Pubdate: Sun, 15 Nov 2015 Source: Denver Post (CO) Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp Contact: http://www.denverpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122 DENVER POT PLAN WOULD GO TOO FAR Denver's proposal to alter its licensing of marijuana businesses has some good and bad features. The City Council should reshape it before passing the plan into law. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock's administration announced it wants to extend a two-year moratorium set to expire Jan. 1 that allows only existing medical marijuana businesses to open recreational dispensaries, grow houses or edible manufacturers. The plan would also freeze medical marijuana outlets. The last part of this proposal certainly makes sense. The city should indeed suspend new licensing for medical marijuana outlets. Of the city's 212 marijuana storefronts, only 13 are retail-only. A total of 128 are combined medical and retail shops and 71 are medical-only. It had long been thought that retail pot would reduce the need for medical marijuana. That clearly hasn't happened. The latest figures show 113,862 Coloradans have medical marijuana red cards, roughly 2,000 more than when retail marijuana was legalized in January 2014. And no wonder. Patients don't have to pay the special taxes imposed on retail pot and can purchase more of the product at one time. Denver has plenty of medical pot facilities to serve legitimate patients, but it's time to stop encouraging the growth of an industry that boomed before retail pot was born - especially given the scant medical evidence to support marijuana's use for all but a handful of maladies. The process for obtaining red cards has been tightened but clearly is still subject to gamesmanship aided by a poorly written constitutional amendment. The city, however, should allow new owners to set up retail shops and let competition and the market play out in that arena. Denver's rationale for extending the moratorium on retail is that the market could outgrow demand. Officials fear excess marijuana could drift into the black market or fall into the hands of young people. But that's an argument that can be marshaled indefinitely to impose an artificial quota and protect an oligopoly. There is little data to back up these fears. And the data on the black market in particular are not likely to be any more definitive two years from now. It's up to regulators, especially at the state level, to refine the system they promised to track marijuana grown commercially "from seed to sale" to ensure it isn't diverted illicitly. It will be more difficult to open new retail shops after Jan. 1 anyway, since they will go through what's known as a "needs-and-desires" licensing procedure. Similar to alcohol licensing, the law says new businesses must gather signatures from neighbors to show the community welcomes a new establishment in their midst. This step alone should put a brake on the excessive growth of pot shops. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom