Oct 28, 2009 10:01 am US/Mountain
Vague Medical Marijuana Laws Frustrate Police
PARK COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) ―
Police departments across Colorado are struggling to navigate the state's medical marijuana law.
Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said he doesn't even want to go after suspected marijuana growers until the law gets clarified. Wegener said law enforcement doesn't have enough information to work with and that's making things dangerous.
He said when voters approved Amendment 20 in 2000 they gave little thought to the loopholes that lurked in the measure. The biggest loopholes in Colorado's medical marijuana law pertain to the people who provide medicinal pot.
For some medical marijuana caregivers it's also frustrating.
"We're abiding the laws, we're taxpayers, we're part of the community just like anybody else," Casey Villa Jr., a medical marijuana caregiver said.
The problem is that legal guidelines are hazy. Nothing in the law requires caregivers to register with police. Nothing in the law dictates how many patients they can serve and the only apparent grow limit is six plants per patient.
"Are they only allowed a maximum number, or can they have 1,000 people they are providing marijuana for and then have grow houses all over the place?" Wegener said.
Often law enforcement doesn't know who's growing, where they're growing or whether they're even abiding by the law.
Wegener said the ambiguity creates a dangerous situation.
"What if accidentally somebody should see us coming in and grab a gun. Oh my God, I don't want that liability of accidentally shooting somebody over something like this, or them shooting one of my officers over something like this," Wegener said.
Earlier this month the Park County Sheriff's Department raided four homes near Fairplay. Three of those homes turned out to have medical marijuana growers. Only one of the homes was growing pot illegally.
Investigating possible illegal marijuana growers has become such a waste of resources that prosecutors are beginning to shy away from marijuana grow cases, and Sheriff Wegener said he understands why.
"It's almost to the point now where I'm saying, if it's a marijuana grow, we're not going to do anything," Wegener said.
Park County officials will be meeting Nov. 2 to talk about how they're going to get their arms around the tricky issue.
State Se. Chris Romer also plans to introduce legislation aimed at clarifying the state's medical marijuana law.
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