If he had hoped for a quiet few years before heading for the golf course, his timing could not have been worse.

Cook, senior director of enforcement at Colorado’s Department of Revenue, returned just as a new kind of business rolled into town promoting a controversial product. Medical marijuana was legalized a decade ago in the state, but retail-style dispensaries began springing up only in 2007.

The trickle of new outlets has turned into a flood. Officials think more than 1,100 dispensaries are operating statewide. As the numbers grew, dispensaries offered ever more cannabis strains, marijuana-infused products and delivery services.

When alarmed lawmakers decided they wanted to curb the burgeoning industry, all eyes turned to Cook. “It was last Christmas that I saw this was heading our way,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

Relatively late in his career, Cook has become a pioneer in the medical marijuana industry, drawing up a stringent regulation scheme that aims to turn the industry into a legitimate — and respectable — enterprise.

“We plan to track the entire commodity from seed to sale,” the 53-year-old said. “We will use a Web-based, 24-7 video surveillance system, and we will see virtually everything from the time a seed goes into the ground to the time the plants are harvested, cultivated, processed, packaged, stored.”

The regime may be copied by the 13 other states that already have legalized medical marijuana and the 14 additional states that could soon allow its use. Cook’s counterparts in other states, as well as the District, have been seeking advice.

Legislation passed by the D.C. Council in May permits the establishment of up to eight dispensaries. Virginia and Maryland do not permit medical marijuana use.

“I didn’t find tough regulatory schemes out in any of the other states,” Cook said. “The numbers of dispensaries they have are very limited. It is the most intensive period of work I have had at any point in my career.”

A drive down Denver’s Federal Boulevard, an industrial stretch running through the inner city, illustrates why his expertise was needed. New dispensaries, with their marijuana-leaf signs, are providing the latest source of urban regeneration.

Herbal Wellness, just down the street from a derelict movie theater, has a steady flow of patients. The pungent smell of its produce wafts through the front door. A sign displayed by the roadside tells passing drivers: “Sale! $250 an ounce.” Chronic Wellness, Daddy Fat Sacks, Doctors Orders, Earth’s Medicine and Mr. Stinky’s are among the other vendors found along the strip.

Denver and Colorado Springs could have as many as 500 dispensaries each, officials estimate. Dozens also have opened in Boulder.

However, the new regulations have stopped the boom and are widely expected to cut the number of outlets significantly. No new dispensaries can be opened until next summer. Existing owners wanting to remain in business have to apply for a license by Aug. 1.

Anyone wanting a license has to fill out a 22-page form detailing immediate family and personal financial history. People with drug-related felonies are disqualified. When all the rules kick in on July 1 next year, practices such as giving away free joints will be outlawed. Delivery services will be allowed only in rare cases.

In the first year, even the smallest dispensaries must hand over at least $7,500 for a license, while bigger operations will have to find as much as $18,000 to stay in business.

Cook’s starring role in shaping legal marijuana sales is all the more remarkable given that, 30 years ago, Cook was a narcotics enforcement officer who threw Colorado’s cannabis growers behind bars. His Drug Enforcement Administration training certificate, dated 1980, hangs on his office wall. On a table, three volumes of Colorado statute sit next to a copy of Cannabis Connoisseur magazine.

He says his past made his new task a “big pill to swallow” but insists it is all aimed at ensuring genuine patients receive the best treatment.

Some in the industry have decided to get out before the wave of new rules hits.

“We’ve been jumping hoops since the beginning to get compliance, and it is getting tiring,” said Charlie Van Valkenburg, who is selling his 5280 Wellness dispensary.

Cook says the new licensing requirements will shut down some shops. On a visit to the Tender Healing Care dispensary, Cook stood next to a glass counter filled with marijuana strains as he outlined some of the new rules to Geoff Graehling, the dispensary’s co-owner. Cook explained that 70 percent of the marijuana sold in the store will have to be grown there and that each jar of cannabis will need to be labeled with the chemicals used during its production.

Despite the paperwork, costs and modifications, Graehling and his fellow owner, Barb Visher, say they are embracing regulation. “I think it was needed to deal with some of the bad apples that are operating,” Graehling said. They are not alone in welcoming the chance to earn respectability. “Compared to the Wild West we’ve been in, the regulations are actually going to put some legitimacy on the medical marijuana laws,” said Andy Cookston, owner of Cannabis Medical, Denver’s first dispensary.

Source : The Washington Post

The Boulder City Council early Wednesday morning voted 4-2 to approve an emergency ordinance outlining where newly licensed dispensaries can operate for the next four months.

That “timeout,” as some officials described it, sets the stage for city planners to study up on cannabis and draft long-term regulations for the growing industry.

The new rules require any dispensary that obtains a city sales-tax license to stay 500 feet away from schools and licensed day-care centers. The businesses also won’t be allowed to open in areas that already have three or more dispensaries within 500 feet.New dispensaries won’t be allowed to operate in houses or residential zones.

