By John Ingold
The Denver Post
Posted:
10/20/2014 07:36:21 PM MDT | Updated: 26 days ago
Garrett
Sellars and Ashly Carius, both from Oklahoma City, check out edible
marijuana products at LoDo Wellness as retail sales of marijuana began
in Colorado on Jan. 1. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)
Colorado's
health department proposed an industry-spinning ban on the sales of
nearly all forms of edible marijuana at recreational pot shops Monday
but then quickly backed away from the plan amid an industry outcry and
questions over legality.
After a heated, four-hour hearing,
the public policy Tilt-A-Whirl ride ended where it began: with
lawmakers, regulators and stakeholders still in disagreement — now more
than 10 months after the start of recreational pot sales — on the best
way to manage marijuana in Colorado.
"This is by far the simplest
recommendation," state Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont, said of the
health department's proposal. "But I don't know if it gets us to where
we want to be."
The aim of the state advisory group that met Monday to
consider the health department's proposal and several others is to
prevent people — mostly kids — from
accidentally eating marijuana-infused products.
Such accidental ingestions have sent children to the hospital, caused
an increase in calls to poison-control hotlines and become one of the
key measures lawmakers use in discussing whether legal marijuana sales
can fit harmoniously in society.
Sales of infused edibles make up
about 45 percent of the legal marijuana marketplace, said Dan Anglin,
the chairman of the Colorado Cannabis Chamber of Commerce.
The health department's recommendation was one of 11 proposals the group considered Monday. Most suggested the state create
clearer labels for marijuana-infused products or require producers to make edible marijuana items in
a unique shape or dyed a unique color.
Many
of those proposals, though, quickly met with a familiar back-and-forth.
One side would offer the suggestion; the other side would bat it down.
Stamp a symbol onto edibles denoting the products contain marijuana? Too easily rubbed off, edibles producers said.
Improve
labeling and require edibles to stay with their packages? Too easily
ignored to spread unmarked edibles, groups concerned about marijuana
said.
Require producers to dye their products a specific color or airbrush on a symbol?
"You
can't force a company to use an ingredient they don't want to," said
advisory group member Julie Dooley, an owner of Julie & Kate Baked
Goods, an edibles producer.
In
the debate, there was talk of Sour Patch Kids and marijuana-infused
sodas, discussion of the cost of chocolate molds, and these words: "I
think soft candy is such a broad category."
Amid this atmosphere,
Colorado health department official Jeff Lawrence presented the
department's proposed ban on the sales of all edibles except hard
candies and tinctures. Lawrence said the disagreement over more-nuanced
regulations pushed the department to propose something more sweeping.
"If it couldn't be achieved," he said, "we were looking at something that could be achieved."
But the proposal — word of which spread in
an Associated Press report before the meeting — quickly met a buzz saw.
Industry
advocates questioned whether edibles could be banned under Amendment
64, Colorado's marijuana-legalization measure. Singer worried a ban
would create a "marijuana Whac-A-Mole situation" where edibles
production moved into the black market. Andrew Freedman, the state's
marijuana policy coordinator, said the governor's office did not support
a ban.
The health department later in the day put out a news
release acknowledging that the department did not consider the
proposal's constitutionality or ask the governor's office to review it.
Instead, the proposal was put forward to generate discussion.
"Considering
only the public health perspective, however, edibles pose a definite
risk to children, and that's why we recommended limiting
marijuana-infused products to tinctures and lozenges," Larry Wolk, the
executive director of the department, said in a statement.
The
discussion seemed mostly over by the end of Monday's meeting, as talk
returned to more incremental forms of edibles regulation. Any final
proposals from the advisory group will be presented in a report to the
legislature next year. The Department of Revenue, which regulates
marijuana businesses, must adopt final rules on the topic by 2016.
"Inevitably,"
said Revenue official Ron Kammerzell, near the end of Monday's meeting,
"we're going to have to have another working group meeting."
That meeting is planned for mid-November.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johningold
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