Pubdate: Tue, 09 Apr 2013
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Ingold
Page: 6A

LAWMAKERS PUSH NEW POT PROPOSAL

Retail Stores and Commercial Growers Could Be Split

Colorado lawmakers stood the state's current model for marijuana
businesses on its head Monday, endorsing a proposal that would allow
recreational pot stores and commercial growers to operate
independently.

Currently, medical-marijuana businesses in Colorado are vertically
integrated, meaning growers and sellers are part of the same company
and the stores grow most of what they sell. But, on Monday at the
final meeting of a legislative committee writing a bill for
recreational marijuana rules, lawmakers backed a proposed model where
growers and sellers would be separate. They also shrunk what had been
a one-year window where only medical-marijuana businesses could apply
for recreational pot shop licenses down to three months.

The result is - potentially, since the full legislature must still
endorse the proposals- a radical change to the economics of the
cannabis industry in Colorado. And it didn't come without criticism,
including from lawmakers on the committee who felt they were given
little notice of the proposal to study it carefully.

"This was just given to us," Sen. Cheri Jahn, D-Wheat Ridge, said at
the meeting. "We've had no chance to look at it."

ButRep. Dan Pabon, a Denver Democrat who chaired the special marijuana
committee and proposed the change, said the general issue had been
thoroughly debated.

"There is not consensus on this by any means," he said.

The change was supported by many small medical-marijuana business
owners, who say that decoupling the two sides of the industry allows
people to focus on what they're best at.

"Vertical integration works for some, but for the majority it has not
been a success," said Jason Warf, the director of the Colorado Springs
Medical Cannabis Council.

But the change also benefits big-money interests currently not
involved in the medical marijuana industry who, under the old
proposal, would have been on the sidelines of the recreational
marijuana boom for a year.

A number of large medical marijuana dispensary owners argued to keep
vertical integration because, they said, it allows the state to keep
tighter control on the marijuana being produced. Mike Elliott, the
executive director of the Medical Marijuana Industry Group, said the
state must show it can keep pot from leaking out of the commercial
system if it wants to keep the federal government from
intervening.

"What we've shown is this current regulatory framework has worked,"
Elliott said, "and switching it up is dangerous."

The legislature has until the end of its session, May 8, to pass all
its new policies on marijuana, which voters in November legalized in
small amounts for people 21 and older.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt