Cloie Sandlin

News Editor

On Nov. 7, 2000 voters approved the use of medical marijuana in the state of Colorado, a law that took effect on June 1, 2001. It was only a few years ago that medical marijuana dispensaries started popping up all over Mesa County.

On Oct. 4, members of the Grand Junction City Council voted 6-1 to close medical marijuana dispensaries within city limits. The law will take effect Jan. 1.

City Council sought public opinion at their meetings last summer, which assisted them in creating a policy for the retail sale of medical marijuana. The final hearing and formal vote took place earlier this month. The ordinance deals only with the commercial sale of medical marijuana and any associated products of commercial grow operations.

Mesa State sophomore Robert Worley, 27, was prescribed a medical marijuana license early this year for a life-threatening seizure disorder his doctors call status epilepticus.

“I’d never had seizures in my life,” Worley said. “I think a lot of it was probably stress induced. Chances are it was because of stress and not eating that brought out a blind disorder.”

Worley’s last seizure took place less than a month ago.

“I went to bed and didn’t wake up until about 20 hours later,” Worley said. “That really scares me because now they are happening at night.”

Worley’s seizures can last up to half an hour or can occur every five minutes. He said that he has about a 30 percent chance of dying at night. Although medical marijuana helps him manage his condition better, he does not think that it will stop his seizures.

“If I take my medication, I would still have a seizure,” Worley said. “It can really help with factors that lead to the seizures, but as far as stopping my seizures, I don’t think it would.”

Banning dispensaries would cause a problem for Worley along with people with similar conditions. Although Worley still has his driver’s license, he refrains from driving as much as possible because of his condition.

“If they get these dispensaries out of the city, people are still going to get it,” Worley said.

Cristin Groves, who spoke on behalf of the Mesa County Constitutional Advocates at the meeting, estimated that there are about 2,000 medical marijuana patients in Mesa County. For the proposed caregiver-only model, the county would require an estimated 400 caregivers to provide medical marijuana to already existing patients.

“Having an unregulated situation would not be good for community or the patients,” Groves said. “Patients will be subjected to a system of care where they are at the mercy of the caregiver if we have a caregiver-only model.”

The caregiver-only model will replace dispensaries, which some believe provide easier access to marijuana users who wish to use the drug for recreational purposes. The model reasons that only caregivers that are licensed by the state of Colorado can grow, prepare and administer medical marijuana to in place of the dispensaries.

“It’s too easy for kids to get [medical marijuana],” Worley said. “It should be a lot more difficult for them to get the paperwork.”

Worley said that people just pick on medical marijuana and that it is the same with kids and prescription drugs.

House Bill 1284 ensures that dispensary owners cannot have been convicted of any drug felony or have been convicted of any felony within the last five years and cannot employ anyone under the age of 21 to work in the dispensary. If taken to the caregiver model, this would be more difficult to regulate.

“These loopholes make it really difficult to regulate anything,” Worley said. “There really are things that need to be worked with; laws that need to be tweaked and I think it’s going to be a long process.”

One argument against the caregiver model is that independent caregivers would not be able to test their product like dispensaries do. People will spend money that will end up in the black market to acquire the marijuana instead of providing revenue for the city. All local marijuana is grown in Colorado.

csandlin@mesastate.edu0