I went to a three-hour forum today on MMJ and current CO law. A good bit of it was spent on question and answer regarding this bill. There were a lot of angry growers in the meeting. Brian Vicente, head of Sensible CO quoted liberally in this thread, explained that this was because dispensaries have an organized lobby in Denver while growers do not; this bill will protect dispensaries, but not growers. He pointed out that caregiver-to-caregiver sales (i.e. caregivers selling to a dispensary) is now a legal gray area. There have been prosecutions already. In his view, the bill is likely to pass in nearly its current form before May, and may become law in July. He hopes they will also add a cultivation license, by which growers could supply dispensaries, but he doesn't think it will happen. He said bluntly, that if you want to sell marijuana to a dispensary, you will need to become their employee, start a dispensary yourself ($5000+ fee), or possibly write some really creative contracting agreement that is likely to be disputed in court.

I also asked him if there were any provisions in the bill that would limit the rights of patients to use, grow or possess. He said that all the provisions that would have done so have now been removed, and that the bill couldn't do that anyway since our MMJ law is a constitutional amendment. He noted one exception that still needed to be removed: if you are a patient and have assigned someone else to be your caregiver, then a third party may not assign you as their caregiver. Brian said this was unconstitutional and would be removed or challenged.