Colorado Proposes Medical Marijuana Surveillance from 'Seed to Sell' | Criminal Justice | Change.org
It sounds like the stuff of some dystopian novel: fingerprint scans required before every transaction; tracking devices attached to goods to ensure they're consumed by the purchaser and not someone on the black market; 24-hour closed-circuit video recording the face and state-issued identity card of each and every citizen for law enforcement review, lest some miscreant attempt to take more than their fair share of rations.
But if officials in Colorado get their way, that will be the brave new world for tens of thousands of medical marijuana users, who in exchange for their doctor-prescribed medicine will be expected to sacrifice what's left of their privacy and submit to the watchful eye of the state.
Maybe it's not the pot that's making users paranoid.
The total surveillance regime is being proposed by the Colorado Department of Revenue's Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division, which under a law passed by the legislature earlier this year has been tasked with drafting new rules to essentially crack down on the proliferating number of dispensaries in the state.
The will of the public, which voted to legalize medical marijuana in the state a decade ago (and with no limits on dispensaries), is so often an unbearable annoyance to those in power. But rather than completely flout their constituents' desires, politicians -- helped by unelected regulators with an apparent penchant for voyeurism -- seem determined to just make the state's medical marijuana system as cumbersome and discouraging to potential patients as possible.
The draft regulation, which there will be a public hearing on in January, mandates that dispensary owners record every aspect of marijuana production and distribution, "from seed to sell," as a spokeswoman put it in an interview with the ABC affiliate in Denver. And it does so in minute detail. (Read more after the jump.)
"A single camera shall be placed at each Point of Sale location allowing for the recording and recognition of any transacting individuals identification and medical marijuana removed from the premises," the regulation states, detailing that this will be accomplished "by temporarily placing the authorized Identification, and registry card in a 12? x 12? area on the counter top, where they will be captured from the above mounted camera." In addition, "all medical marijuana shall be placed on [a state] approved and calibrated weight scale so that the amount removed from the licensed premises may by captured from the above mounted camera."
Further, all dispensaries "must have camera coverage capable of identifying any activity occurring in or adjacent the licensed premises," and cameras in grow rooms must be capable of capturing video in low light. All video would be available to law enforcement "by request" (i.e. not a warrant).
The Associated Press reports Colorado regulators are also considering "using biometrics to track patients, requiring a fingerprint scan before each sale to make sure the customer matches the marijuana card," and -- my favorite -- "mandating that medical pot include radio-frequency identification devices, somewhat like coded tags on library books, to keep track of who's getting what."
Naturally, all of this is being done in the name of the public. "We want to protect the patient," spokeswoman Julie Postlethwait told ABC. "This in the long run legitimizes and helps the industry."
Medical marijuana advocates disagree.
"There is no conceivable justification for this system," Robert Chase of Colorado Coalition for Patients and Caregivers told the channel. "It's a highly intrusive process of having to give fingerprints and being under constant video surveillance. It invokes George Orwell's 1984," he said. "The whole thing is preposterous."
"It seems like there could be an ulterior motive here," Randy James Martinez, a medical marijuana patient, said in an interview with the AP. "Why do they need to keep such close track? Opiate abuse is far more prevalent and far more destructive than any marijuana use or abuse."
And that's a good question: why do Colorado officials want to keep such close track on medical marijuana? Press officials claim they want to prevent the distribution of contaminated or moldy pot, but that's not credible -- California has a much more developed medical marijuana system and no one there appears to be complaining about poor product, despite the lack of closed-circuit monitoring. It all seems to come back to discouraging participation in the state's program by driving up costs for dispensary owners and violating the privacy of patients, ultimately thwarting the will of voters.
Stand up for the rights of Colorado patients and demand regulators with the state's Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division withdraw their creepy surveillance plan.
