Colorado Board of Health unanimously strikes down caregiver definition
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 8:24 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Westword) To make a long story short, the board voted 9-0 this morning to strike language stating that a marijuana caregiver has to have “significant responsibility for managing the well-being of a patient.”
This summer, the board determined that all a caregiver had to do was provide a patient with marijuana. However, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that this concept was invalid in a decision last week. So today, the board wasted no time in chucking their whole definition into the waste bin.
The board didn’t come up with a new definition, though — suggesting that it will wait for its regularly scheduled December 16 meeting to tackle the challenge. As of now, in other words, there’s no definition anywhere in state regulations stating what, exactly, it means to be a marijuana caregiver.
Gee, I wonder how many new dispensaries can set up shop in Colorado between now and December 16? Haven’t they learned anything from Los Angeles? State and local governments can’t just abdicate their responsibility to come up with clear regulations regarding medical marijuana. In the absence of guidelines, people will assume the best-case scenario that allows their businesses to flourish, and then when the government does come up with regulations, they end up destroying the businesses of many people who had the best of intentions along with the carpetbaggers who were just looking to make a buck of medical marijuana.
Maybe the prohibitionists want disorder to ensue so they can ultimately have an excuse to shut this down?
It seems like another division. There IS a school of thought that says that the people should be able to decide. Until December, the people WILL decide. I think that those who strive to adhere to the original intent of the law should be on safe ground.
Please don’t fight the freedom aspect, whatever its form. It is appropriate for a local government to decide to strictly regulate or to deregulate as it sees fit. California’s approach has led to 3 seperate ballot initiatives to just legalize it already. I say vote yes for all 3, then let the lawmakers sort it out. :)
Freedom is sometimes ugly and hard.