In defense of this year’s Denver 420 Rally at Civic Center

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By Robert J. Corry Jr., Denver Post Guest Commentary

Re: “It’s past time for Denver’s 4/20 to grow up and be cool,” April 25 editorial.

There is an annual tradition in Colorado in April.

It begins at about 4:21 p.m. on April 20.

It is the ritual finger-wagging of the cloistered critics, gaping jealously from the outside in, at the Denver 420 Rally in Civic Center.

This yearly post-event temper tantrum fails to stop the event. This year, however, the anti-freedom cabal descended into absurdity.

Denver’s emotional mayor piled on, joined by the Denver Post editorial board, which channeled its inner Carrie Nation to crusade against 420’s “debauchery” and “irreverence.” (And we’re uncool?)

The Post’s principal scold against 420? First, paper trash generated by 50,000 people (the approximate population of Broomfield), confined to a small few-block area for a day, was not cleaned up fast enough. We cleaned the park, at our own expense. We left it in better condition than before. It looks fine. Case closed.

It is astounding that snapshots taken at a point in time during the clean-up effort would be manipulated into a newspaper scandal.

Second, The Post condemned people who jumped fences that surrounded Civic Center, frustrated with the wait. These fences and security personnel were placed there at the city’s demand. And it is our fault that the city’s requirements caused this?

Third, The Post engages in the tired refrain that since marijuana has been “legalized,” there is no “need” for a rally, and those consumers should, oxymoronically, “grow up and be cool,” slink home and not disturb polite society. Fact: Marijuana has not been “legalized.” Not federally, and not under Colorado law. Hundreds of people are prosecuted every year under Colorado’s criminal prohibition of marijuana that has become more harsh since Amendment 64. The need for a political rally is even greater now than before.

The Denver 420 Rally is a positive and valuable addition to Denver’s diverse culture. If a rally’s message or content offends you, in a free country, you always have the option of not attending.

Robert J. Corry Jr., a Denver attorney, is general counsel to the Denver 420 Rally.

Rewriting medical marijuana regulations “an insult” to Floridians who voted for Amendment 2

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By The Gainsville Sun Editorial Board

Via The Associated Press. The following editorial was published in the The Gainesville Sun, April 23, 2017:

State constitutional amendments aren’t suggestions. When at least 60 percent of voters feel strongly enough about an issue that they approve putting it into the Florida Constitution, they expect state lawmakers to implement the measure without revisions.

Attempts by Republicans in the Florida Legislature to rewrite recently passed constitutional amendments are an insult to the people they’re supposed to serve. From amendments dealing with redistricting to land conservation to medical marijuana, state lawmakers have time and again put their own political beliefs over the priorities of voters.

Florida’s medical-marijuana amendment was approved in November by more than 71 percent of voters. It was supposed to provide access to medical marijuana to individuals with debilitating medical conditions such as AIDS, cancer and Parkinson’s disease.

The state’s role should be setting up a system to help sick individuals get medical marijuana, not putting roadblocks in their way. Yet lawmakers are considering restrictions such as requiring patients to have a 90-day relationship with a doctor to get marijuana and banning smoking marijuana and other methods of its use.

The Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee bureau reported that many of these restrictions were suggested by the St. Petersburg-based Drug Free America Foundation and its lobbying arm. The group’s founders spent $1 million to try defeat the amendment and are now being allowed to determine how it should be implemented.

The Legislature is playing games with people’s lives in doing so. That was illustrated last week during a state Senate hearing on medical marijuana legislation, when a epileptic man suffered a seizure in the middle of the debate. He had come to speak about marijuana’s effectiveness in treating his condition.

Some lawmakers pushing excessive limits on medical marijuana say they’re trying to avoid the problems that lead to an opioid crisis, but they’re really just worsening that crisis. Medical marijuana provides an alternative to prescription painkillers that are responsible for addictions and overdoses.

Medical marijuana is now legal in 29 states, with seven states allowing marijuana’s recreational use. Two former Florida state lawmakers now serving in Congress — Matt Gaetz, a Republican, and Darren Soto, a Democrat — have introduced legislation to move marijuana from a classification alongside heroin to a more proper classification allowing for medical access and research.

Florida, with its huge retiree population, should be at the forefront of studying medical marijuana’s effectiveness. State lawmakers should focus on promoting such research rather than trying to rewrite an amendment that already passed.

