Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is proposing bans on group recreational grows, and calling for new paperwork requirements for individual medical grows, hoping to reduce the illegal sales of homegrown cannabis, according to an Associated Press report. The governor hopes that the new rules will help preserve the state’s market under the incoming Trump Administration.
Under current law, medical card holders are allowed to grow up to 99 plants and recreational users and permitted to grow their allotted six plants in co-ops, which aren’t taxed or tracked.
“We do need to clean up this system and make sure we’re beyond reproach for how well we’re regulating marijuana,” Andrew Freedman, Hickenlooper’s marijuana coordinator, said in the report, noting that in the last two years there have been six large criminal raids.
The governor’s plan would include a 12-plant limit on private property, a ban on recreational co-ops, and tracking requirements for medicinal grows. However, because the cannabis laws are in the state constitution, citizens have the constitutional right to the plant counts allowed under the current regime. New rules on caregivers take effect next month and caregivers will need to begin registering with the state in order for police to know whether that person is legitimately growing for patients.
Activists argue that the new rules are a cash grab; forcing people into the taxed market by reducing what they can grow on their own.