One step forward, two steps back. Colorado's proposed regulations on medical marijuana are 90 pages long. You can read them here.
The rules would govern everything: how state officials regulate marijuana cultivation; how dispensary owners keep track of their sales; what makers of marijuana-infused pastries should put on their labels. Several of the rules would place Colorado in unprecedented territory — for instance, requiring marijuana growers to install security cameras through which state auditors could remotely monitor their crop. Others would take action on areas of long-standing concern, including inventory-control rules designed to prevent medical marijuana from leaking into the black market.
A. For purposes of penalty assessments, a violation of Colorado medical marijuana law or rules is classified as a general violation unless otherwise specified.
1. General violation is defined as a violation which is specifically determined not to be of a serious nature, but has a relationship to Colorado’s medical marijuana laws or rules.
B. A general violation can be deemed aggravated and the penalty assessment increased when any relevant circumstances, supported by evidence, are present to cause the harshest penalty allowed under Colorado law to be appropriate.
There's also this:
There shall be no property rights of any kind in any medical marijuana, edibles, tinctures, oils or other substances containing medical marijuana, vessels, appliances, fixtures, bars, furniture, implements, wagons, automobiles, trucks, vehicles, contrivances, or any other things or devices used in or kept for the purpose of violating any of the provisions of article 43.3 of title 12, C.R.S. 45
Nothing in this article shall be construed to limit a law enforcement agency’s ability to investigate unlawful activity in relation to a medical marijuana center, optional premises cultivation operation, or medical marijuana-infused products manufacturer. A law enforcement agency shall have the authority to run a Colorado crime information center criminal history record check of a primary caregiver, licensee, or employee of a licensee during an investigation of unlawful activity related to medical marijuana.
The Colorado constitution sets up a confidential registry run by the state health department," she continues, "and the only reason law enforcement ever gets to question the registry is if they stop somebody or detain them -- and then they can call the registry and ask if this person is on the registry. That's as far as it's supposed to go.
But they're talking about replacing that with this monstrous database that's shared by the Department of Revenue, the department of health and law enforcement that's going to confirm not just that a person is a patient, but what medicine they bought, when they bought it and where they bought it.
And there'll be a 24-7 video surveillance system of dispensaries and grow operations. Wherever medical marijuana is processed, cultivated or sold is going to be under surveillance accessible to law enforcement on demand. It's going to be the most scrutinized substance on the planet."
...not only is this an issue of violating the confidentiality requirement in the Colorado constitution, but it's a question of medical-records privacy, which is a broader issue than just for medical marijuana patients. It's giving law enforcement access to medical information on an unprecedented scale.
Cannibis Therapy Institute also says the regulations impact the 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination:
[O]nce you create a record of purchases by patients, it can be used as evidence against them in a court of law. There's no protection whatsoever for patients that this information will remain confidential if they should wind up in a legal situation. So we believe this is also an unconstitutional violation of the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination, because it requires you to incriminate yourself in a federal crime."
Cannibis Therapy Institute explains the loss of patient confidentiality by turning the registry into a database accessible by law enforcement:
