After years of fizzled efforts, Colorado may be close this year to legislation that could reduce slammer-oriented penalties not only for marijuana possession but small quantities of other drugs. Better yet, as this Denver Post article details, the anticipated savings from the move could fund badly needed rehab programs for…
Medical marijuana advocate Rob Corry has made ripping up proposed medical marijuana legislation a specialty. Back in January, he eviscerated Senator Chris Romer’s first plan line by line — and did likewise to Romer’s bill attempting to codify the relationship between doctors and medical marijuana patients. And in an interview…
Last week, reporter Joel Warner told you about marijuana advocate Mason Tvert’s call for removal from the Denver Marijuana Review Panel of fellow member Lieutenant Ernie Martinez, head of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association. Martinez’s sin? He wrote a 2006 letter comparing marijuana legalization to cancer. Mayor John Hickenlooper, who…
One of the most prominent and controversial aspects of Representative Tom Massey’s medical marijuana bill is that it would require state dispensaries to become nonprofit centers. While it’s hard to say whether this part of the legislation will stick around — even the bill’s co-sponsor isn’t sold on the concept…
Many of the attorneys who specialize in medical marijuana issues in Colorado, including Rob Corry, Lauren Davis and Brian Vicente, speak openly about cases while they’re in progress. Joseph Saint-Veltri, lawyer for Chris Bartkowicz, the medical marijuana grower whose Highlands Ranch home was raided by the Drug Enforcement Administration after…
Last week, we told you how prominent pot advocate Mason Tvert, head of Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), wanted the mayor-appointed Denver Marijuana Policy Review Panel, on which he sits, to expel one of its members: Lieutenant Ernie Martinez, head of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association (CDIA). Tvert called…
The arrest of Highlands Ranch’s Chris Bartkowicz after he showed off his medical marijuana grow to a reporter at 9News has prompted complaints from the likes of Sensible Colorado’s Brian Vicente, who helped organize a protest prior to yesterday’s appearance by President Barack Obama, as well as comments by U.S…
With medical marijuana legislation still pending at the State Capitol, individual Colorado communities are left to deal with the weed issue as best they can, despite how sticky it can get. Case in point: Windsor, where the town board is fighting to close a dispensary called MediGrow even as two…
Our compendium of “Mile Highs and Lows” dispensary critiques just welcomed a new member to the family: William Breathes’s review of The Greenest Green. Check it out — and then turn your eyes to Westword’s dispensary directory, which has been newly updated for your pleasure and convenience. Learn more by…
This dispensary has closed. As Colorado’s medical-marijuana industry grows, marijuana dispensaries of all types and sizes are proliferating around the state. Some resemble swanky bars or sterile dentist offices; others feel like a dope dealer’s college dorm room. To help keep them all straight, Westword will be offering a no-holds-barred…
Lately, local DEA agents have been getting their hands on significant amounts of weed, whether it’s testing samples taken from inspections of marijuana-analysis labs or hundreds of live plants seized from a Highlands Ranch grow house last Friday, as well as from similar raids over the past month. So what…
Today, President Barack Obama is coming to Denver to raise funds for Senator Michael Bennet — a display of favoritism in the primary that frustrates longtime Obama fan Polly Baca. But his appearance is welcomed by Sensible Colorado’s Brian Vicente and other medical marijuana advocates, who’ve been looking for a…
In many ways the friction between Mason Tvert, head of Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) and Lieutenant Ernie Martinez, head of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association (CDIA), personifies the ongoing clash between law enforcement and marijuana activists. While the two both sit on the mayor-appointed Denver Marijuana Policy Review…
Chris Bartkowicz, whose Highlands Ranch marijuana grow was raided by the Drug Enforcement Administration last Friday after he was interviewed by 9News, has instantly become a major figure in the debate over medical marijuana in Colorado, with attorney Rob Corry calling for agents involved in the operation to be sacked,…
The Drug Enforcement Administration raid on a home marijuana grow in Highlands Ranch, coming hot on the heels of similar actions at medical marijuana labs in Denver and Colorado Springs, spurred outcry from the likes of attorney Rob Corry, who called for agents involved in the Highlands Ranch matter to…
Lately, dispensary owners and marijuana growers have been watching their back. Over the past few weeks, Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided two marijuana testing facilities, one in Denver and one in Colorado Springs, as well busting a Highland Ranch marijuana grow on Friday that its owner had bragged about on…
Attorney Warren Edson was practicing medical marijuana-related law before doing so was cool. And now, with the industry growing in Colorado like never before, he’s expanding his operations by merging his practice with Kumin Sommers LLP, a San Francisco-based firm with a specialty in medical marijuana law in California, whose…
The Denver Post prides itself on being a family newspaper — but its embrace of social media can make it difficult to keep grown-up language at bay. Case in point: On Friday, AM 760 host David Sirota, whose syndicated column frequently appears in the Post , tweeted about a Joel…
You didn’t think attorney Rob Corry would remain silent after the Drug Enforcement Administration raid on the home of Chris Bartkowicz, did you? After all, Corry’s among the most vocal of all Colorado’s medical marijuana advocates, and if he has problems with Representative Tom Massey’s bill to regulate the industry,…
Last week’s DEA raid of Genovations, a Colorado Springs medical marijuana laboratory, was the second time in recent weeks that the agency had swooped in on a lab that had applied for a license in an attempt to prove its forthrightness and responsibility; the same scenario played out in January…
We recently wrote about how a DEA raid at Full Spectrum Laboratories, a Denver medical marijuana testing facility, was triggered by the lab applying for an analytical lab licensure through the DEA. Now DEA agents have hit another marijuana testing lab — Colorado Springs-based Genovations — not long after the…
In today’s Denver Post, columnist David Harsanyi argues that the debate over medical marijuana is dishonest in part because advocates actually want legalization — a goal that might be hurt by the passage of Representative Tom Massey’s medical marijuana bill, because it would give dispensaries a monetary incentive to fight…
