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.


Friday, February 11, 2011

Bill revising medical-pot regulations in Colorado advances - The Denver Post

Bill revising medical-pot regulations in Colorado advances - The Denver Post

Colorado's medical-marijuana wars began anew at the state Capitol on Thursday with the first public hearing on a bill that makes changes to the state's dispensary regulations.

When the hearing opened, the measure — House Bill 1043 — would have made a number of industry-friendly changes to the rules, including making it easier for felons to own dispensaries and exempting long-standing dispensaries from buffer-zone rules around schools.

But Rep. Tom Massey, a Poncha Springs Republican who is sponsoring the legislation, quickly announced that he had rewritten the bill. Gone were the loosened restrictions on felons. Gone was the grandfathering of dispensaries in buffer zones.

What was left was a bill that

was less industry-friendly but one that owners of large dispensaries still joined with law enforcement officials in cautiously supporting.

"A good compromise," said Josh Stanley, owner of the Budding Health chain of dispensaries, "is when everybody is not exactly happy."

But the bill outraged marijuana activists and some small-dispensary owners, who said the changes would force dispensaries to close, hurt patient access and boost the black-market trade in marijuana.

A number of activists used the hearing as an opportunity to express concerns about issues not addressed in the bill.

They criticized a different bill filed this week at the Capitol that would ban the sale of marijuana-enhanced food and drinks, a major industry niche in Colorado. They blasted proposed Department of Revenue regulations that would require all medical-marijuana transactions at dispensaries to be videotaped.

"We have a situation where our medical-marijuana program is run by the state tax collector, and you've really taken all the medicine out of it," said Laura Kriho of the Cannabis Therapy Institute.


Read more: Bill revising medical-pot regulations in Colorado advances - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_17357131#ixzz1Dedrir1b
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