[420 Girl]

BOULDER — More than half of Boulder County’s cities and towns have enacted moratoriums on approving any more medical marijuana businesses, as local governments wait for guidance from the Legislature.

They’re not alone, according to Michelle Krezek, the county commissioners’ intergovernmental relations coordinator.

During a Wednesday night Boulder County Consortium of Cities discussion of medical marijuana issues, Krezek reported that throughout the metropolitan area’s counties and municipalities, “everybody’s waiting for the state.”

And if it turns out that no new state-level medical marijuana regulatory measures are enacted by the time the Legislature adjourns in May, Krezek said that “there could be a scramble” as local governments try to figure out what they can legally do by themselves.

“It seems like cities and towns should have a backstop plan” for when current local moratoriums expire and state lawmakers adjourn their 2010 session, regardless of what the Legislature does or doesn’t do, said Boulder County Commissioner Ben Pearlman.

At issue are what rules local communities can adapt or adopt when it comes to regulations about the locations and operations of marijuana-growing operations and commercial dispensaries that provide that product to patients on Colorado’s medical marijuana registry.

This afternoon, the Legislature’s House Judiciary Committee is to hear a bill that could provide some of the guidance being set by local officials.

It proposes a state medical marijuana licensing system, with some powers delegated to counties and municipalities, that would be similar to the procedures now used to license and monitor the sales of alcoholic beverages.

That bill, however, already faces the probability of multiple amendments from the version its sponsors originally introduced, and its fate is uncertain.

Meanwhile, the Boulder City Council, which last year adopted interim medical marijuana regulations about such issues as how close dispensaries can be to schools and one another, this week gave its staff the go-ahead to schedule hearings on more permanent local rules.

Longmont, one of the municipalities that adopted and then extended a moratorium, has been meeting with dispensary owners and operators, law-enforcement personnel, school officials, patients, physicians and others, city staffers Erin Fosdick and Joni Marsh reported at Wednesday’s Consortium of Cities meeting.

Longmont’s staff plans additional public outreach meetings this month before reviewing regulatory options with the City Council in April.

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