By nature I am an optimist, so it was amusing this morning to have a story about how optimistic Democrats are about the coming year be the first thing to pop into my in-box. Then the second bit of news I came across was a story about Colorado asking the Drug Enforcement Administration to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule 2 drug.
Moving the classification from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 2 would change how the drug is prescribed in Colorado, and allow it to be sold by pharmacies. At first I thought the world had gone topsy-turvey while I slept, because I couldn’t imagine Colorado’s Attorney General signing on to any lawsuit that would make it easier to use medical marijuana.
He didn’t. The letter representing Colorado’s position, which is joining forces with Rhode Island and Washington, came from Colorado’s Department of Revenue. That made a lot of sense given that Colorado has been using fees on both care-givers and marijuana card-holders to balance the state’s budget since Ritter was governor.
After reading the story, I’m wondering what took the Department of Revenue so long. Evidently the 2010 law, signed by Ritter, which set up marijuana regulations for Colorado required that the state ask the DEA to reclassify marijuana by January 1, 2012. It took them two years to write a letter!
Given that this letter was mandated by law, I’m now wondering why the letter didn’t come from the Attorney General. Could it be that this has been a political hot potato, and the last agency to catch the potato was Revenue? Did they issue the letter because they were the last agency with lights on, with everyone else gone for the holidays?
Homework
Democrats Are Optimistic
MSNBC Report on Colorado and Pot
Moving the classification from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 2 would change how the drug is prescribed in Colorado, and allow it to be sold by pharmacies. At first I thought the world had gone topsy-turvey while I slept, because I couldn’t imagine Colorado’s Attorney General signing on to any lawsuit that would make it easier to use medical marijuana.
He didn’t. The letter representing Colorado’s position, which is joining forces with Rhode Island and Washington, came from Colorado’s Department of Revenue. That made a lot of sense given that Colorado has been using fees on both care-givers and marijuana card-holders to balance the state’s budget since Ritter was governor.
After reading the story, I’m wondering what took the Department of Revenue so long. Evidently the 2010 law, signed by Ritter, which set up marijuana regulations for Colorado required that the state ask the DEA to reclassify marijuana by January 1, 2012. It took them two years to write a letter!
Given that this letter was mandated by law, I’m now wondering why the letter didn’t come from the Attorney General. Could it be that this has been a political hot potato, and the last agency to catch the potato was Revenue? Did they issue the letter because they were the last agency with lights on, with everyone else gone for the holidays?
Homework
Democrats Are Optimistic
MSNBC Report on Colorado and Pot
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