The Colorado Legislature has overwhelmingly approved a bill designed to “address efficiency in the regulation of existing marijuana licensees.”
Senate Bill 76 was approved by the Senate on April 29 with a 33 to 1 vote. On May 7, the House of Representatives passed the bill 52 to 9, incorporating minor amendments. Following this, the Senate concurred with the House amendments on May 8 by a vote of 33 to 1. The bill now proceeds to Governor Jared Polis, who is expected to sign it into law.
Once enacted, the measure will incorporate a series of changes to the regulation of marijuana businesses, including:
License Renewals
The bill extends the license renewal period, currently annually, for marijuana businesses to once every two years. Renewal applications do not need to repeat the required fingerprint-based criminal history check for initial applications. If a business possesses multiple types of marijuana licenses, MED must allow that business to submit a unified application renewal and coordinate the performance review of the single business renewing multiple licenses.
Identification Cards
The bill removes the requirement that passive marijuana business owners obtain an identification card from the MED. It also requires that conditional employee licenses be issued after a review of the application, rather than an initial investigation.
Regulation of Marijuana Contaminants
The bill changes the testing requirements for the Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) in the Department of Revenue (DOR) regarding contaminants in marijuana products. Under current law, MED must test to ensure that products do not contain any contaminants that are injurious to health. The bill requires MED to ensure that products do not contain contaminants in an amount that is determined to be injurious.
Current law requires any business that is found to have a contaminant to document and destroy the contaminated product. The bill allows the business to retest and remediate the product.
Frequency of Testing
MED may not require that a product pass a test multiple times before it is transferred to another business or sold to a consumer, with certain exceptions. MED must adopt rules allowing a business to conduct less testing of its products if the business consistently passes tests over a specific time period. Businesses that participate in a reduced testing program may be a charged a fee, not exceed $4,000 per facility. Participating businesses may have reduced testing for up to three years.
Violations
The bill requires DOR to classify each violation for a marijuana business as either a
safety violation or a technical violation. Technical violations are removed from a licensee’s record
either one year after the violation is reported or upon renewal of the license.
Record Keeping
Current law requires marijuana licensees to retain a record of all business transactions for the past three years. The bill changes this requirement to the past two years.
For the full text of the proposed law, click here.
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