Unfortunately the Legislature has a lousy track record in following the will of voters. Lawmakers have repeatedly failed to fund land conservation, despite a voter-passed mandate to do so, and are considering rules on solar installations that conflict with another amendment recently approved by voters.

They tried to ignore an amendment putting rules on redistricting until the Florida Supreme Court stepped in. Such obstinance goes back even further, with lawmakers repeatedly trying to circumvent an amendment limiting class sizes and using money from the voter-approved Lottery to replace state education funding and not supplement it.

Lawmakers should simply follow the state Constitution in implementing voter-approved amendments, not try for after-the-fact rewrites. The medical-marijuana amendment will provide another test showing whether lawmakers will again defy the will of the people.

In the end, it is up to voters to hold the Legislature accountable. We’re to blame if we keep approving these amendments, only to also elect people who don’t respect us enough to implement them as written.

Man evicted from assisted living center in Aspen for smoking weed

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By The Associated Press

ASPEN, Colo. — A man has been evicted from an Aspen assisted living center for using marijuana on the property.

The Aspen Daily News reports a judge approved the eviction Wednesday after 68-year-old Paul Disnard acknowledged he used marijuana on the premises.

Disnard had told the judge he didn’t realize Whitcomb Terrace prohibited the use of marijuana. He says other residents at the living center had used pot in the past.

The center’s director says half of their current 12 residents are on oxygen machines, which is why pot use is dangerous to them.

She says because marijuana remains illegal federally, Disnard’s usage also endangers the center’s license and funding.

Information from: Aspen Daily News

Nevada looks to be first state in nation to legalize cannabis social clubs, including on Vegas Strip

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By

LAS VEGAS — A bill allowing local governments to issue permits for marijuana social clubs has passed in the Nevada Senate.

The bill passed 12-9 Tuesday and next will be reviewed by the Assembly, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

The bill was mainly drafted for the tourism industry in Las Vegas. Tourists do not have a safe place to use recreational marijuana, which is legal in Nevada, lawmakers said.

Tourists will soon be able to purchase up to an ounce of marijuana, but will have no place to use it. The law that took effect Jan. 1 makes it so people can only consume pot at a private residence.

Not having lounges would cause tourists to bring the drug into casino properties and “dump the responsibility onto the resort corridor,” said Andy Abboud, Las Vegas Sands Corp. senior vice president.

Pot lounges in Clark County would be located on the Las Vegas Strip, Abboud said.

Lawmakers in favor of the bill say the lounges will play an important part in Gov. Brian Sandoval’s two-year budget, which calls for about $70 million from a special marijuana sales tax.

“We’re trying to get $70 million in tax revenue from them, so let’s give them some place to use it,” State Sen. and bill sponsor Tick Segerblom said.

State Sen. Don Gustavson voted against the bill because he thinks those who voted for the marijuana ballot measure in November did so thinking that people would only be able to consume marijuana in their homes, he said.

Another worry for lawmakers is that President Donald Trump’s administration will bring federal drug enforcers into states that enact social clubs.

Lawmakers stopped a bill in Colorado earlier this month because of that concern. Denver voters did, however, approve a measure in November similar to the bill.

The Denver law allows for businesses to apply for marijuana consumption licenses.

Dan Rowland, spokesman for the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses, said the department is still crafting those regulations and hopes to start taking applications by the end of summer, with the first clubs opening possibly by the end of the year.

In Alaska, lawmakers delayed a law allowing consumption in dispensaries. Maine is considering a similar move.

No other states allowing recreational marijuana have approved public social clubs yet.

Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal

U.S. Postal Service refuses to deliver box of tax cash from Alaskan pot shop

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By The Associated Press

JUNEAU, Alaska — An Alaska marijuana retailer’s tax payment has been sent back to the business after the U.S. Postal Service refused to ship the money.

The Juneau Empire reported Wednesday that Rainforest Farms had tried to send a box full of cash to pay its taxes, but the post office says “any proceeds from the selling of (marijuana) is considered drug proceeds under federal law.”

The farm had been trying to send its money to Anchorage.

Alaska’s tax director says the state needs to find a way for “these legitimate businesspeople to pay their taxes.”

One of the farm’s owners says being locked out of banks, and marijuana being illegal federally, makes running the business a challenge. He says most dealings are in cash.

Rainforest Farms is Juneau’s first legal marijuana retailer.

