By Barry Bard
A Colorado House committee voted 11-2 Tuesday in favor of House Bill 17-1220, a bill that would definitively limit Colorado home growers to 12 cannabis plants per residential home in an effort to eradicate Colorado’s black market. Colorado residents and medical marijuana patients would be restricted to growing six mature (flowering) plants and six immature (non-flowering) plants.
The bill was just introduced on March 2 and passed by a House committee just five days later, blindsiding Colorado’s medical marijuana patients and caregivers.
Under current Colorado law, residencies are allowed to cultivate up to six plants per person per home; however, many cities like Denver already cap flowering plants at 12. This bill sets a statewide standard and puts an exclamation on that cap and aims to put an end to Colorado’s home growing caregivers. A first-time offense would result in a misdemeanor and a $1,000 fine while a subsequent offense results in a felony.
Currently, medical marijuana doctors in Colorado can hand out extended plant counts which allow Colorado’s more than 19,000 medical marijuana patients — many of whom are home growers — to cultivate as many as 99 plants. Should the law pass subsequent House and Senate votes, the new bill would go into effect January of 2018 and put extended plant counts in serious jeopardy.
Colorado’s medical marijuana patients with extended plant counts operate under the safety of their medical marijuana cards. While this law still allows certain jurisdictions within Colorado to enforce their own policies and honor those plant counts, marijuana co-cops and grows that affect residential areas have been put on clear notice:
“The bill places a cap on the number of plants that can be possessed or grown on a residential property at 12 plants in the aggregate, with 6 or fewer being mature. A medical marijuana patient or primary caregiver who cultivates more than 12 plants must cultivate the plants in compliance with applicable city, county, or city and county law. The bill requires a patient or primary caregiver cultivating marijuana to comply with all local laws, regulations and zoning requirements.”
Titled “Prevent Marijuana Diversion To Illegal Market,” this change in policy aims to cripple Colorado’s black market by placing home grows in a more tenuous position. While many home, medically-focused grows operate in a gray area, those grows find themselves under a more clearcut microscope.
“Large-scale, multi-national crime organizations have exploited Colorado laws, rented multiple residential properties for large-scale cultivation sites and caused an influx of human trafficking and large amounts of weapons as well as the potential for violent crimes in residential neighborhoods.” [Colorado.gov]
Illicit grows with more than 99 plants are saturated all over the state, particularly in areas like Pueblo, Colorado which has seen a large share of raids on cartel-like operations in the last year. However, since those often massive criminal grows are already in violation of state law, this bill puts more fear into the home grower cultivating cannabis for consumption rather than trafficking.
Many home growers with extended plant counts grow medical cannabis for themselves and other patients without sending cannabis out of the state. These low-volume growers are the type of people who try to abide by the law and simply want to legally grow their own medicine. A long-time grower and caregiver told Marijuana.com that “this bill puts people on notice more than it changes anything. There’s only about 3,000 ‘caregivers’ in Colorado and they still operate in a gray area. They will continue to do so.’”
If ratified, this bill wouldn’t quite cause a seismic shift in Colorado’s home growing policy, but the instilled fear alone might force many home growers to either downsize or stop gardening. Perhaps this effort to make a long-time black market turn completely legit will come to fruition — or perhaps the black market will remain a thorn in Colorado’s side.
