While HB 1317 Sits on Governor’s Desk, Colorado Consumers Push for Veto

Earlier than the Colorado legislative session ended this week, House Bill 1317 had been amended close to thirty times. It is now on Governor Jared Polis’s desk — together with loads of complaints from medical marijuana sufferers and hashish business stakeholders, who’re urging him to veto the invoice that might add many layers to this state’s marijuana laws.

Advocates of MMJ are notably involved. “The sponsors of this invoice appear to imagine the 5 p.c of registered medical marijuana sufferers who’re eighteen to twenty years previous usually tend to each abuse hashish concentrates and to illegally divert them to minors. Sadly, their answer is to limit all medical marijuana going ahead,” Hashish Clinicians of Colorado wrote in a letter to Polis.

Of their feedback on the Westword Facebook post of our story on HB 1317’s passage, readers supply different causes to veto the invoice. Says Dan:

Veto it. We voted to legalize weed. Not overly regulate it.

Provides Andrew: 

HB 1317 is a humiliation to Colorado’s years of labor crafting the Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol Act,”foisting stricter outcomes on Colorado adults for an unproven drawback supported by outright lies. It is telling that the strongest supporters of the invoice are those that stand to revenue from prohibition: DAs and for-profit “drug counselors” clamoring to cross the invoice however not pointing to any empirical help as a result of they need the punitive lock-up and court-order-rehab system.

That is disgusting to us, the Coloradans who embraced Modification 64. A name for extra analysis is clearly one for extra analysis confirming their beliefs. Reefer insanity is fear-mongering and coercive. You understand higher than to signal it, Governor Polis.

Suggests Kyle:

This invoice legitimately shits on sufferers. This state’s hashish insurance policies have gone ass-backwards. This was a mannequin for different states; I hope they dont take our lead. HB 1317 was and is a shit invoice.

Notes Graeme: 

Contemplating medical doctors are prohibited by federal legislation from giving any recommendation on dosage, it’s fairly clear that it will do nothing however kill medical marijuana.

Responds Barbara:

Precisely. Do not signal the petition that desires so as to add $137 million to highschool budgets as a result of it’s to up the leisure marijuana tax. This horrible piece of laws is supposed to push sufferers off the rolls to make use of leisure MJ.

And Tracy concludes:

Polis is an enormous hypocrite if he would not veto the shit out of this absolute rubbish invoice. In the meantime, you would pull a semi-truck as much as a liquor retailer and purchase each bottle within the constructing. The one folks supporting this are ignorant pearl-clutchers.

Republicans are Purple
Democrats are Blue
Neither considered one of them
Provides a f*ck about you

When requested whether or not he would veto HB 1317 at a June 10 press conference, Polis stated this: “We’re not entering into, right here, what we’re signing and never signing. What I am usually saying on each invoice is one thing that we most likely provide you with for those who ask a few specific invoice, and I am paraphrasing it now. However we’ve got an evaluation introduced to me on each invoice: It is a authorized evaluation, a coverage evaluation and a fiscal evaluation,” he stated. “We then decide accordingly, and definitely we’ll notify you. It is actually honest to say that the payments that we had been supportive of in the course of the course of, we might be anticipated to signal; however there’s a whole lot of payments, so actually I sit up for evaluating these over the following few weeks.”

What do you suppose Polis ought to do about HB 1317? Learn the ultimate model of the invoice here, then submit a remark or e mail your ideas to editorial@westword.com.