Colorado limits cannabis concentrate purchases and limits the medical marijuana program

Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a bill on Thursday tightening restrictions on cannabis concentrates and imposing restrictions on medical marijuana patients and their doctors. The move, House Bill 1317 (HB21-1317), also funds research into the effects that highly potent marijuana products can have on the development of the mind.

Democratic MP Yadira Caraveo, a pediatrician and sponsor of the law, said the main goal of the bill is to keep cannabis concentrates away from young people so that they can’t get their hands on “an incredible amount of products and very concentrated products that” they can then give or sell to people their age or younger who do not yet have access to the legal market because they are not yet 21 years old. “

According to the legislation, the daily limit on the amount of marijuana concentrates that can be purchased will be reduced from 40 grams per person per day to eight grams. The cannabis concentrate limit for medical marijuana patients aged 18 to 20 will be two grams. The bill will also update the government’s seed-to-sale tracking system to track cannabis concentrate purchases based on medical marijuana patient identification numbers in real time rather than at the end of the day.

House spokesman Alec Garnett who introduced the bill said the tracking system change will prevent shoppers from buying their daily limit multiple times in a single day. According to data from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, consumption of cannabis extracts among adolescents doubled from 2015 to 2019. Garnett said that 18-year-old medical marijuana patients buying more than the daily limit are the main way young people can buy high-potency cannabis products.

“This bill will close that loophole,” Garnett said. “This law will ensure that we don’t create a gray market on our high school campuses and that our high school kids, their developing brains, won’t be flooded with the most powerful products when they don’t need them.”

The new restrictions on cannabis concentrate purchase were supported by groups representing parents, health professionals, and those opposed to solid cannabis legalization efforts, who argued that highly effective marijuana products had a negative effect on brain development could. To investigate the problem further, House Bill 1317 is allocating $ 1 million annually through fiscal 2023 to allow the Colorado School of Public Health to review the research and further examine the effects of marijuana on mental health. The agency is also receiving an additional $ 3 million for an awareness campaign about THC extracts and the consumption of adolescents.

“The reality is that Colorado’s teens are finding it too easy to access highly potent marijuana when they shouldn’t, and we don’t have a complete picture of how these products affect the developing brain,” Garnett said at a ceremony to sign the invoice. “This bill will help educate consumers about high potency cannabis and it will advance critical research that will give us a better understanding of how high potency products affect brain development.”

Colorado Medical marijuana community opposed the measure

House Bill 1317 also subjects doctors who write medical marijuana referrals to new regulations, including requiring doctors to provide a dosage of THC and medical and mental health exams to patients. More than 100 medical marijuana doctors sent a letter to Polis urging the Democratic governor to veto the law. Cannabis Clinicians Colorado director Martha Montemayor says the law “will effectively kill medical marijuana in Colorado.”

“We didn’t get a seat at the table. It requires continuous cannabis education only for cannabis doctors and not traditional doctors who don’t know about it, ”she said. “It also requires the doctor to review previous doctors’ records, which effectively deprives cannabis doctors of their diagnostic privileges.”

“It doubles the cost for all patients by forcing a second diagnosis,” added Montemayor. “Traditionally, cannabis was medicine for poor people because they didn’t have health insurance.”

Polis signed House Bill 1317 Thursday after the bill was passed by state legislatures earlier this month. Most of the bill’s restrictions are effective immediately.