• 24
  • May
    2010

Now that Governor Ritter and the state legislature have embarked on an effort to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries, legal and policy experts need to consider how Colorado's new regulatory framework will interact with federal law.

While the Obama administration has backed away from aggressive enforcement of federal drug laws that still outlaw marijuana use for any reason, other administrations may not. What is the point of creating a regulatory and enforcement mechanism for Colorado's law if federal law can simply overrule it?

If Medical Marijuana Is a Legitimate Business, It Needs A Reliable Regulatory System

Colorado's dispensary regulation, tax system and law enforcement systems would still be in place, but legitimate medical marijuana dispensaries, growers and distributers and would have no incentive to operate if they feared they might be subject to federal criminal sanctions.

A recent editorial in the Denver Post brought a reminder of a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives a year ago by Representative Jarid Polis of Boulder. Co-sponsored by Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, HR 2835 would create a federal medical exemption for marijuana-related activities that are legal under state law, assuming that state had opted into the system.

Basically, states would be allowed to determine what uses for marijuana are legal, and federal criminal laws would no longer apply to those legal activities. Activities that broke a state's marijuana laws would still be illegal under federal drug laws. In states that don't have medical marijuana laws or that didn't opt in, federal law would still prohibit the production, use or sale of marijuana.

While many argue that Colorado's regulation of the medical marijuana industry thus far has been too light, it makes sense to develop a regulatory system that prevents bad actors while protecting the rights of those entitled to grow, prescribe and use medical marijuana.

For any such regulatory system to work, everyone involved must be able to rely on it. As long as it is unclear whether federal criminal law could be used to prosecute those involved in legal marijuana-related activities in Colorado, the system won't be reliable.

Related Resource:

"Will feds allow state pot laws?" (The Denver Post, May 18, 2010)