Depending on who you ask, Colorado House Bill 21-1317 is either a “modest update” to the state’s cannabis landscape or an effort to “massively rein in the state’s marijuana industry.” The former is how Colorado Governor Jared Polis’ spokesperson Conor Cahill framed the bill to Cannabis Wire, calling it “a modest update to our regulatory framework to take further steps to ensure we are protecting our children,” and the latter is from an email sent out from the nation’s largest anti-legalization group, Smart Approaches to Marijuana, claiming the bill as a victory. Polis signed the bill into law in June. What is certain is that the bill, for which the crafting of regulations kicked off this week, is of intense interest. The bill saw lobbying from PAX Labs to the American Academy of Pediatrics, as Cannabis Wire reported. And, the new law is already the focus of a lawsuit, filed on behalf of a 19-year-old medical cannabis patient with epilepsy, that argues the law is “unlawfully restricting patients from accessing their constitutionally protected right to the amount of medical marijuana provided.” Broadly, the bill’s sponsors summed it up as an effort to curb underage consumption, educate consumers about high-THC products, prevent diversion, and collect and study data about cannabis-related hospital visits. Its provisions, for example, limit the amount of concentrated medical cannabis products that a patient can purchase in one day: for those aged 18-20, it’s 2 grams, and for those 21 and older, it’s 8 grams. It also calls for better real-time data reporting to prevent patients from purchasing from multiple shops in order to obtain more than the legal limit.
Nushin Rashidian, Cannabis Wire, 08/04/2021 20:00:00
Open article: https://cannabiswire.com/2021/08/05/in-colorado-regulators-tackle-new-cannabis-limits/