Regulamentação Da Maconha Em Denver, Tambem É Uma Ilusão, E Daí?

[Canadense]

Marijuana

Regulation Is Largely an Illusion in Denver Too, but So What?

Jacob Sullum

The Justice

Department's crackdown on medical marijuana has been notably less

heavy-handed in Colorado than in other states. While the feds have

shut down hundreds of dispensaries in California and continue to

target businesses that supply cannabis to patients in

Washington, John Walsh, the U.S. attorney for Colorado, has

contented himself with sending

threatening letters to 50 or so medical marijuana centers he

deemed too close to schools. Hundreds of others continue to

operate, unthreatened, unraided, and unseized. The usual

explanation for this striking difference can be summed up in one

word: regulation. While neither California nor Washington

explicitly allows dispensaries, which operate in a legal gray area

unregulated by the state, since 2010 Colorado has licensed them,

laying out specific, picayune, and often cumbersome rules for their

operation. But as a state audit released last March

showed, Colorado's vaunted regulatory system is largely an

illusion, strict in theory but unenforced in practice. A recent

audit of marijuana oversight in Denver, which is

home to more cannabis operations than the rest of the state

combined and was regulating the industry before the state did,

found something similar.

According to the

report, which was released last week by Denver Auditor Dennis

Gallagher, the city's Department of Excise and Licenses "does not

have a basic control framework in place for effective governance of

the City’s medical marijuana program." Here are the audit's

highlights:

1. The City’s medical marijuana records and data are

incomplete, inaccurate, and at times inaccessible.

2. The Department lacks formal policies and procedures to

govern the medical marijuana business licensure process.

3. The coordination between the City and the state for

dual medical marijuana licensure has been poor.

4. Deadlines are either not established or not enforced for

key steps in the medical marijuana licensure process.

5. The medical marijuana licensure process lacks

management oversight, adequate staffing, and proper

segregation of duties.

6. The medical marijuana licensure fee was established

arbitrarily.

7. Key information has not been kept up-to-date as

medical marijuana policies have evolved.

The Department's lack of follow-up on license applications, and

in conjunction with State law, has allowed some medical

marijuana businesses to operate in the City without a valid

City license. Further, the Department does not know how many

medical marijuana businesses are operating in Denver. Since

recreational marijuana will be legal in the state effective

January 2014 as a result of Amendment 64, it is critical that

the City develop and implement a robust system for regulating

marijuana-related businesses before the current problems are

exacerbated by a new surge of recreational marijuana license

applications.

Opponents of legalization have latched onto the audit as further

evidence that approving Amendment 64 was a huge mistake and that

implementing it will be a disaster. But to me the real lesson here

is that Colorado seems to be doing OK despite more than a decade of

tolerating a legal marijuana industry, an industry that was

officially unregulated for most of that time and to a large extent

remains unregulated in practice. NORML's Paul Armentano makes this

point in a recent

interview with The Verge (even while regretting

that the government so far has not delivered the regulation it

promised). "We've been told that the reason we can't change

[marijuana policy] is because if we do, the sky will fall,"

Armentano says. "The sky is not falling in Colorado. People that

live in Colorado recognize that, and people outside of Colorado

will recognize that as well."

[planta]

Acho que seria muito ruim uma experiência como essa fracassar. Como disse o Mujica, se fracassar deve-se voltar atrás.... Uma regulação inteligente pode ser muito útil para que eventuais problemas da legalização não caiam de bandeja na mão de reacionários para bloquear esse processo... Além do que, isso é um prato cheio para o Obama manter a postura hipócrita que está tendo...

[Hervagaox]

O Obama não consegue nem aprovar seu sistema de Saúde, passou a bola pros estados ao invés de arranjar mais uma batalha. Não foi a opção mais bonita , mas com a vitória do movimento em cada estado uma ora legaliza de vez e o maior patrocinador da Guerra às drogas poderá vir a mudar de opinião.