| Photo: www.agreenercountry.com |
| Coloradans may have to go to the polls in November to defend medical marijuana dispensaries from the Legislature. |
Sensible Colorado, a medical marijuana advocacy organization, has announced it plans to place an initiative intended to “secure patient access to medical marijuana” on the Colorado ballot this November.
The idea, reports Michael Roberts at Westword, is to let voters establish regulations more friendly to the medical marijuana industry than those likely to be passed by the Legislature.
The group will file a statewide ballot initiative Thursday at the Office of Legislative Council in the State Capitol.
| Photo: Westword |
| Brian Vicente: “Medical marijuana patients will not go without medicine in Colorado” |
”State-licensed medical marijuana patients need storefront dispensaries in the same way that other sick Coloradans need pharmacies,” said Sensible Colorado‘s Brian Vicente, the initiative’s chief backer.
“It is a mystery to us why members of law enforcement would want to eliminate dispensaries and force patients who are unable to find a personal caregiver back into an underground market,” Vicente said. “But we are certainly not going to allow it to happen.”
“Medical marijuana patients will not go without medicine in Colorado,” Vicente said.
“With certain members of the Legislature and law enforcement contemplating actions that would cause serious harm to patients, we want to make sure that we have a means of reversing such actions, should they actually occur,” Vicente said.
A press conference to discuss details of the initiative will be held by Vicente on Thursday, February 4, at 11 a.m., on the west steps of the Capitol, Denver, Colorado.
The campaign will need to file more than 75,000 signatures by July in order to qualify for the November 2010 ballot.