Search Results: hickenlooper (61)

United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo rescinding the Cole Memorandum and other federal pot protections dating back to 2009 on January 4. Colorado’s elected officials — from Governor John Hickenlooper to Mayor Michael Hancock to the entire congressional delegation — were quick to condemn the move and vow to fight any attempt to prosecute law-abiding businesses in this state. But in the meantime, how does the Sessions memo affect you?

Courtesy of the St. Francis Center

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and his staff visited the future St. Francis Center refuge in Capitol Hill earlier this week, highlighting the state’s effort to help fight homelessness with cannabis tax revenue. The state donated $250,000 to close funding gaps to complete the construction of the center at 1400 Washington Street, but that’s just a parcel of the pot tax dollars that the Colorado Department of Local Affairs is using to help the state’s homeless.

Colorado’s cannabis industry has been holding its collective breath ever since President Donald Trump nominated Jeff Sessions for attorney general. And since he was sworn in, Sessions, a proponent of the war on drugs, hasn’t been shy about saying that marijuana should remain illegal federally.

In a proactive move, on April 3 the governors of four states with recreational cannabis businesses up and running at the time — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington — sent a letter to Sessions and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, urging that federal officials “engage with us before embarking on any changes to regulatory and enforcement systems.”

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper can’t seem to give a national interview without legal cannabis grenades being hurled at him. As a result, he’s become a seasoned veteran on the topic.

During a Facebook Live interview with Politico’s Playbook Exchange in Denver on August 1, Hickenlooper talked about his efforts to connect with Denver suburbs and rural Colorado, health-care coverage, his brief brushes with President Donald Trump and, inevitability, pot.

Mason Tvert, a key figure in the passage of Amendment 64, the 2012 measure that legalized limited recreational marijuana sales, and the Denver pot-legalization regulation that preceded it, is leaving his post as communications director for the national Marijuana Policy Project in favor of a similar position at VS Strategies, a Denver-based consulting firm that’s become a national powerhouse.

Colorado might have been the first state to sell recreational marijuana, but we’re not nearly finished updating our cannabis laws. Lawmakers have introduced seventeen bills during this legislative session, most of them aimed at tightening the rules for marijuana sale and production, as well as helping to regulate the hemp industry.

This week, Governor John Hickenlooper will sign a bill that will limit marijuana home grows to twelve plants (that’s already the limit in Denver). Hickenlooper himself suggested implementing this restriction last year; according to the governor, Colorado’s original plant quotas —which were tied to individuals instead of to residences — prevented law enforcement from easily distinguishing between legal and illegal grows, which enabled the black market to operate.

This week, the Colorado Department of Human Services, in conjunction with Governor John Hickenlooper’s office, formally requested that the General Assembly allocate more than $6 million annually from the state’s marijuana-tax cash fund for a new program that would offer help to chronic drug users as opposed to criminalizing them. Art Way, senior director for criminal-justice reform and Colorado director with the national Drug Policy Alliance, which worked closely with state agencies in crafting the proposal (it’s on view below), sees the impact of this approach as potentially revolutionary for those struggling with addictions to heroin and other heavy narcotics.

If approved, Way says, “marijuana tax revenue and marijuana legalization will fund broader drug-policy purposes and drug-policy concerns that have long had more of an impact on society, both from a human perspective and a fiscal perspective. We’re talking about other substances on which users become truly dependent, and people who are on the chaotic end of the use spectrum. So for marijuana legalization to fund this is a game-changer.”

Dear Stoner: What is the number of plants one can cultivate with a medical marijuana card? I’ve heard you can have up to 75 if you’re a caregiver, but I’ve also heard Colorado will be setting a state maximum of twelve.
Pete

Dear Pete: Current medical marijuana caregivers can actually have up to 99 plants for a maximum of five patients, thanks to a bill passed in 2015 — but the clamps have been tightening ever since. Caregivers with extended plant counts of more than 36 plants in their homes must now register with the state, and Governor John Hickenlooper has been vocal about further cutting those counts in 2017 because of concerns about the black market.

The rumblings you’ve been hearing about a twelve-plant maximum are true: The state has been pushing to limit a patient’s plant count to twelve in private homes this year, as well as to adopt a more detailed patient registration system and ban recreational co-ops. If you don’t think twelve is enough, try to get an extended plant count while you still can; they’re not dead yet.

Andrew Freedman is moving on from his position as Colorado’s Director of Marijuana Coordination, Governor John Hickenlooper announced on January 5.

Freedman will still be involved with the cannabis industry and constructing policy: He’s launching a consulting firm, Freedman & Koski LLC, which will advise state and local governments on the implementation of marijuana legalization. (The firm’s website is already live, and packed with pot info.)

After working as Lieutenant Governor Joe Garcia’s chief of staff from 2011 to 2013, Freedman became the campaign director for Yes on 66: Colorado Commits to Kids; from there, Hickenlooper hired Freedman to head up the state’s marijuana coordination office.

Andrew Freedman is moving on from his position as Colorado’s Director of Marijuana Coordination, Governor John Hickenlooper announced on January 5.

Freedman will still be involved with the cannabis industry and constructing policy: He’s launching a consulting firm, Freedman & Koski LLC, which will advise state and local governments on the implementation of marijuana legalization. (The firm’s website is already live, and packed with pot info.)

After working as Lieutenant Governor Joe Garcia’s chief of staff from 2011 to 2013, Freedman became the campaign director for Yes on 66: Colorado Commits to Kids; from there, Hickenlooper hired Freedman to head up the state’s marijuana coordination office.

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