HERE WE GO AGAIN

{Denver} -- The Colorado Department of Revenue has promulgated 77 pages of new rules relating to Medical Marijuana Centers (MMCs) in Colorado. These new rules will go into effect July 1, 2011.

You can read the rules here:
Department of Revenue - Enforcement Group:Medical Marijuana

It appears the DOR has tried to address security and privacy concerns of patients, but they still fall far short of what is necessary to ensure patient confidentiality. The new rules state that "Surveillance recordings and clear still photos must be made available to the MMED and law enforcement upon an administrative or law enforcement request demonstrating that the information sought is relevant and material to a legitimate regulatory or law enforcement inquiry."

There is no definition of the word "legitimate", so this would probably require MMCs to give patient surveillance recordings to the DOR or any other law enforcement agency on demand, unless the MMC was willing to go to court to challenge the "legitimacy" of the request.

CTI is still analyzing these new rules and will have more comments soon.

I see nothing about groceries here, just you and me being videotaped and recorded....not good

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Colodonmed

"Surveillance recordings and clear still photos must be made available to the MMED and law enforcement upon an administrative or law enforcement request demonstrating that the information sought is relevant and material to a legitimate regulatory or law enforcement inquiry."

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What exactly is your fear? That the MMED will request a centers recordings frivolously and start sharing them on the internet?

If you are concerned about the abuse of this rule, then that is a problem that extends through law enforcement and into our judicial system.

Search warrants may be abused by judges, the DA, and police but they serve a needed purpose.

The language from the draft that you quote is a step towards creating a process that law enforcement must go through prior to receiving tapes, or information. Something that will be akin to a search warrant.

I bring up groceries, because in this world we are always being recorded. What we buy, where we go, there are cameras. I am not sure how cameras in an MMC are different, and I want to reiterate that these tapes will not be used to go after patients.

The letter seems to be a specific response to the enormous industrial grow facility that Oakland was planning to allow. Although they certainly dont limit any action they may take against anyone, imo its clear that it is the plan for that particular place, which has received a lot of publicity nationally, that they were looking to threaten. It doesnt seem to signal any changed approach. If you read enough about the Montana raids, they seemed to specifically target mmc's that they felt there was evidence against regarding black market activity outside the state law.