Jacqueline CollinsAmendment 64, the ballot initiative that voters approved in 2012 to legalize recreational weed in Colorado, says that “marijuana should be regulated in a manner similar to alcohol,” but that hasn’t made the plant equal to alcohol in the eyes of many employers. At companies across Colorado, testing positive for marijuana is still legal grounds for dismissal, even if your employer acknowledges that you weren’t high on the job.
Jacqueline CollinsThe seventh year of recreational marijuana sales in Colorado promises to be an interesting one, with new laws allowing social consumption establishments and weed delivery, as well as new industry rules mandating more product testing while restricting vaping ingredients.
Jacqueline CollinsThe Coffee Joint, the first establishment to hold a cannabis consumption license in Denver, is now the second pot lounge business to apply for a state social consumption license.
Colorado Springs social lounge Studio A64 successfully applied for a social consumption license at the state Marijuana Enforcement Division office three hours before Coffee Joint owners Rita Tsalyuk and Kirill Merkulov could beat them to it.
Courtesy of iBakeColorado’s cannabis community was surprised when iBake Denver, one of the state’s longest-running consumption clubs, announced that it would close at the end of the year because it would not be ready to comply with a new state law that licenses social pot use. Open since 2013, the club started as an Internet radio show hosted by Thurlow “T.L.” Weed, but slowly transformed into a cannabis club under Weed and his wife, LittleTree Oppy, whom he met when she was a weekly caller to his radio show.
Scott LentzThe Colorado Supreme Court has overruled a district court decision that upheld a county court ruling requiring a doctor’s testimony for medical marijuana patients who want to use their medication while on probation. The Colorado Supreme Court decision, handed down November 18, weakens the restrictions and burdens of proof that Colorado judges can place on medical marijuana patients.
Jacqueline CollinsColorado has banned the state’s marijuana industry from adding vitamin E acetate, the chemical additive linked to vaping illnesses by federal health officials, to products meant for inhalation.
Scott LentzWith over 80,000 Coloradans on the state’s MMJ registry, it’s not surprising that this question frequently crops up: Can a medical marijuana patient on probation still use their cannabis medication?
Jacqueline CollinsThe recent outbreak of lung illnesses connected to THC vaporization products is pushing the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division to implement new regulations that could include the prohibition of certain vaping additives in the regulated marketplace.
live.house.govDays before Congressman Ed Perlmutter was scheduled to speak at a cannabis management conference in Denver this week, he had a defining moment in Washington, D.C. His bill that would allow banking institutions to serve legal cannabis companies became not only the first pot-related proposal to be considered by the full House of Representatives in over fifty years, it actually passed.
Jacqueline CollinsColorado’s tourism industry has had a complicated relationship with cannabis since the state legalized the plant in late 2012. National hospitality businesses remain scared to touch a federally prohibited substance, while a state law banning public pot consumption has kept the majority of out-of-state dispensary shoppers without somewhere to legally light up.
But that tide may finally be turning.