By Susan de Castro McCann

Redstone Review Editor

LYONS – Medical marijuana seems to be the talk all over the county and everyone has an agenda. People want to sell it, buy it, avoid it, grow it, make it go away, tax it, make money on it, stop it, try it, regulate it, eat it, inhale it, organize opposition to it and just about everything else. It’s not easy being green.

On December 7 the town board passed an ordinance to impose a 90-day moratorium on any new medical marijuana dispensaries in town. The moratorium will begin on January 9 and run through April 9, 2010. The town has six people who have already applied for a license to open a dispensary, before the moratorium. Three are pending and three were granted.

On December 2 the town held a panel discussion on medical marijuana in Rogers Hall to allow residents to get a broad spectrum of information from the panel, which included, attorney Jeff Gard, Commander Tommy Sloan with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department Drug Task Force, Ed Bruder representing patients, and dispensary owner Larry Hill. Residents asked questions of the panel but the answers were rather vague because the state amendment is very vague and almost no regulations are currently in place.

Many municipalities are imposing moratoriums on dispensaries in order to wait for the state to come up with some regulations. The state will figure out some way to regulate it if only to collect the tax revenue.

Currently Colorado State Senator Chris Romer has proposed a bill to provide state licenses to marijuana dispensaries and growers. Romer believes his bill will limit fraud by pushing the state toward a medical model of dispensing marijuana. According to the Denver Post, his bill designates dispensaries as marijuana clinics, and defines a type of physician-patient relationship as one in which doctors complete a full assessment of the registered patient’s medical history and current medical condition, including a personal physical examination. In an effort to limit conflicts of interest, the senator also would bar physicians from owning clinics or receiving payments from them. The state will definitely regulate the sale of medical marijuana, dispensaries, growers, doctors and users, but as to what this will do to patients who need the drug and those who grow and dispense the drug is not at all clear.

In order to jump on the bandwagon with the Romer proposal several pharmacies have submitted applications to open dispensary/clinics to sell medical marijuana. The St. Vrain Pharmacy in Lyons has applied for a business license for a medical marijuana dispensary. The pharmacists asked questions at the panel discussion about regulating marijuana in the same way other pain killer drugs are licensed and monitored.

Attorney Jeff Gard told Diane Johnson, an accountant in the audience, that medical drugs are not taxed but Colorado Attorney General, John Suthers, has deemed that medical marijuana is taxable. Gard said although he felt that this tax was illegal, he was not going to fight it because he realized that the state could make things very ugly for growers, dispensaries and users, so he said it is easier to pay the tax and keep them happy.

Some municipalities are looking at the sales tax revenues from medical marijuana as a great opportunity to capture some revenues especially during tough economic times. Everyone from the state on down wants a piece of the action. And there seems to be plenty of action.

The Lyons Town Board stated that it wants to set some zoning regulations in place before being inundated with applications for dispensaries. Trustee Peter Baumgartner stated that he is not comfortable with people growing marijuana commercially outside an agriculturally zoned area. “That is one of the problems that we face,” said Mayor Julie VanDomelen. “That is why we need this moratorium.”

Based on the recommendations from Jeff Cornell and Marty Hine from the Planning and Community Development Commission, the town board decided to allow people to continue to submit applications for a business license to open a dispensary but the applications will not be processed until after the moratorium was lifted.

Trustees Juli Waugh and Brian Donnell disagreed with the rest of the board and voted against the moratorium on medical marijuana. Donnell said he did not see the point of a moratorium and Waugh said it was not an emergency for health and safety.

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