The conceptual proposal by three Archuleta County employees — Emergency Operations Manager Mike Le Roux, Development Director Pamela Flowers, and Undersheriff Derek Woodman — to amend the County Land Use Regulations, to add additional controls on how marijuana can be grown on private property, struck me as government overreach, and perhaps as a poorly-considered overall policy.
Of course, as we heard last week, Undersheriff Woodman has now been picked as the finalist for the vacant County Administrator position. That’s a story waiting to be told, but it will need to wait a bit longer.
Here’s a summary of the regulation concepts proposed to the Board of County Commissioners on December 7, from the document that you may have already downloaded.
In conclusion, the purpose of the proposal to amend the Archuleta County Land Use Regulation, seeks to implement a greater level of transparency and accountability within the personal recreational and medical marijuana cultivation industry. We acknowledge that Colorado Law exists and establishes parameters surrounding personal recreational and medical marijuana cultivation, however, believe that the parameters are broad and open to interpretation, thereby creating potential confusion between legitimate and illegitimate operations.
State Law also does not address the potential issues surrounding the impact of outdoor growing operations and their negative impact on neighboring structures for example sight and odor, including the potential for neighboring property devaluation.
It also does not address occupational health and safety issues relating to mold and the property damage sustained internally with indoor grows.
Our belief is that by incorporating amended regulations into the Archuleta County Land Use Regulation, we’ll vastly reduce the ambiguity that currently exists, and reduce the potential for increased criminal activity within Archuleta County, therefore setting our community up for success and protecting them at the same time.
We see two very different things going on in the above summary.
We see a proposal to better control the “illegitimate” marijuana industry, in an attempt to minimize marijuana sold on the black market, and thus support the “legitimate” side of the industry — the side that abides by Colorado law. The side that pays taxes and fees… taxes and fees that are not insignificant.
And we can also discern, in this proposal, an intention to control personal cultivation, marijuana grown for private use, as guaranteed by the Colorado Constitution.
Not many types of agricultural cultivation are specifically protected by the Colorado Constitution. The right to grow up to six cannabis plants for one’s personal use appears to be one right so protected. Just as our right to freedom of speech is guaranteed, so is our right to grow marijuana.
From the Constitution, Article XVIII, Section 16: “Personal use and regulation of marijuana”
(3) Personal use of marijuana.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the following acts are not unlawful and shall not be an offense under Colorado law or the law of any locality within Colorado or be a basis for seizure or forfeiture of assets under Colorado law for persons twenty-one years of age or older:
(a) Possessing, using, displaying, purchasing, or transporting marijuana accessories or one ounce or less of marijuana.
(b) Possessing, growing, processing, or transporting no more than six marijuana plants, with three or fewer being mature, flowering plants, and possession of the marijuana produced by the plants on the premises where the plants were grown, provided that the growing takes place in an enclosed, locked space, is not conducted openly or publicly, and is not made available for sale…
Most of the new language and requirements inserted into the Colorado Constitution by the voters in 2012, through Amendment 64, dealt with a commercial marijuana industry — which already existed, to some degree, in the form of medical marijuana dispensaries that served only citizens with valid medical conditions. Of course, many of those dispensaries blossomed (so to speak) into larger operations, when they were allowed to sell recreational marijuana following the 2021 election. And many new dispensaries arrived as well. Here in Pagosa, we now have as many marijuana dispensaries as we have liquor stores.
The Colorado Constitution lays out some careful guidelines for the new industry, and the Colorado General Assembly created additional laws.
From a WestWord article by Thomas Mitchell posted earlier this week:
Colorado’s annual marijuana tax revenue haul has already reached a new high for the seventh straight year, according to the latest data from the state Department of Revenue.
The DOR’s latest monthly report on marijuana tax revenue shows that November’s $32.5 million in combined marijuana taxes and fees pushed 2021’s overall total past $392.8 million. That’s nearly $5.4 million more than the previous record, made in 2020 — with one month left to spare.
Colorado collects four different forms of marijuana taxes and licensing fees from the legal marijuana industry: a 15 percent tax on recreational pot sales, a 15 percent excise tax on wholesale marijuana, a 2.9 percent sales tax on recreational and medical marijuana purchases, and various licensing and application fees that state-approved marijuana businesses must pay.
Based on the tax revenue being generated by this industry, one might suggest the voters made a fine decision back in 2012.
But every coin has two sides. As the legal cannabis industry has grown, the black market side of the recreational marijuana market seems also to have expanded — at least, here in Archuleta County. What I have been considering in this article series is whether the black market growers are a danger to society… in the same way the dealers in drugs like heroin and fentanyl are a danger to our community?
And if marijuana is truly the least harmful recreational drug available in Colorado, and if no less a document than the Colorado Constitution guarantees our right to use it, and grow it, should our Sheriff’s Office focus their time and resources elsewhere?