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Open Letter Concerning HB1284March 5, 2010 Dear House Judiciary Committee: Once again, you make it very difficult to participate in the political process, especially for sick patients. The bill you debated on Thursday was very different from the bill that had been open for review since Feb. 5. Since almost none of the audience members got an actual copy of the bill, and it was not available on the internet, you took testimony all day Thursday on a bill that most people had not seen. Now that testimony has been closed, no one will have the opportunity to testify on the actual bill. It amazes me how you continue to find ways to shut the real stakeholders in this, the patients, out of the process. Patient Jessica LaRoux showed up at noon and was 11th in line to testify. She did not get a chance to testify for over 7 hours after that. How is this so? Jessica testified that there were four pages of witnesses, all written in the same handwriting, that had already "signed up" when Jessica arrived. As you remember, this was hour after hour of law enforcement testimony. Able-bodied people, who were getting paid from their government employers to be there, took precedence over the dozens of patients that had to go home because they were too sick. You did the same thing with the hearing on SB109, waiting almost 8 hours to even begin taking patient testimony. Your ploy worked, as once again dozens of patients couldn't wait you out and had to go home, sick physically and sick and disgusted with the process. Sen. Romer and others have said all year that cannabis advocates have to be willing to compromise. But neither Sen. Romer, nor any of the other legislators, has sat down with any patient group to listen to their concerns, so this is becoming a very thin argument. The only way that this issue can be properly addressed is by forming a Commission of patients, caregivers, physicians and police to come up with rules that work *for the patients*. Your law-enforcement-centered bills are a slap in the face to every Coloradan who voted for the patients when Amendment 20 was passed. HB1284 is a "solution" in search of a problem. No one has identified ANY problems that are going on now. What is "out-of-control dispensary growth" and what is the problem with it anyway? Law enforcement testified over and over again that "crime has increased" in areas with dispensaries. Yet when pressed on the fact that they don't have any studies that show this, they say they are "too busy" to do that research. Patients have *real* problems: losing their jobs, their homes, their families due to cannabis discrimination; getting arrested and thrown in jail because the Registry system is broken and does not adequately protect them; not being to afford their medicine because their caregivers are mired in a pit of expensive and burdensome government over-regulation. Your bills do nothing to address these real problems. Of course, now you can conveniently say that you weren't aware that patients were having these problems, since you didn't hear any testimony on it at the HB1284 hearing. The patients all went home because they couldn't play your game of attrition. The pages of history will show how the Colorado legislature, lead by the House Judiciary committee, trampled and tried to destroy the Constitutional rights of patients in Colorado in order to appease law enforcement concerns over problems that do not exist. I implore you to halt this railroading process and form a Commission that will develop regulations that protect, not harm, patients. Sincerely, Laura Kriho, Director |
Cannabis Therapy Institute
P.O. Box 19084, Boulder, CO 80308
Phone: 877-420-4205
Web: www.cannabistherapyinstitute.com
Email: info@cannabistherapyinstitute.com
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