(Denver Post) A proposal that would have effectively shut down medical-marijuana dispensaries was rejected Monday night by the Colorado Board of Health.
In addition to voting down a plan to limit medical-marijuana caregivers to five patients each, the board also refused to require that caregivers help patients with daily activities. The board did, however, agree to changes meant to prevent fraud — and left the door open to revisiting the cap on patients another time.
The decision, which came after 12 hours of testimony and deliberations, was met with a loud cheer from the 50 or so people remaining in the audience on the Auraria campus, which had numbered 500 at the start of the day. People stood up, jumped up and down and screamed.
Opponents of the changes, particularly the proposal to cap the number of patients a caregiver could have at five, said the proposals would have potentially cut off access for about 7,630 Coloradans registered as patients who can legally use the drug. Currently, caregivers sometimes take the form of dispensaries serving hundreds of patients.
This is a huge victory for the movement! Congratulations to all the activists in Colorado working so hard to protect medical marijuana patients. This shows you the good that can happen when 500 of us stand together and speak truth to power. Who knows how that vote would have turned out of those board members weren’t facing patient after patient telling them that without dispensaries, they’d have to support a criminal in a black market (a black market that shouldn’t exist and a salesman who shouldn’t be called a criminal, that’s a point for another time.) Dispensaries are safe today on the Front Range thanks to people like you who stand up for their rights.
I can understand that people have concerns about change. But, I think that something that needs to be considered is that Alcohol is already legal in our country and is responsible for so many deaths that it has to seperated out, yet there is not ONE recorded case of Marijuana being the sole cause of death. What the hell is wrong with people. If you don’t want to smoke it, then don’t.
Simple things like requiring people to show state ID when they get a medmj card. Nothing awful.
[...] Colorado Board of Health votes 6-3 to kill 5-patient limit for caregivers [...]
How do antidemocratic tools get on governing boards in the USA?
from the full text of the news item
“including the board’s president, Glenn Schlabs .
“I don’t believe we need to model our rule-making on comments of the people who came forward to speak today,” he said. “I don’t feel compelled to fashion regulation that appeals to you. That’s why we’re the board of health.” “
We did it!!! Thanks from the bottom of my heart (and the hearts of my fellow patients) to the talented and dedicated NORML jurists who made it possible for us to stand up to the state!!!