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Yesterday’s decision by the Colorado Board of Health to suspend the definition of a medical marijuana caregiver is throwing the already uncertain medical marijuana industry into even more chaos, according to a pro-medical marijuana advocate.

The Colorado Board of Health voted unanimously to suspend its own definition of the caregiver’s role until a public hearing on Dec. 16. In the meantime, Laura Kriho of the Cannabis Therapy Institute says the already laxly regulated medical marijuana industry is now in even more disarray. 

“We were hoping for more regulation, we were hoping for something to sort of calm everybody down,” she said. “Now it’s like an even worse wild west.”

It’s unknown what new definition the Colorado Board of Health will come up with. Some in the medical marijuana community worry that the new definition will require caregivers to provide more than just medical marijuana to patients. Brian Vicente of the pro-medical marijuana advocacy group Sensible Colorado believes that expanding the caregivers’ role would be the “equivalent of requiring your pharmacist to make a sandwich and give you a massage.”

“It could make life more difficult, especially for patients who simply rely on their caregiver for medicine,” he said. 

The Colorado Board of Health called the emergency meeting after the Colorado Court of Appeals last week agreed with a court’s ruling that a woman growing 44 marijuana plants Ń which she claimed were in part for medical marijuana patients she had never personally metŃ should be subjected to criminal charges. The board worried the definition they came up for caregivers didn’t mesh with the court’s decision.

Last second decision

The board announced the emergency meeting Monday afternoon, only a day before it was to be held. Vicente believed the last-second decision was an attempt to alienate and disenfranchise people from taking part in the public meeting.

“It’s frankly typical of the way the State Health Department has dealt with medical marijuana historically,” he said. “They routinely engage in deceptive tactics that try to undermine the medical marijuana law.”

Kriho, however, took a mellower view.

“I think the reason they had the thing (yesterday) was because they felt they had to,” she said. “I can see how they think this is an issue they feel they have to address.”

Approximately 75 people showed up in person to yesterday’s hearing, and a large number of people attended an often-chaotic conference call that happened simultaneously. 

During the conference call that was seemingly unmonitored, some attendees who were supposed to be silent spoke loudly, while one person blared music in an effort to disrupt the proceedings. Pleas for the disruptive callers to keep their phones on mute were largely unmet.

At the meeting, the largely pro-medical marijuana crowd became upset when the board said they would not be taking public comment. Medical marijuana advocate lawyer Robert Corry exclaimed that not allowing any members of the public to speak was illegal, which was met by an enthusiastic applause from many attendees.

Corry plans on filing a lawsuit against the board for not allowing public comment.

For his part, Colorado Board of Health Chair Glenn Schlabs said he agonized over not allowing public comment. A public meeting held this past summer that ultimately ruled against capping the number of patients a caregiver could have featured an exhausting 12 hours of public testimony, and it’s likely that Schlabs didn’t want to repeat that fate yesterday. 

“I think board members are astutely awareÉthere is no fair way to do this,” he said.

Public comment will be allowed at the scheduled Dec. 16 hearing.

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