Pot-license “points” systems in Aurora, Thornton invite legal scrutiny

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Cities and towns in Colorado have devised all sorts of ways to decide how many pot shops can open and where, but two communities using a points-based system to evaluate and select prospective recreational marijuana businesses — Aurora and Thornton — are running into legal hot water.

Aurora is facing a lawsuit alleging that it didn’t follow its own rules for ranking pot shop applicants for the two dozen licenses it issued. Thornton, which has four available licenses for recreational…

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Colorado Supreme Court sides with Northglenn on local controls for marijuana licensing

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Northglenn City Council—had the right to deny a medical marijuana license because the new dispensary was deemed superfluous, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The state’s highest court ruled that Northglenn’s code—language listing criteria such as “number, type, and availability” of existing medical marijuana centers when considering new applications was not “unconstitutionally vague.”

Read the rest of this story at The Cannabist.

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Colorado lawmakers pass measure allowing counties to levy, collect marijuana taxes

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State lawmakers approved a bill Monday that would allow counties to levy and collect sales tax on recreational marijuana, a move inspired by a standoff between Adams County and three of its cities that could wind up in the state Supreme Court.

The measure, if signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper, would allow counties to impose a pot tax in unincorporated areas without challenge but would have to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with cities and towns to tax weed there.

Adams…

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Dispute over marijuana taxing authority in Colorado may continue — despite state bill designed to defuse it

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A bill designed to resolve a high-stakes standoff over taxing authority between Colorado counties and cities when it comes to recreational marijuana sales is expected to pass out of the legislature Monday.

But the measure, if signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper next month, may not stop a protracted legal battle between Adams County and three of its cities from winding up at the state’s high court.

House Bill 1203, sponsored by Rep. Steve Lebsock, D-Thornton, authorizes counties to…

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New law: Courts can’t force medical marijuana abstinence for users awaiting trial

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DENVER — Marijuana use won’t be banned while people await trial in Colorado. That’s according to a new law (SB17-178) signed Thursday.

Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a measure forbidding a court from saying that criminal defendants who are marijuana patients must abstain from pot as a condition of bond.

 

Read the complete story at The Cannabist.

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New federal bill would reschedule marijuana as Schedule III

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The latest marijuana-centric bill before Congress would place cannabis as a Schedule III substance, a classification shared by Tylenol with codeine, ketamine and dronabinol.

Two Florida congressmen, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz and Democratic Rep. Darren Soto, introduced legislation Thursday that would transfer marijuana to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act from its current standing as a Schedule I substance, the strictest of the classifications.

Read the complete story at The…

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Richard Kirk, accused in Observatory Park slaying of his wife, pleads guilty to second-degree murder

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Richard Kirk

Denver Police Department

Richard Kirk

A man who claimed that eating marijuana candy led him to shoot his wife to death in their Observatory Park home pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder, ending a years-long debate surrounding pot and its possible influence on the slaying.

Richard Kirk, 50, agreed to serve 25 to 30 years in prison as part of his plea, and to relinquish custody of his three children.

Kirk killed his terrified wife, Kristine, as she pleaded with a Denver 911…

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Cops can’t be forced to return marijuana in failed drug cases, Colorado Supreme Court says

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The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday ruled that law enforcement officers cannot be forced to return marijuana to defendants even after they are acquitted of pot crimes because doing so would force officers to be marijuana “distributors” and violate federal law.

The ruling overturns a decision by the Colorado Court of Appeals, which ruled that police officers must return marijuana to defendants who win court decisions related to illegal marijuana possession in Colorado.

Forcing Colorado…

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States’ fight against Colorado marijuana laws on tap in fed court

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A bid to stamp out Colorado’s recreational marijuana industry is scheduled to go before a federal appeals court Tuesday morning.

The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver will hear oral arguments in an appeals case that claims Colorado’s recreational cannabis laws fly in the face of federal controlled substances and racketeering laws.

The case, a consolidation of separate appeals backed by national anti-legalization groups, was joined last year by the states of Nebraska and…

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“Invalid” Adams County special marijuana tax collected $1.36 million that could have to be returned

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Adams County has collected more than $1.36 million through a 3 percent tax on recreational marijuana sales that the Colorado Court of Appeals found to be invalid.

The voter-approved tax generated $293,875 in the last six months of 2015 and $1,070,557 so far this year that may have to be refunded.

The Colorado Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the tax is invalid, reversing a lower court decision and siding with the cities of Northglenn, Aurora and Commerce City, which sued over the…

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Trial for Richard Kirk in Observatory Park slaying set for March 2017

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This undated file photo provided by the Denver Police Department shows Richard Kirk. The Denver man accused of eating marijuana-infused candy he bought at a legal pot shop and then killing his wife while she described her husband's erratic behavior on a 911 call has changed his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity.

Denver Police Department

This undated file photo provided by the Denver Police Department shows Richard Kirk. The Denver man accused of eating marijuana-infused candy he bought at a legal pot shop and then killing his wife while she described her husband’s erratic behavior on a 911 call has changed his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity.

The trial for Richard Kirk, who is accused of shooting and killing his wife, Kristine, in April 2014 at their Observatory Park home, is set for…

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Man gets probation in alleged far-flung illegal marijuana enterprise

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A man once facing the possibility of spending decades in a federal prison after he was tied to an international marijuana-trafficking operation was instead sentenced Tuesday to probation in federal court after felony charges against him were dismissed.

As a condition of probation, U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn also sentenced Luis Fernand Uribe to 45 days in jail. The probationary deal was offered after the defendant’s original felony charges were dismissed and he pleaded guilty…

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Federal government asks judge to dismiss case against David Furtado

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The Acting U.S. Attorney in Colorado has filed a motion to dismiss all drug and money laundering charges against Denver attorney David Furtado, a key figure in one of the biggest criminal pot cases in the state’s legal-marijuana era.

