Surprisingly, a significant number of vocal marijuana opponents managed to secure positions on the governor’ s Task Force and in the working groups; however, the Task Force is not supposed to debate the merits of Amendment 64 or impede its implementation. Additionally, not all issues discussed by the Task Force will or should become recommendations of the Task Force, let alone a bill or regulation. The Task Force should only make recommendations that are both legally sound and good public policy. For example, a residency requirement on marijuana purchases, although discussed by one of the working groups, would be bad public policy because it would only perpetuate another black market and derive the state of tax revenue – exactly what the voters of Colorado wanted to prohibit with Amendment 64. Additionally, such a significant statutory limitation on Amendment 64 may not withstand legal scrutiny. 1
Joshua Kappel, Esq. is the Associate Director of Sensible Colorado, the leading statewide non-profit working to educate the public about sensible marijuana policy. Mr. Kappel is also the senior associate at Vicente Sederberg, the first nation-wide medical marijuana law firm
Rachelle Yeung is currently in her third year at the University of Colorado School of Law and a law clerk at Vicente Sederberg LLC
Considering the Task Force has a mandate from the 55 percent of our electorate that voted for Amendment 64 and that they have less than a month now to make their recommendations, we can only hope that the proponents and opponents of marijuana reform can work together, stay on track, and focus on implementing the will of the voters. Nonetheless, we will all have to wait and see on what the Task Force actually recommends. thcmag. com 51