Once again, the Colorado Health Department (CDPHE) has launched an attack on medical marijuana caregivers.
Hiding behind the Attorney General’s questionable legal interpretation, the CDPHE has rejected the proposed definition of “caregiver” as put forward by the CDPHE Medical Marijuana Advisory Board. After studying the issue, the Advisory Board concluded that providing education about medical marijuana was sufficient to meet the definition of “caregiver”. The CDPHE rejected that idea (and disbanded the Advisory Board!) and is now attempting to require caregivers to regularly assist patients with “activities of daily living” including transportation, housekeeping, meal preparation, and more. This ruling will limit patient choice and force patients to find caregivers who will not just provide quality medicine, but also provide additional, and often unnecessary, services.
The CDPHE is taking public comment on the proposed rules until April 20th, 2011 at 5:00p. Please tell the CDPHE to amend their proposal to allow patients to choose what services their caregiver should provide! Send them an email here: cdphe.MMRAdvisoryCommittee@state.co.us
Today the Colorado legislature will consider HB 1043. Like most legislation, it’s a mixed bag with both good parts– including expanded access for indigent patients– and bad parts.
One particularly bad provision would require medical marijuana caregivers– private individuals who grow for small numbers of needy patients– to register their grow locations with the Department of Revenue (DOR). This provision authorizes the DOR to give this information to local law enforcement who could check on these caregiver locations to ensure compliance with local laws. This is a solution in search of a problem. For years private caregivers have provided inexpensive medicine to patients, especially in areas where dispensaries are banned and patients have limited access to medical marijuana. If required to register and subject themselves to potential harassment by local police, many caregivers may leave the program and patients will have fewer options for accessing medicine.
Please call your state representative today to ask them to Remove the Caregiver Registry from HB 1043!
After hours of testimony regarding patient privacy by activists like you, the MMED listened. On Friday, the State Licensing Authority and the state Attorney General’s Office approved and published its final rules for commercial medical marijuana businesses. The approved rules do NOT include the most onerous big brother provisions which would have required all patient sales to be videotaped with the patient’s ID placed on a 12 x 12 square along with the patient’s medicine. These final rules will not go into effect until July 1st, 2011.
The Colorado House of Representatives initially approved a bill that could criminalize sober drivers for “driving under the influence.” HB 1261 would declare anyone with five nanograms of THC per milliliter of their whole blood guilty of driving under the influence — even if the person could prove they were actually not impaired! The House of Representatives sent this bill over to the Senate. Please call your Senator and ask him or her to amend this bill to give drivers a chance to prove their innocence, by changing the “per se” limit to a rebuttable presumption.
No one, including us, would argue that people should be allowed to drive while impaired (be it from alcohol, marijuana, prescription narcotics, or Benadryl), so we support legislation that would take those drivers off the roads. However, by making a hard and fast limit for THC, Colorado’s DUID law will unfairly target medical marijuana patients who could have a higher level of THC in their blood without being impaired.
Please call your senator and ask that this THC count only be used as a presumption of being impaired, not a per se limit.
Supporters of marijuana policy reform are coming together to produce a statewide ballot initiative that would end cannabis prohibition in Colorado in 2012. No single organization or individual is heading the effort; rather, there is a wide variety of activists, organizations, businesses, professionals, and other stakeholders working together to create and pass the best law possible.
Sensible Colorado, along with SAFER and other allies and organizations, are working to engage everyone possible in the process. We are soliciting input and feedback from the community, which we will bring to the table as an initiative is drafted by some of the most qualified attorneys and advocates from across Colorado and around the nation.
If you would like to take part in the process of putting together the best possible legalization initiative for 2012, please send an e-mail HERE. Let us know what you do or do not want to see in the initiative, or just let us know if you have any ideas or thoughts on the process. As you can imagine, we probably won’t be able to respond to every e-mail, but we assure you they will all be read and taken into consideration.
