Nederland dispensary owner challenges state's medical marijuana laws - Boulder Daily Camera

Nederland dispensary owner challenges state's medical marijuana laws
Attorney cites privacy, access concerns
By Heath Urie, Camera Staff Writer
Boulder Daily Camera
Posted:01/06/2011 11:50:48 AM MST

A Nederland medical marijuana dispensary owner has filed a petition with the Colorado Supreme Court asking it to overturn large parts of recently approved state laws governing the medical marijuana industry.

Attorney Andrew Reid, with the Springer and Steinberg law firm in Denver, filed the petition Wednesday on behalf of Kathleen Chippi, owner of the One Brown Mouse Cannabis Healing Arts Center in Nederland.

In the complaint, Reid wrote that House Bill 10-1284 and Senate Bill 10-109 restrict medical marijuana patient access to medicine and violate patient privacy rights guaranteed by the Colorado Constitution. Many of the rules are expected to take effect later this year.

"We believe that the legislation is actually defeating the will of the people," who in 2000 approved a constitutional amendment which gave Colorado residents the right to use medical marijuana, Reid said Thursday.

Reid said he believes the new laws prevent patients from getting access to medication, partly because of a provision that allows local municipalities to ban dispensaries or prevent the delivery of medical marijuana products to bedridden patients.

"They are condemned by these unconstitutional bans on their access to medication to suffer unnecessarily and even die prematurely," Reid wrote in the court brief. "There is no rational basis, let alone any compelling state interest in such local regulation or bans."

Reid said the petition also targets parts of the bills that put limitations on primary caregivers, and which allow patient records to be shared among state and local licensing authorities.

The petition asks the court to declare the bills unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable.

Chippi, who was forced to shutter her Nederland dispensary after she refused to apply for a state license to sell medical marijuana, said the state laws are hindering access to medical marijuana by "frightening the patients away from the centers; by cutting off their access to caregivers."

"I know there's a lot of (medical marijuana centers) who are not happy with me for filing this, but they have to realize... they are in legal limbo," Chippi said.

It is up to the discretion of the Colorado Supreme Court whether it will consider the case.