The regulations do not apply to the 42 businesses that have already pulled sales-tax licenses with the city, or the 21 or so dispensaries that applied for permits prior to Nov. 6.

The elected officials stopped short of imposing a moratorium on dispensaries, generally agreeing that short-term rules would address the most immediate concerns while the city drafts a more comprehensive set of regulations.

City planners will immediately begin working on recommended rules to send to the Boulder Planning Board, which in turn will recommend an ordinance to the City Council sometime before the spring. The temporary rules expire March 31, so any long-term ordinance would likely go into effect at that point, if not before.

Planners, according to a city memo, will research and consider the impacts of commercial marijuana operations that grow, dispense or process the drug before outlining a sweeping ordinance. Such a proposal would likely set rules for dispensary locations, hours of operation, distance from schools and other public places, licensing, security and building inspections.

City staffers have also pledged to continuously monitor the state Legislature for any new laws that might regulate medical marijuana, with an eye on how other communities handle the issue.

More than 100 people from the Boulder area attended Tuesday night’s Boulder City Council meeting, with about 40 speakers urging the leaders to avoid a moratorium or restrictions on the number of allowed dispensaries.

Boulder resident Timothy Rea, a medical-marijuana advocate, said the drug is “really a lifesaver for a lot of people.”

Craig Small, an attorney who focuses on medical-marijuana law, asked the council to allow “free-market forces” to determine which dispensaries thrive or fail.

“All dispensaries are not created equally,” he said.

Ryan Hartman, owner of the Boulder Wellness Center on Arapahoe Avenue, said the scrutiny being placed on dispensaries is making some patients feel discriminated against.

“Sick and dying people are feeling like criminals,” he said.

Only a couple of people spoke in favor of stricter rules, saying that Amendment 20 — approved by state voters in 2000, allowing patients and caregivers to have marijuana for medical use in Colorado — doesn’t specifically legalize commercial dispensaries.

Councilwoman Susan Osborne said the temporary rules give the city “some breathing room” to consider more comprehensive regulations, a sentiment echoed by Councilman Ken Wilson.

“All these businesses are kind of running in a gray area right now,” Wilson said. “We just don’t have much experience with this; that’s the reason for the timeout.”

Wilson disagreed, however, with Planning Board member Andrew Shoemaker. Shoemaker, an attorney, asked the council to do anything to help the movement to legalize marijuana for everyone because the benefits of taxing the drug could help fill the city’s growing budget gap and “put drug dealers out of business.”

“We have no history with it, and we don’t know how much sustained sales tax it will bring in,” Wilson said.

He said he’s also concerned about the criminal element that marijuana operations might be associated with, and the city has a responsibility to protect its residents.

“When was the last time we had a pharmacy robbed?” Wilson said. “I don’t remember one.”

SOURCE: DAILY CAMERA

Sherri Versfelt was arrested in July 2008 after police raided her home and found 50 marijuana plants. She had an expired medical marijuana registry card belonging to another patient and a previous diagnosis of a “severe debilitating medical condition” related to surgery as a teenager to remove a massive growth from her abdomen.

Versfelt spent 27 days in jail because she did not have the money to post bond. She was set to go to trial next week on felony charges of cultivation of marijuana, possession with intent to distribute, possession of 8 ounces or more of marijuana, and possession of oxycodone. The charges carry a maximum penalty of six years in prison.

Amendment 20, approved by Colorado voters in 2000, allows patients and caregivers to have 2 ounces of marijuana or six plants for medical use, but the law also allows an “affirmative defense” that a defendant felt a larger amount was necessary to treat his or her medical condition.

That was the defense used successfully by Jason Lauve, a Louisville man who was acquitted of felony drug possession charges this summer.

Robert J. Corry Jr., the Denver attorney who represented Lauve and Versfelt, wrote a guest commentary that appeared in Thursday’s Camera asking why Garnett was taking the case to trial when Garnett had said medical marijuana prosecution was his lowest priority.

Prosecutors filed a motion Thursday asking that all charges be dismissed.

Garnett said he was not responding to the publicity around the case but to a judge’s decision Wednesday that Versfelt could present a medical marijuana defense — even though she obtained her own medical marijuana card after she was arrested, not before.

Garnett said he inherited the case, along with thousands of other felony cases, from his predecessor, Mary Lacy, and that in each case, prosecutors need to assess the particulars before making a decision about whether to proceed.

After reviewing it, Garnett said he felt the courts should rule on whether a medical marijuana card could be obtained after the fact.

“I had told the deputy (district attorney) that if the judge ruled she could present the medical marijuana defense, we should drop the charges,” he said Thursday evening. “So that’s what we did.”

Corry said he was happy the charges were dropped.

“This is a victory for the taxpayers of Boulder County, for the voters of Colorado and for medical marijuana,” he said.

SOURCE: DAILYCAMERA.COM