Did medical marijuana smoke out Colorado chief medical officer Ned Calonge?

• Look at the meeting minutes for 3/17 and 6/16 <a href=http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/op/bh/minutes/2010minutes.html>here</a> to find out more about Calonge's trouble with hospitals.

• Drinker: Please elaborate.

• Calonge has gone out of his way to antagonize hospitals with the new regulations he's pushed. There's a big lawsuit in the works that will be a major hassle for Calonge's successor. (I work for a hospital and testified against some of the proposed regs.) I don't know anyone who has been very happy with Calonge's tenure.

• Good riddance! We look forward to learning who his replacement will be, and whether there is any improvement whatsoever in the CDPHE's approach to medical cannabis. As it stands, Calonge has poised the Department to refer all frequent recommenders to the Board of Medical Examiners and to re-assert its unconstitutional definition of a caregiver as a personal assistant -- if the CDPHE uses the (illegal) tools Calonge got the General Assembly to confer on the Department, and the BME goes along, the industry could be cut off at the roots within a year or so. The uncertain situation with regard to the effect of SB109 should be of substantial concern to all patients and caregivers, since it strikes at the essence of their constitutional rights, and dispensary owners have a vital interest too. Dispensary owners should pause, take a deep breath, and ask themselves whether they really want to throw over the constitutional protections afforded patients and caregivers for what has been laid out in HB1284 -- helping mount suits against SB109 and beginning to support grassroots political organization (as opposed to just trying to bind patients more tightly to a dispensary) are important ways in which they can secure oth the rights of PATIENTS and their own future. It should be possible to challenge the unconstitutional laws while continuing to try to do business. The reason to do so is that Article XVIII, Section 14 of the Constitution is law superior to all the petty scheming of the General Assembly, and, contrary to false claims that law enforcement was readying a frontal assault on dispensaries if they didn't get what they wanted in HB1284, it has permitted the virtually unchecked growth of the dispensary model. Uncertainties about doing business in the absence of regulation are not resolved by HB1284, but the absence of regulation is answered with a vengeance. All that really is certain at this point is that, over the course of the next year and longer, and subject to virtually certain legislative revisitation before it is done, the DOR will be starting to write an encyclopedic range of regulations with which dispensaries (or MMCs, OPGLs, and IPMs if you insist) will have to comply. These include re-writing commercial kitchen regulations so that they no longer pertain to food or kitchens, but cannabinoid-infused products and the facilities in which they are prepared, and creating a new class of occupational licenses (with qualifications, training, licensure, and fees, of course). It is understandable that dispensary owners are focused on compliance, but the blind assurance that they will be able to comply must be leavened with a little common sense and regard for statutory reality. The scene at the International Plant Medicine Exposition vendors and exhibitors' event last night was what we've come to expect. Rob gave a hard-hitting speech -- he's looking for patients and caregivers willing to be plaintiffs in suit(s) to be filed challenging the unconstitutional laws, especially SB109 and will now proceed on a pro bono basis if necessary. He laid out the case I have been making to the industry for months with stark clarity -- if the State does succeed in reducing the number of recommending physicians, there will all too soon be fewer patients. A reduction in business while in the throes of complying with reams of new regulations could easily kill much of the industry, and this was precisely the intent of HB1284's principle instigator, who stated on more than one occasion that the effect of HB1284 should be to close 80% of all dispensaries. This is a message that dispensaries just don't seem to be able to wrap their heads around, but faces lit up again when everyone's favorite former DEA narcotics officer, Matt Cook, took the stage. Matt has a lot of fans among owners because he does his best to say what they want to hear. To his credit, Cook does frequently point out that he must comply with the law (which doesn't seem to faze his audience). We should at least take what he says with a grain of salt -- bear in mind that he attempted to exclude the public illegally from the first meeting of the DOR Working Group on Medicinal Cannabis (until called on it).

• Jason Love spent time in court because the DA thought he was violating constitutional law by having too much medicine. I say it's time for Ned Calonge to be also charged with violating constitutional law. Why is it the patients and caregivers that the law goes after? This dude is partly if not mostly the reason people are able to abuse the system today. 3 months for a rejection? The law says within 35 days, jackass. Ned you have created a real mess. Patients are having to carry around copies of their application because bogus patients are sending in bogus application so they can be legal for 3 months. Once they are rejected, they do it again. No one is being prosicuted for fraud, so whay not? The interesting thing is that this discovery is the only reason there was any desire and action taken to "clear up the backlog". Arrest him! Charge him with felonies and when he is out on bail, make him do pee pee tests, counseling, etc.. Maybe then he will take responsibility for his actions!

• Thank god this incompetent bureaucrat is leaving state government! Colonge repeatedly tried to circumvent the Colorado Constitution; his tireless work against patient rights and safety will not be missed at all. So long, Ned. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

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