Colo. Health Board Votes Down Medical Marijuana Limits
Hundreds Turn Out In Opposition To Cap On Patient Number
By Lance Hernandez, 7NEWS Reporter

POSTED: 4:45 am MDT July 20, 2009
UPDATED: 1:16 am MDT July 21, 2009

DENVER — The state Board of Health has voted down a proposal to limit medical marijuana providers to five patients each.

The vote was a big victory for dispensaries that have sprouted up to serve a growing number of patients across Colorado, and for patients who depend on marijuana to ease nausea and pain.

Dispensary operator Todd Young, who provides marijuana for nine patients, testified against the proposed limit.

“If this passes, I would have to sit down and cut off half of my patients,” Young said. “How will I decide who to choose?”

One of his patients, Damien LaGoy, is a long term AIDS survivor, who uses marijuana to help cope with the side effects of the multiple drugs he takes to stay alive.

“If they don’t allow my caregiver to have more than five patients, I’ll be back on Colfax looking for marijuana,” LaGoy told 7NEWS.

Dr. Ned Calonge, chief medical officer for the state health department, said the rules require that a caregiver be “someone who has significant responsibility for managing the well being of a patient.”

“Dispensaries are like pharmacies,” Calonge said, “and neither is synonymous with the term caregiver.”

Calonge said that by limiting the number of patients to five, caregivers can spend more time with them and provide better care.

But attorney Robert Corry, a medical marijuana advocate, said health officials are trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.

“The health department already admitted back in 2007 that they picked the number five because the DEA, Drug Enforcement Administration, suggested the number five to them,” Corry said.

Calonge countered that the medical marijuana program is susceptible to fraud and that some large-scale marijuana growers busted by police are falsely claiming to be medical marijuana suppliers.

There have been other issues.

Jade Thomas of the Colorado Alliance for Drug Endangered Children told board members about a Westminster man who shared his medical marijuana with his children, ages 9, 11, 14 and 18.

“He even took pictures to document the event,” Thomas said.

Opponents said the vast majority of users shouldn’t be punished because of a few “bad apples.”

They said limits would make it harder for patients to get medical marijuana.

Patients like Kevin Grimsinger, a war veteran and double amputee, use the plant to help with pain.

Grimsinger, who was awarded two purple hearts and a bronze star, told 7NEWS that regular pain medication lead to anxiety, so he tried marijuana.

“Until dispensaries began to open in Denver, I had to get my medicine from the street, where it was of low quality and dangerous to obtain,” he said.

Cliff Riedel, of the Larimer County District Attorney’s Office, told the board that many law enforcement groups would like to see more regulation.

“The state limits the number of children that a day care provider can deal with,” Riedel said. “Why shouldn’t there be limits on the number of people that a primary caregiver can treat?”

More than 300 people attended the hearing, and the vast majority opposed the rules.

Colorado voters allowed the use of medical marijuana in 2000 by passing Amendment 20.

The board voted to limit caregivers to five patients in 2004, but a Denver judge threw that out three years later because the limit was enacted without a hearing.

Copyright 2009 by TheDenverChannel.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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