Today, 4/20, is probably a fine day for documenting the transition of the marijuana industry in Colorado from a criminal activity into a “critical business” worthy of operating in the midst of a global pandemic.
Traditionally — although the tradition is a fairly recent one — cannabis fans in Denver have been ritualizing April 20 (“Four Twenty”) with the FlyHi 420 Festival, reportedly the largest marijuana celebration in the nation, held in Denver’s Civic Park under the watchful eye of the gold-plated Capitol Dome.
Civic Park will remain unoccupied today, however, because the Colorado government has prohibited gatherings of more than 10 people in its quest to control the novel coronavirus. ‘420’ fans will be celebrating at home. We assume.
Nevertheless, a number of “virtual” gatherings have been scheduled in Colorado, as reported by The Know (a Denver Post publication.)
According to a recent op-ed in the Denver Post, global (legal, tax-paying) cannabis sales rose to $15 billion in 2019, and the lion’s share took place in the US. (For comparison’s sake, the National Football League generates approximately $15 billion annually.) No doubt our state government and various cities and counties here in Colorado appreciated the excise tax and sales tax collections from those transactions, and the property taxes as well. And the jobs; another source of tax revenue.
In its relatively short existence, the cannabis industry has also created upwards of 200,000 jobs — jobs that offer opportunities to workers of all education levels. Some of these jobs have already been lost due to the pandemic. Issues such as supply chain disruptions and drastic drops in travel and tourism could negatively impact numerous cannabis operators in coming months.
Some of us have found it curious that the March 26 order by Colorado Governor Jared Polis ordered Coloradans to stay at home and close their business operations — except for so-called ‘critical businesses.’
I direct all Coloradans to stay at home, subject to limited exceptions such as obtaining food and other household necessities, going to and from work at critical businesses, seeking medical care, caring for dependents or pets, or caring for a vulnerable person in another location.
I direct all businesses other than those qualified as “Critical Businesses” under Public Health Order 20-24 or any Public Health Order issued pursuant to this Executive Order, to close temporarily, except as necessary to engage in minimum basic operations needed to protect assets and maintain personnel functions, as of the effective date of this Executive Order.
Public Health Order 20-24 defined a fairly large number of ‘critical businesses’ in Colorado, including hospitals, nursing homes, veterinary services, laboratories, railroads, oil exploration and production, law enforcement, motels, grocery stores, liquor stores…
… and marijuana dispensaries.
Marijuana has come a long way, here in Colorado, since the state’s voters made medical marijuana legal on November 7, 2000 — allowing medical patients to possess up to two ounces of marijuana and cultivate no more than six marijuana plants. The vote also allowed for the operation of medical marijuana businesses — dispensaries — to get around the federal law that prohibited pharmacies from selling cannabis. Amendment 20 came as a relief to people already using cannabis to treat ailments ranging from chronic pain to cancer to AIDS. After surviving a major legal challenge, Amendment 20 went on the books, generally regarded as the most comprehensive medical marijuana law in the US.
Here in Pagosa Springs, however, medical marijuana dispensaries remained merely a theoretical possibility until a white-haired gentleman named Bill Delany began hanging posters around town, in September 2009, announcing that he was dispensing medical marijuana from his home. Mr. Delany had found medical marijuana highly effective — compared to prescribed pharmaceuticals — for treatment of a personal medical issue, and decided to open a dispensary, regardless of the fact that the Town and County governments hadn’t yet established regulations governing the operation of dispensaries. Accordingly, he applied for a business license to operate “Good Earth Meds”.
The Archuleta Board of County Commissioners flew into action, and quickly passed an ordinance, requiring marijuana dispensaries to be located within a municipality. Of course, the only municipality in Archuleta County is the Town of Pagosa Springs — and under the leadership of then-Mayor Ross Aragon, the Town Council quickly passed an “Emergency Ordinance” temporarily prohibiting medical marijuana dispensaries within the Town limits.
But Mr. Delany had been ‘grandfathered in’ by obtaining his business license prior to passage of the County regulations.
Our readers may recall that, back in 2009, the Pagosa economy was slipping into dangerous recession, and both the Pagosa Springs Town Council and Archuleta County Commissioners were falling all over themselves, trying to encourage new businesses to open their doors here. The new “business friendly” attitude has included unprecedented refunds of sales taxes by the Town, and deferred and waived development fees by both County and Town. The BOCC bent over backwards to create radically new approval processes in a mad dash to encourage subdivision development.
At the same time, both Town and County appeared to be especially interested in “green businesses” — that is, businesses that had low environmental impacts — and in the Town’s case, there was been an openly expressed eagerness to promote local agriculture.
In spite of those efforts, very few new businesses were expressing any interest in opening their doors in Archuleta County. Hey, it was a recession.
Enter, stage left, realtor Bill Delany — filing the appropriate paperwork with Archuleta County’s Community Development department to open an agriculture-based (and surprisingly “green”) business model based on Amendment 20, approved nine years earlier.
Back in September 2009, Mr. Delany and I sat on my front porch as he talked about his new and controversial business.
“Well, I pretty much know that I’m grandfathered in, because I completed my request before any decision was made [to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries.] But more importantly, I think they respected the way I went about it. So I’m grandfathered in.
“This industry has basically been running in the shadows for the past ten years [since Amendment 20 was passed] and there is a grower who has helped me — and actually, without his support and telling me, ‘I don’t want these outside interests coming in…’
“…There are people from outside this town I don’t like,” Delany said with a strained laugh. “But I haven’t met any jerks here in Pagosa.”
Sitting on my porch in 2009, Mr. Delany’s comments raised a couple of intriguing questions for me. By limiting dispensary operations within Archuleta County, wouldn’t the BOCC be essentially limiting access to prescribed medical treatments?
Would the BOCC be forcing people to drive to Durango — where three medical dispensaries were already fully operational — for medications that could not only be sold here, but actually manufactured here, by a “green” businesses?
And secondly, by keeping medical marijuana “illegal,” would the Commissioners essentially be encouraging a black market to flourish — an illicit market paying no sales taxes locally, and no income taxes nationally?
“Without the support of [this local grower], and that availability,” Mr. Delany continued, “I wouldn’t have been able to move forward with my business. It’s been an underground activity. I’m just trying to bring it into the light of day…”