Information from: Juneau (Alaska) Empire

Colorado towns face lawsuits over points-based marijuana licensing systems

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By John Aguilar, The Denver Post

Cities and towns in Colorado have devised all sorts of ways to decide how many pot shops can open and where, but two communities using a points-based system to evaluate and select prospective recreational marijuana businesses — Aurora and Thornton — are running into legal hot water.

Aurora is facing a lawsuit alleging that it didn’t follow its own rules for ranking pot shop applicants for the two dozen licenses it issued. Thornton, which has four available licenses for recreational marijuana retailers, could get hit with a similar challenge in the coming weeks.

The two cities use a points-based system as part of their marijuana regulations. Other communities use random lottery drawings (Adams County), establish hard numerical caps on a first-come-first-served basis (Wheat Ridge) or put in place buffer zones (Louisville) to manage the number and location of shops.

The points-based ranking systems like those in Aurora and Thornton allows a city to more thoroughly vet business owners and limit licenses to entrepreneurs with solid business plans, adequate financing and clean criminal backgrounds, but inconsistencies in applying those formulas can subject community leaders to accusations of subjectivity, favoritism and fraud.

“The problem with a points system is that it’s going to have winners and losers and that opens everything up to scrutiny and litigation,” said Sam Kamin, a University of Denver law professor who is an expert in marijuana law.

That is exactly what Stan Zislis, co-owner of Silver Stem Fine Cannabis, alleges in a lawsuit he filed against Aurora after it denied him a license to open a shop near East Colfax Avenue and Tower Road. The city established a scoring and ranking system in 2014 after it decided to allow recreational marijuana sales, awarding points to applicants in different categories of business expertise and preparedness. It limited the number of licenses citywide to 24 — four stores in each of the city’s six wards.

The case, which goes before a judge in Adams County on Thursday, alleges a number of things Aurora did or didn’t do in evaluating Silver Stem for a license. But the most egregious violation came down to what Zislis contends was a mathematical error that the city refused to fix.

Specifically, he claims that the Aurora Marijuana Enforcement Division (AMED) erroneously rounded up a score in evaluating a competing applicant’s operating plan rather than properly rounding it down, resulting in an overall score that knocked Silver Stem out of contention. A correct rounding of numbers would have resulted in Silver Stem and the competing applicant getting the same score, but the suit alleges the city “manipulated scores in order to avoid a tiebreaker scenario.”

The suit claims that Jason Batchelor, who was Aurora’s finance director in 2014 when Silver Stem’s application was denied, “acknowledged that AMED committed a clear mathematical error” but concluded that Silver Stem “was entitled to no relief.”

Aurora officials declined to comment on the suit, citing the ongoing litigation.

Zislis, whose company has five locations in Colorado and one in Oregon, said there’s nothing inherently wrong with a points-based system as long as it is utilized fairly.

“It’s not the scoring system we’re challenging — it’s the fact that they meddled with the scores to avoid a tiebreaker,” he said.

Since Silver Stem’s suit was filed against Aurora, Zislis has cited a number of other problems with the city’s marijuana licensing system. Those include using a city employee to review applications, which Zislis says doesn’t qualify as an independent arbiter, and the fact that a license-holder has gone beyond the city’s two-year window to start operations.

Boulder marijuana attorney Jeff Gard said his client had a similar experience in Thornton, which last year legalized the sale of recreational pot and decided to use a point system like Aurora’s. Gard claims a competitor’s application for one of the city’s four licenses included incorrect criminal background information, but despite bringing the issue to Thornton’s attention, Gard said the city “didn’t act on it.”

“They’re not following their own point system,” he said. “When they created the rules, they’re binding on both parties.”

Gard said his client, which didn’t get a license, will likely sue Thornton over the issue.

Thornton’s assistant city manager, Rob Kolstad, said the city disagrees with Gard’s accusation. Kolstad said Thornton chose to use a ranking system because “the evaluation process would provide the city with the best applicants, the best businesses and good neighbors.”

Licensing disputes are not exclusive to Aurora and Thornton. Last year, the Pig N’ Whistle dispensary became the first pot business to beat back a decision by Denver to deny it a license after two judges ruled in the store’s favor. And in 2015, a pot entrepreneur locked horns with Wheat Ridge after the city set a cap of five stores in response to neighborhood complaints about his plans to open a store in a residential area. His store would have been the city’s sixth.

This story was first published on DenverPost.com