Who is the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition?

Our mission is to reverse the trend of mass incarceration in Colorado. We are a coalition of nearly 7,000 individual members and over 100 faith and community organizations who have united to stop perpetual prison expansion in Colorado through policy and sentence reform.

Our chief areas of interest include drug policy reform, women in prison, racial injustice, the impact of incarceration on children and families, the problems associated with re-entry and stopping the practice of using private prisons in our state.

If you would like to be involved please go to our website and become a member.


Sunday, February 07, 2010

Which way on medical pot? - The Denver Post

Which way on medical pot? - The Denver Post

It doesn't take much reading between the lines of the latest medical marijuana legislation to see that its sponsors aren't interested in the dispensary model.

So why are they bothering to create a new bureaucracy that would oversee a regulatory system so complex as to be unworkable?

The bill sponsored by Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs, and Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, succeeds in clarifying legal rights for caregivers who could supply marijuana to a handful of patients. Doing so is appropriate and in keeping with voter intent, as the caregiver model was described in the constitutional amendment passed in 2000, whereas dispensaries were not.

Because the amendment states that a caregiver "has significant responsibility for managing the well-being of a patient who has a debilitating medical condition," we think that if the state wants to significantly change how medical marijuana is to be distributed, the voters ought to do it.

Dispensary advocate Brian Vicente is moving to present just such a ballot measure.

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