Colorado Lawmakers Approved Several Big Changes to Marijuana Laws in 2021

Nearly a decade after voters accredited legalizing leisure hashish in 2012, lawmakers are nonetheless tinkering with Colorado’s marijuana legal guidelines.

Ten payments that straight addressed this state’s marijuana and hemp legal guidelines and laws have been launched on this 12 months’s legislative session, and eight of them passed. Whereas some concerned nit-picky technical particulars, Colorado’s medical marijuana program, possession restrict and trade guidelines all noticed large adjustments in 2021.

Probably the most notable marijuana measure, Home Invoice 1317, has obtained essentially the most consideration from either side of the legalization debate. Pushed by mother and father involved about extracted THC’s results on kids, the invoice would tighten medical marijuana guidelines and mandate analysis into the psychological well being results of high-THC marijuana merchandise. Medical marijuana advocates are fearful that affected person entry will decline on account of the brand new guidelines, nevertheless, and have referred to as for a veto from Governor Jared Polis, who has yet to announce his stance.

HB 1317 wasn’t the one notable measure accredited by lawmakers this 12 months. By means of different payments now signed into legislation, the state’s leisure pot possession restrict has doubled and younger medical marijuana sufferers in school ought to have simpler entry to their day by day medicine. Out of doors marijuana growers can even be working beneath new pointers.

This is a roundup of essentially the most important motion:

Medical Marijuana Restrictions
Though HB 1317‘s title is “Regulating Marijuana Focus,” the invoice’s largest impression could possibly be on the state’s Medical Marijuana Registry. The measure requires a number of extra layers of protocol for medical marijuana sufferers and their physicians, together with a required THC dosage quantity and instructed consumption methodology, in addition to a overview of a affected person’s mental-health historical past earlier than a suggestion is made. There can even be a statewide monitoring system for affected person purchases, that are capped at 2 ounces of flower or 8 grams of focus. The earlier day by day restrict for focus, 40 grams, will nonetheless apply to homebound and rural sufferers, and people with correct physician certification could be allowed to exceed the bounds.

New sufferers between the ages of eighteen and twenty — a contributing issue to youth consumption, within the eyes of the invoice’s sponsors — would face extra obstacles to acquiring a medical marijuana card, in addition to a 2-gram restrict on focus purchases per day. Medical doctors recommending medical marijuana could be restricted inside their respective scopes of observe, which might additionally scale back affected person entry, in keeping with invoice opponents.

Research on Psychological Well being
One other hefty portion of HB 1317 requires analysis into THC’s impression on psychological well being. Underneath the proposal, $3 million would go to the Colorado School of Public Health for an academic marketing campaign about youth use and extracted THC. One other $1 million could be earmarked yearly by fiscal 12 months 2023-’24 for a CSPH overview of present analysis and additional examine of the psychological well being results of marijuana.

In one other $1.7 million challenge, coroners would yearly report the outcomes of THC toxicology screens in suicide, overdose and unintentional deaths for individuals beneath the age of 26 to the Colorado Violent Death Reporting System.

Focus Packaging
The language in HB 1317’s title concerning packaging is mild in comparison with the invoice’s parts on psychological well being analysis and medical marijuana, however impactful simply the identical. Underneath the invoice as handed, all marijuana focus merchandise, each medical and leisure, would fall beneath new packaging or labeling guidelines created by the state Marijuana Enforcement Division in 2023. New labeling necessities or photograph instruction on packaging have been floated as potential alternate options, with extra printed warnings about high-potency THC merchandise additionally doubtless.

EXPAND

Extracted marijuana merchandise have been beneath the microscope in 2021.

Jacqueline Collins

Hashish Farming Updates
One other marijuana invoice launched late within the legislative session, House Bill 1301 introduced a handful of adjustments to out of doors rising for each marijuana and hemp farmers. A portion of the proposal would enable out of doors hashish growers to create a contingency plan to prevent crop loss during extreme weather conditions, with the brand new practices created and enforced by the MED.

Invoice language creating working teams to cut back cross-pollination between marijuana and hemp crops was more controversial among cannabis farmers. Though marijuana and hemp are regulated and grown otherwise, they’ll cross-pollinate miles away from one another when grown open air. Hashish grown for THC and CBD content material is feminized and seedless, however industrial hemp grown for fiber carries seeds and pollen. This may pollinate seedless hashish crops, together with hemp, resulting in crop loss for some farmers. A big faction of hemp farmers opposes registering farm places earlier than receiving a license to develop hemp, nevertheless, citing preferential therapy and pointless obstacles in favor of the marijuana trade.

Polis hasn’t signed the invoice but, however is predicted to.

Double the Possession Restrict
Signed by Polis in Could, House Bill 1090 doubles Colorado’s leisure marijuana possession restrict from 1 to 2 ounces. On high of accelerating the present restrict, the brand new legislation qualifies convictions for as much as 2 ounces of pot possession for record-clearing, and wipes out former Class 3 marijuana cultivation felony convictions, in addition to expenses for rising greater than twelve crops however fewer than 25. (Rising greater than twelve crops would stay unlawful for anybody with out a medical marijuana card and prolonged plant rely, nevertheless.)

Former offenders must apply to the courts themselves, and approval from district attorneys, a typical stipulation in record-clearing for different crimes, wouldn’t be required. The brand new marijuana possession restrict would not have an effect on Colorado’s day by day dispensary buying restrict of 1 ounce because it at the moment stands, as a result of that will require a regulatory change by the MED.

A 2020 legislation grants Colorado governors the facility to pardon previous convictions for as much as 2 ounces of marijuana. Polis granted over 2,700 pardons final 12 months, however just for 1-ounce convictions, citing Colorado’s adult-use possession restrict on the time. Since HB 1090 has handed, Polis has said he will pardon 2-ounce convictions, as nicely.

Medical Marijuana at Colleges for Baby Sufferers
An effort several years in the making, Senate Invoice 56, signed by Polis in Could, permits faculty personnel to manage medical marijuana to youngster sufferers. That had technically been authorized since 2019, however faculty districts might nonetheless resolve to ban the medicine in the event that they determined to; beneath that provision, the overwhelming majority of college districts both banned or selected to not deal with the legislation, forcing a toddler’s caregiver — normally the affected person’s mum or dad — to come back to high school each time a pupil wanted medical marijuana medicine. The brand new legislation requires faculty boards to implement insurance policies permitting for the storage, possession and administration of medical marijuana by faculty personnel and “protects those that do from retaliation,” it states.

New Social Fairness Entrepreneur Fund
Handed early within the session and signed by Polis in March, Senate Bill 111 was largely negotiated between lawmakers and the Governor’s Workplace in a legislative price range committee assembly earlier than the Colorado Common Meeting convened. The invoice creates a new Cannabis Advancement Program overseen by the state Office of Economic Development and International Trade, with $4 million in loans, grants and technical help to be accessible for marijuana enterprise candidates qualifying for a social fairness program.

Supposed to help communities impacted by the Struggle on Medicine, this system might be accessible to enterprise homeowners that may show one of many following: They or their households have been negatively impacted by the Struggle on Medicine, they earn lower than 50 % of the state median earnings, or they arrive from a neighborhood designated as a low-economic alternative zone by OEDIT.