In the past 2 1/2 months, my attitude toward medical-marijuana dispensaries has evolved from one of skepticism to cautious acceptance. Just because the voters who passed Amendment 20 a decade ago didn’t envision the existence of dispensaries (which are nowhere mentioned in the amendment or even implied) doesn’t mean that such outlets aren’t a reasonable way to supply patients with a pain-killing drug.
Attorney General John Suthers told The Denver Post last month that even before the mushrooming appearance of dispensaries last year, patients in need of pain relief were satisfied with their access to medical marijuana. The alleged proof: The state health department never received a single complaint.
Yet that claim depends on your definition of “complaint.” A spokesman for the health department (who defends the pre-dispensary system) recently told me, “We have always had questions from people asking whether we knew how to obtain marijuana or whether we could give them a list of suppliers. We have always told them that we did not know.”
Those inquiries might not have been complaints, but they signaled a supply issue. And they presumably came from people who’d applied for a medical marijuana permit, not those who never bothered because they had no inkling where to acquire the drug.
Either the explosion of cannabis patients since last summer represents nothing more than an epidemic of fraud (Suthers’ position, in a nutshell), or the previous delivery system suppressed demand among at least some suffering patients. I’d rather let 1,000 liars exploit the system than deny relief to a few victims, say, of pancreatic cancer.
However, for a textbook case of how not to regulate dispensaries, we have the complex monstrosity of a bill authored by Denver state Sen. Chris Romer and Poncha Springs Rep. Tom Massey — a Democrat and a Republican — whose shape was still evolving this week. A recent version attempted to micromanage nearly every aspect of the business, to the point of requiring that owners be of “good moral character,” whatever that might mean to any given regulator.
Denver is poised to embrace a more sensible approach. On Monday, the council will again debate an ordinance sponsored by Councilman Charlie Brown that establishes licensing procedures for dispensaries, requires a security plan and background checks, prohibits anyone convicted of a felony within five years from ownership, bans on-site use of the product and bars locations within 1,000 feet of a school, day care center or other dispensary.
And while the distance requirements seem excessive — as does a $3,000 yearly license fee, which Brown tells me is based on those paid by adult cabarets — at least Denver won’t impose an outright cap on either the number of dispensaries or the clients they serve. Such caps benefit existing dispensaries, not consumers.
At a recent meeting with the Post editorial board, proponents of dispensaries argued that patients’ biggest concerns were the price of medical marijuana and the product’s quality control and labeling. Yet so long as the drug remains illegal for everyone else, addressing those concerns won’t be easy.
You could establish a regulated system of growers, but if the dispensary price of cannabis drifted much below the street price, it would stimulate massive re-selling of marijuana onto the black market by patients whose cumulative purchases are essentially limitless.
Could another ballot measure address these matters in a way that appealed to mainstream voters? Maybe, but don’t count on it happening. Leading dispensary proponents include scorched-earth warriors who are tone deaf to differing views. In a letter he sent to Romer this week, for example, dispensary attorney Robert Corry described medical-marijuana critics as “fanatical biddies, grandmothers, and other Communist nanny-types” who resent their “empty lives.” Oh, really?
Nor can we rely upon the legislature for such sweeping regulation in this election year. Indeed, lawmakers might march in the other direction and attempt to stamp out the dispensary experiment.
I hope that doesn’t happen. While they are hardly an ideal answer to the supply of medical marijuana, dispensaries meet a genuine need — as perhaps Denver will soon officially recognize if the council supports Brown’s measure.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.
