[420 Girl]

CO -The medical-marijuana dispensary owners who gathered last week for a regular meeting of the group Coloradans for Medical Marijuana Regulation were anxious about rules lawmakers are considering for the booming industry.

But Matt Brown, a former business consultant who is now the group's executive director, stood before the crowd and gave it reason to believe the concerns would be heard.

"They're really looking for anyone willing to compromise," Brown said of lawmakers.

He would know.

With its message of professionalism and compromise, Coloradans for Medical Marijuana Regulation — an organization that didn't even exist until a few months ago — has emerged as the marijuana community's most powerful voice at the Capitol.

That's largely due to a massive advocacy campaign the group has assembled, hiring four lobbyists and a public-relations company, working with a prominent political polling firm and generally taking on the polish of every serious industry group under the dome.

The group, known as CMMR, has dozens of members — including some of Denver's most prominent dispensaries, including Peace in Medicine and the Apothecary of Colorado — and a five-figure monthly operating budget.

State Sen. Chris Romer, a Denver Democrat who is perhaps the legislator most deeply involved in medical-marijuana policy this year at the Capitol, said CMMR's approach convinced lawmakers to abandon an idea that would have eliminated medical-marijuana dispensaries and instead introduce a bill that allows dispensaries to remain open, but as nonprofits. (CMMR is opposed to the nonprofit requirement and would like to see protection for independent marijuana growers, but Brown said the bill is a workable starting point.)

"They have been the moderates who understand that for us to have an appropriate medical-marijuana industry . . . that there need to be guardrails and transparent regulations," Romer said.

CMMR also has earned critics, including some from within the multi-faceted cannabis community who consider the group representative of big-money interests that they fear will corrupt the medical-marijuana system.

William Chengelis, a marijuana activist with Mile High NORML, said his organization has been at "loggerheads" with CMMR over CMMR's lobbying campaign.

"We don't feel they have been representing the patients," he said.

Laura Kriho, a longtime Colorado marijuana activist, agreed, saying she sees CMMR as too quick to compromise and in favor of a system that would give large, more profitable dispensaries an advantage over smaller caregivers and cooperatives.

Brian Vicente, the head of Sensible Colorado, which has sometimes partnered with CMMR on lobbying efforts, disagreed, saying that CMMR's lobbying campaign has benefited the entire medical-marijuana community.

"Lawmakers listen to lobbyists, is what it comes down to," he said. "Having a lobbyist full time at the Capitol corresponding and interacting with lawmakers has been important."


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