Use of marijuana for medical purposes has been legal for 12 years in Colorado, and medical cards have been and are being issued to adults 18 and over, who are able to purchase cannabis at medical marijuana dispensaries.

Under intense scrutiny by our Internal Revenue Service in the form of audits, police raids, and a bewildering array of regulations, a third of marijuana dispensaries in Colorado have closed. Those that have survived have big money behind them and support grow operations on site, selling everything they grow and adding 5.4 million in sales tax to the Colorado State Department of Revenue coffers in 2012.

The marijuana industry is regarded as an illicit drug market under US federal law, and our US representative Jared Polis of Boulder has introduced national legislation that would take the control of laws regarding marijuana out of the hands of the Justice Department and place it instead under the jurisdiction the Department of Tobacco, Liquor and Firearms. If such legislation were to pass Congress, the floodgates would open concerning recreational use throughout the US, because States would not longer be afraid of Federal prosecution. At present, the Federal government helps eliminate aspiring marijuana businesses here in Colorado by placing rules on banks to refuse loans to such businesses or to disallow them common tax deductions. There are an excess of regulations governing the medical marijuana industry, and knowing and following the rules is a skill unto itself. Yet business for Type 3 dispensaries, those that serve more than 500 patients, has remained steady, and the number of Type 2 dispensaries, serving 3 to 500 patients, has increased. There are 108,000 registered medical marijuana patients in Colorado, and many entrepreneurs who would enjoy helping them by starting a dispensary and growing operation are exhausted by trying to follow ever-changing rules and opt out.

[pullquote left]It is to everyone’s advantage to know that your product is top quality, and so the need for a lab for testing[/pullquote].

As an example, one dispensary owner invested heavily in a marijuana testing lab, until Colorado passed a law saying labs can’t be owned by dispensary owners. Nevertheless, there remains a strong incentive for dispensary owners to remain in business as Colorado transitions to the constitutional right of recreational use of marijuana by all Colorado residents and, hopefully, out of state visitors.