[420 Girl]

The vagueness of the state's medical marijuana law, coupled with the federal government's enforcement practices, have left a pair of San Luis Valley towns looking for answers.

Wednesday Alamosa passed a moratorium on the licensing of medical marijuana dispensaries for 180 days, and Monte Vista will see a similar measure on its agenda next month.

"It's becoming such a statewide issue," Alamosa Mayor Pro-Tem Kathy Rogers said. "I think the (police) chief wanted to be very proactive and buy that time so we're not stuck with something we're not prepared for."

While the two towns look for a solution, whether it be to ban dispensaries outright or to regulate them, local law enforcement is left in a pickle by the state's existing law.

"There's a lot of confusion on law enforcement's part with how this can be enforced," said Alamosa Police Chief John Jackson. Jackson ticks off a number of shortcomings to the constitutional amendment passed by state voters in 2000, including the lack of a definition for what a dispensary is and who qualifies as a caregiver.

Moreover, he added the law doesn't say how dispensaries can be licensed or whether marijuana can be grown in one place and dispensed from another.

And even if Jackson's officers make what they think is a legitimate seizure

of marijuana, he said his department has no way of keeping the plants alive,

should a judge rule they must be returned.

Against that backdrop, the valley saw the opening of its first dispensary at the end of last month, when Jeff Bustos opened the doors to Sensitiva Holistic Therapeutics just outside of Alamosa off U.S. 160.

Bustos opened Oct. 22, three days after the U.S. Department of Justice said it would not prosecute patients or caregivers who comply with state medical marijuana laws.

But the change in enforcement by the federal government didn't have much to do with the decision to open, Bustos said.

He was motivated by the death of his father in August after suffering from cancer.

"Had I been able to legally give him marijuana and him have a piece of mind in doing so, he would have led a much better life," he said.

Soon after he opened, Alamosa County Sheriff's deputies showed up at the business with a search warrant.

The search has not resulted in any criminal charges, according to a search of county court records.

And while Bustos praised the sheriff's office for its professionalism during the search, he too is flustered by the law's gray areas.

"I'd like to know what the real law is," he said.

Whichever routes Alamosa and Monte Vista take, Jackson, who is a part of the San Luis Valley drug task force, wants to take a wider view than just the city limits.

"It's really important we look at this as a bigger scale," he said.

While the valley's lone dispensary sits on Alamosa's doorstep, 56 medical marijuana users are spread across four valley counties with half of them in Saguache County, according to July statistics from the Colorado Department of Health and Public Environment.

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