Although Colorado's limit for personal possession of marijuana has been two ounces since 2021, the daily sales limit at recreational dispensaries remains one ounce (or eight grams of concentrated products or edibles infused with 800 milligrams of THC). According to Southeast Cannabis Company partner Chuck Smith, rules like these are holding Colorado marijuana businesses back.
"This is an opportunity to incrementally increase revenue and not violate the rules. Why, if I can possess two ounces, can't I go into a dispensary and buy two ounces?" Smith says. "When I go to the grocery store, I don't go in one day to buy bread and one day to buy milk and one day to buy orange juice, I buy what I need to — if I can."
When legislators increased the possession limit for adults 21-and-up, the law didn't extend to recreational sales (medical marijuana patients can buy up to two ounces at a time, however). The Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division, responsible for overseeing the state's pot industry, has been allowed to increase the recreational sales limit since the 2021 law passed, but the MED hasn't raised the issue.
Smith, who is also the president of cannabis trade group Colorado Leads, says he and the marijuana business owners he represents are done waiting on the state licensing authority. After a bill passed last year that streamlines a handful of operational regulations, he thinks Colorado is ready for a higher marijuana sales limit and looser rules surrounding employee registration, record-keeping, video surveillance and product sampling, among other things.
If House Bill 25-1209 passes, the Colorado marijuana lobby can correct many of these inefficiencies, he argues.
"The concept of regulatory efficiency and streamlining is a multi-year process. We always knew that each year we were going to try to do a little bit more, to sort of get this industry back within parity of any regulated industry," Smith says.
"We're really focused on eliminating some of the red-tape paperwork that is being required."
On top of the sales limit, Smith says rules such as requiring fingerprints during employee background checks, worker badge renewal fees, strict operation surveillance and extensive recordkeeping are outdated and hark back to Colorado's early years of recreational legalization. According to Colorado Leads, at least 35 different sets of records involving testing, waste logs, internal security, advertising, medical patients, taxes, child-resistance certificates, pesticides and other operational procedures must be kept by marijuana businesses.
The number of individual records kept by marijuana businesses would go from 35 to twelve if HB 1209 is successful, while non-owning employees would no longer have to pay registration fees every two years or provide their fingerprints, although they would still have to undergo background checks.
Smith says the majority of these records, including pesticide information and other safety records, would still be kept.
Video surveillance would also be curtailed at marijuana businesses. Currently, there are fourteen different areas or scenarios in which there must be video security, including points of sale, points of ingress and egress, delivery vehicles, security rooms, production rooms, and areas where products are grown, sampled and tested. The marijuana measure pushed by Colorado Leads proposes dropping security requirements to four areas: points of sale, exterior points of ingress and egress, delivery vehicles and areas with marijuana is shipped, received or destroyed.
Dispensary Samples Would be Legal, Too
Growers, edibles brands and other wholesale operators face complicated regulations for samples and internal research and development as well, with current rules banning free samples and promotional items. Under the bill, marijuana brands could provide R&D samples to employees and "promotional units" for customers, similar to a wine representative handing out samples at the liquor store, according to Colorado Leads — but without the in-store consumption, Smith notes.Non-infused product samples such as edibles or topicals without cannabinoids, also currently banned in Colorado, would be allowed, too.
"Just like any packaged goods company, you want people to have an opportunity to experience it. If you go into a Total Wine, you see people giving away wine or having a tasting with alcohol. We want to bring it closer to what other commercial industries are allowed to do," Smith says. "For us, the R&D is for testing things like different flavor profiles or formats."
The bill is currently sponsored by state representatives Jenny Willford and William Lindstedt, as well as Senator Julie Gonzales, all Democrats. After passing a bill in 2024 that streamlined license renewals, loosened the movement of marijuana genetics and allowed dispensaries to sell convenience-store items, Smith is confident the marijuana industry can get the measure over the finish line.
"Back when Amendment 64 was passed, we put in belts and suspenders, because no one really knew what was going to happen," he says. "Well, we've never seen any of that. We're ten-plus years later and youth access is down and product safety seems to be quite good."
As Colorado dispensaries continue fighting off declining sales and growers deal with wholesale marijuana prices near record lows, these rule changes would help struggling businesses, according to Smith.
However, the proposal comes on the heels of a Colorado Public Radio story detailing a high rate of contaminants in plant matter grown in licensed marijuana facilities, a problem that commercial marijuana hasn't been able to shake off for years despite layers of post-harvest testing that are supposed to be monitored by the state. Less than two weeks after the CPR article was published, the MED released an industry bulletin "to assure all parties" that the MED is "committed to upholding our mission to promote public safety and reduce public harm."
Smith questions the motivations behind the study cited in the CPR article, which was conducted by edibles company Ripple.
"We don't see the test results and evidence of that. Clearly, no one is perfect and there are ways to improve, and that's what this bill intends to do," he says. "And if there is a problem with product quality, let's take MED resources and focus on that instead of focusing on seven years of tax records and surveillance requirements."
The bill is likely to face opposition from lobbying and youth protection groups that oppose retail marijuana expansion, such as One Chance to Grow Up. One Chance to Grow Up declined to comment on HB 1209, but it is registered in opposition to the measure with the Colorado Secretary of State's Office and is currently pushing a bill of its own that would restrict retail marijuana dispensary offerings.
Although Colorado Leads is on the offensive for one bill and playing defense against another, Smith believes the marijuana industry will come out of this legislative session in better shape than it currently is.
"We started this last year. We had some progress. We got the first bill approved last year, and I think we've been very thoughtful in working with regulators and the Department of Revenue, making sure they understand what we do and we're trying to achieve, and trying to understand what they're trying to achieve," Smith says.
House Bill 1209 will have its first hearing on Monday, March 3, in the House Finance Committee.
