“In Colorado, the medical marijuana laws have been written to allow for
people to get medical marijuana cards if they have some sort of an ailment
and they can purchase the marijuana. The dispensaries can also operate if
they have the proper licenses.
The marijuana doesn’t just get there magically. Somebody has to grow it. So
the laws provide for people to be caretakers, and they can grow a certain
amount of plants depending on how many people that they have buying from
them.
Now the laws in Colorado have not been enforced the way that we were
expecting them to be enforced initially. I think a lot of this has to do
with the fact that you have so many people applying or trying to get into
this business that the state is sort of inundated with applications, and
because it’s a new program, they’re not really sure on how to oversee
what’s going on.
So what you end up having is a lot of people that are growing marijuana
that are probably violating the statutes here that allow them to do it
because it’s not really being enforced right now. There are a lot of the
statutes that aren’t being enforced that most likely will be, and I would
almost guarantee they will be during the next year or two with the election
coming up.
So what does this mean to you on a criminal basis? What it means is that
not only are you now violating federal laws, because we’ve already
established that the Colorado Constitution didn’t change the United States
Constitution. It’s still illegal to possess marijuana as far as the federal
government is concerned.
But if you’re now growing marijuana in Colorado in violation of the medical
marijuana laws, you’re also in violation of state laws, and with the amount
of marijuana that people are growing, they’re not just growing one or two
plants just for personal use, they’re growing and they’re manufacturing
large amounts of marijuana. So if you’re not following the laws, you could
end up with a criminal prosecution that would expose you to a considerable
amount of prison time.”
Our Denver Medical Marijuana Attorney at The Law Office of Douglas Richards has experience dealing with cases relating to Medical Marijuana and the Dispensaries in Colorado.