Acting U.S. Attorney Robert C. Troyer requested all charges against Furtado be dismissed without prejudice in a motion on Friday, according to a court document.

“It is respectfully requested that this Court enter an order: dismissing the…

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U.S. court upholds ban on gun sales to marijuana card holders

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By Sudhin Thanawala, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal government ban on the sale of guns to medical marijuana card holders does not violate the Second Amendment, a federal appeals court said Wednesday.

The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals applies to the nine Western states that fall under the court’s jurisdiction, including California, Washington and Oregon.

It came in a lawsuit filed by S. Rowan Wilson, a Nevada woman who tried to buy a firearm in 2011…

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Kansas cops can’t stop drivers just because they have Colorado plates, court rules

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WICHITA, Kan. — A federal appeals court says law enforcement officials in Kansas cannot stop and search motorists for having nothing more than out-of-state license plates from states that have legalized marijuana.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday says the officer’s reasoning would justify the search of citizens from more than half of the states in the country.

The court reinstated the lawsuit filed by a Colorado motorist against two Kansas Highway Patrol officers who…

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Court sides with Connecticut employee fired for smoking pot at work

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HARTFORD, Conn. — A Connecticut state worker fired after he was caught smoking marijuana on the job was punished too harshly and should get his job back, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday.

Gregory Linhoff was fired from his maintenance job at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington in 2012 after a police officer caught him smoking pot in a state-owned vehicle. He had no previous disciplinary problems since being hired in 1998 and had received favorable job…

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Suspensions re-instated for Colorado doctors who recommended high medical marijuana plant counts

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Four Colorado doctors accused of over-recommending high plant counts for medical marijuana patients have had their suspensions re-instated, after a judge reversed course and tossed out their lawsuit.

The decision means the doctors will go through with administrative hearings in the hopes of having their suspensions lifted. An attorney for the doctors says an appeal of the lawsuit’s dismissal is also likely.

The four doctors — Gentry Dunlop, Robert Maiocco, Deborah Parr and William…

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Consultant for South Dakota tribe’s pot resort pleads guilty to drug charge

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FLANDREAU, S.D. — One of two consultants who worked with a Native American tribe on its plans to open the nation’s first marijuana resort pleaded guilty Monday to a drug offense stemming from his role in the operation, including ordering pot seeds that were shipped surreptitiously from the Netherlands to the reservation.

Jonathan Hunt, who oversaw the first marijuana crop of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, entered his guilty plea to a drug conspiracy count in the city of Flandreau,…

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Quest to get PTSD on Colorado medical marijuana list continues in court

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Colorado residents seeking the use of medical marijuana to treat the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are taking their case to the state Court of Appeals.

Last fall, four military veterans and one sexual assault survivor filed a complaint against the Colorado Board of Health, which had ruled against adding PTSD as a qualifying condition under the state’s medical marijuana program.

In May, Denver District Court Judge R. Michael Mullins affirmed the Board of Health’s…

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Justices reject appeal over medical marijuana in Montana

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In this photo taken June 2, 2016, medical marijuana grows at Jeff Smith's and Cassie Heckenkamp's property along the McKenzie River east of Springfield, Ore. The pair had hoped to expand the grow operation on their property with a large recreational marijuana crop, but zoning rules won't allow it. (Andy Nelson/The Register-Guard via AP)
The Supreme Court won’t hear an appeal challenging a Montana law that limits medical marijuana providers to selling the drug to a maximum of three patients each.

The Supreme Court won’t hear an appeal challenging a Montana law that limits medical marijuana providers to selling the drug to a maximum of three patients each.

The justices on Monday let stand a Montana Supreme Court ruling that upheld key provisions of a state law that rolled back much of the 2004 voter-approved initiative…

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Effort to open banking system to legal marijuana businesses stalls in U.S. House

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In this Feb. 18, 2016 photo, a Cash Transaction Unit, a high-security operation with bullet-proof payment windows set up specially for marijuana businesses paying their monthly taxes in cash, is installed in a retrofitted office space at the Oregon Department of Revenue at its Salem, Ore., headquarters. (AP Photos/Kristena Hansen)
In this Feb. 18, 2016 photo, a Cash Transaction Unit, a high-security operation with bulletproof payment windows set up specially for marijuana businesses paying their monthly taxes in cash, is installed in a retrofitted office space at the Oregon Department of Revenue at its Salem, Ore., headquarters.

Failing in an effort to match the success of their Senate counterparts, House members on Tuesday watched as Republicans killed a budget amendment that would have prevented federal…

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Breckenridge police arrest man, identify juvenile suspect in 2 pot shop burglaries

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Breckenridge police have arrested a 19-year-old man and identified a juvenile suspect in two linked marijuana burglaries at the same pot shop in the past several weeks.

Kauihou Kanamu-Santos faces a long list of charges in the break-ins, including second-degree burglary, criminal mischief and unlawful possession of a controlled substance.

Breckenridge Organic Therapy, at 1900 Airport Road, was first burglarized May 23 and then again June 15. Between the two break-ins, police say more…

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Denver prosecutors charge 3 in Park Hill triple killing, say shootings happened during marijuana deal

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Denver prosecutors have filed formal charges against three men in a shooting earlier this month that left three people dead and say the slayings happened during botched a marijuana sale.

Chadd Evans, 32, Dejuan Jones, 23, and Deashaun Turrentine, 24, are each charged with two counts of first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree murder and a count of aggravated robbery.

“The charges allege that Evans, Jones, and Turrentine came to Denver from Oklahoma to…

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