by Andrew Kiser
After a three-year absence, marijuana may be coming back to Mesa County in the form of marijuana testing facilities to operate within the city limits.
The Grand Junction City Council originally planned in their consent agenda to amend Ordinance 4599 on Oct. 5, but pushed the discussion back until Wednesday, Oct. 19.
“I expect it to be a spirited discussion,” Council member and CMU business professor Rick Taggart said.
According to Taggart, one reason the city council plans to review the ordinance is because city residents have asked the council to look back at the rule.
“It comes from the groups that I have met on this subject and they are on the medicinal side and they have a whole another set of arguments to the use of medical marijuana from a health standpoint,” Taggart said.
According to the city’s report, another reason to change the city’s ordinance on marijuana testing facilities comes from a request from a company to locate to the Grand Valley.
The company, Source Certain, proposes to open a new testing center here to test agriculture products for genetic research and to track chemical properties. If allowed, the business plans to run under the name “TSW Analytical” to test marijuana for its THC properties and to confirm that the products tested are licensed and legal.
“My understanding is testing is designed to determine two things, one, the location and to verify, [marijuana] is actually being grown in Colorado, which is one of the key elements of the state law,” Taggart said. “And to verify the THC levels.”
By allowing a company to operate in Grand Junction, the city hopes to bring new jobs, economic growth and capital investment to the community.
Currently there is also another movement to get the ordinance to change to allow recreational marijuana stores as well.
“There is a movement afoot, right now, where the citizen’s group is trying to get the ordinance amended as a whole to potentially allow retail,” Taggart said. “If that is the case then that will be a ballot issue and everybody will vote on it.”
Taggart also said the reason for a ballot for the ordinance to be amended to allow retail stores is because when issues are about consumption then the residents vote on the matter.
Since April 2011, Grand Junction voters denied the medical marijuana facilities in the city, closing down several shops that had already opened. In 2012, voters also voted against Amendment 64, which allowed recreational marijuana statewide.
However, the law passed and allowed adults over the age of 21 to possess, consume and grow small amounts of marijuana. It also allowed recreational marijuana stores and related businesses to operate. However, Grand Junction councilors decided against the sale of recreational marijuana in October 2013, through Ordinance 4599.
The ordinance reads, “The real and possible primary and secondary effects of the cultivation and dispensing of marijuana and/or the manufacturing and sale of marijuana-infused products, those businesses, operations and land uses have been found to adversely affect the health, safety and welfare of the city and its inhabitants.”
