MARIJUANA

GOLDEN, Colo. - It has been a little over a month since Coloradans
approved a groundbreaking law legalizing small amounts of marijuana
for recreational use.

Now that the celebratory haze has settled, state officials and
marijuana advocates on Monday began sifting through the thorny
regulatory questions that go beyond merely lighting up.

Among them: Who can sell marijuana? How should consumer safety be
accounted for? How might employers and employees be affected by the
new law?

At a packed meeting at a state building in this suburb west of Denver,
a task force convened by Gov. John W. Hickenlooper began wrestling
with some of these questions in an effort to forge a framework for how
the law should work.

The task force, made up of designees from an array of state offices as
well as various marijuana advocates, weighed in on matters including
the identification of marijuana revenue sources and the prospect of
the federal government cracking down on the drug.

"We're not here to have a discussion on whether legalizing marijuana
was the right thing to do," said Jack Finlaw, Mr. Hickenlooper's chief
legal counsel and a co-chairman of the task force. "Our job is to find
ways of efficiently and effectively implementing it."

Colorado's Amendment 64 sets the stage for marijuana to be regulated
much like alcohol. But the state will have a whole new set of
variables to consider, like licensing retail facilities and
determining what sort of security measures stores should have.

And Mr. Finlaw said he was not sure that alcohol could be used as a
model for marijuana, given the inevitable differences in how it would
be sold.

Aside from the regulatory challenges of moving from a black market to
a legitimate one, there are also health issues to be considered. Dr.
Chris Urbina, the executive director of Colorado's Department of
Public Health and Environment, raised the prospect that marijuana
should be regulated differently depending on whether it is smoked or
eaten.

"We expect this to be challenging," said Mark Couch, a spokesman for
Colorado's Department of Revenue, which will be largely responsible
for regulating the sale and use of marijuana.

"The department does have some experience with licensing and
regulating products that have certain restrictions," Mr. Couch said.
"Obviously, that is complicated by the fact that federal law makes
this product illegal."

In an interview last week with Barbara Walters, President Obama
assuaged the fears of marijuana proponents, saying the federal
government would not pursue marijuana users in states where the drug
is now legal.

But it was still unclear whether the Justice Department would permit
stores in Colorado and Washington, which also legalized marijuana in
November, to sell the drug, leaving it in a regulatory netherworld
when it comes to federal law.

Barbara Brohl, the executive director of the state's Department of
Revenue and a co-chairwoman of the task force, said Colorado was
consulting with officials in Washington State as it moved through its
own process.

Christian Sederberg, a Denver lawyer who is on the task force and
whose law firm helped draft Amendment 64, said he thought Colorado was
well positioned to settle on new regulations, given that medical
marijuana was already legal here.

Still, Mr. Sederberg said that medical marijuana rules were undergoing
substantial revisions in Colorado and that there was clearly a need
for distinct regulations for recreational use.

"I'm of the opinion that we have a very good base to work with on the
policies Amendment 64 intended to push forward and how those policies
fit in with regulations already in place," he said.

The task force has until the end of February to make recommendations
to Mr. Hickenlooper; the state attorney general, John W. Suthers; and
the General Assembly. The regulations must be completed by July 1.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D