Colorado Politics

On #coleg’s agenda: plugging Colorado’s pipeline to black-market pot

Colorado’s homegrown has a way of wandering out to the street, and the governor and some lawmakers say it’s time to ground the state’s legal pot market, Kristen Wyatt of the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Colorado law allows individual medical marijuana patients to grow up to 99 plants, which is a big stash for one person. Recreational tokers can grow six plants each, but state laws allows them to organize into co-ops that can grow a pretty big patch of grass that’s neither tracked nor taxed.

Once the legislative session starts in January, lawmakers might eliminate the recreational co-ops and create more rules and paperwork to keep a closer watch on where medical pot winds up, according to the AP.

A loosely regulated Colorado pot paradigm could draw the attention of the new Republican administration. Pot-hating attorney general pick Jeff Sessions isn’t likely to look the other way, despite Trump’s states rights view on the subject so far, if he thinks Colorado can’t control its cannabis.

And Colorado doesn’t want to be known as a pipeline to black market pot in other states.

“Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper says the state’s generous pot allowances make it almost impossible for cops to tell legitimate growers from black-market fronts,” Wyatt reports.

Nebraska and Oklahoma tried to sue Colorado over its wayward pot before the Supreme Court declined to hear the case in March.

Interestingly enough, the dogged anti-pot state prosecutor from Oklahoma, Scott Pruitt, is set to be Donald Trump’s nominee to be the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Andrew Freedman, the governor’s marijuana coordinator, said the black market is alive and well in Colorado, pointing the AP to recent criminal cases.

And it isn’t going unnoticed in Washington.

“We’re hearing from federal officials, ‘Hey listen, this is a concern,'” Freedman told Wyatt.


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