County nips budding medical marijuana growth

By Dan MacArthur
North Forty News

Medical marijuana dispensaries won't take root in the county until at least next summer.

The Larimer County Commissioners in December voted unanimously to impose a moratorium until July 7 on issuing permits or licenses to medical marijuana growers and dispensaries seeking to set up shop in unincorporated areas of the county.

By then it is expected that the Colorado General Assembly will have adopted legislation regulating the cultivation and distribution of medical marijuana.

Two dispensaries opened west of Loveland prior to the moratorium but were shut down the day it was imposed for violating the county's zoning code prohibiting the sale of marijuana.

There currently are more than 100 licensed dispensaries in Fort Collins.

Larimer County will join a number of municipalities across Colorado limiting licensing of growing facilities and dispensaries. More than 100 dispensaries were licensed before Fort Collins placed a three-month moratorium on issuing more sales tax licenses. Wellington, Loveland, Estes Park and Timnath all have imposed moratoriums of differing durations. Greeley has outlawed dispensaries outright.

"The product is completely unregulated," Sheriff Jim Alderden said at the county's hearing. "We're talking about millions of dollars a year."

"The question before us is not whether we like this. The voters have spoken," said Commissioner Steve Johnson. "I personally don't think the county should regulate everything that comes into our area."

Planner Matt Lafferty said the problem is that Amendment 20's language is ambiguous and offers no clear direction regarding regulation of medical marijuana. That amendment passed by voters in 2000 allows patients receiving state-issued marijuana registry cards to legally use marijuana for specified medicinal purposes.

Neither is regulation addressed in the county's land-use codes. As such, the moratorium would give the county time to develop its own health, safety and land-use standards to use in reviewing applications for medical marijuana clinics.

Holding aloft studies of the effects of medical marijuana in California communities, Johnson asserted that there is a demonstrated effect in these areas such as land-use, traffic and crime.

"We have to have a level playing field," he said, to ensure that medical marijuana dispensaries don't migrate into the unregulated county to escape municipal mandates.

Two partners operating a downtown Fort Collins dispensary and holistic health clinic were the only speakers at the public hearing.

"What I'm hearing is negativity from top to bottom," said Drew Brown. "The patients and the people have spoken about this situation and they want it.

"We will follow any rules and regulations," he continued. "There are people out there who really want to do this right."