Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division chief Laura Harris on being both regulator and mom
In recent weeks, news broke that Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division head Dan Hartman would be leaving that post in favor of Laura Harris, director of the Liquor and Tobacco Enforcement Division -- a controversial move that prompted plenty of speculation.
Laura Harris.
Harris took charge of MMED on November 14, and she says, "I'm definitely in the learning stage."
As we've reported, word that Hartman had been reassigned to head the state's Division of Racing Events came shortly after he wrote a pro-MMJ industry letter that was published in a number of cities considering medical marijuana retail bans in the November election. Here's an excerpt from the item published in Steamboat Today on October 13: "If your community bans commercial medical marijuana businesses... you will only remove the regulated medical marijuana distribution model from your community."
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers called Hartman's letter unethical, because his role was to be a neutral regulator, not an industry advocate. Still, Department of Revenue spokesman Mark Couch stressed that the reason for the Hartman-for-Harris swap wasn't punishment for penning the essay, but the desire to "create cross-training opportunities and bench strength."
Dan Hartman.
No question that Harris brings a great deal of experience to the job. "I've been with the department for 28 years," she says. "I graduated from CSU with a business degree and a concentration in accounting. It was my intention to be an auditor or accountant type, and I passed the CPA exam and got my certificate. But what I saw ahead of me was a rather dull life in auditing and tax preparation -- and at the wise old age of 26, I decided I needed to do something a little more interesting."
With that in mind, Harris served as what she calls "a special agent -- a kind of combination of auditor and investigator. It's a position that requires expertise in both disciplines, and I received the opportunity to go to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia... and when I returned, I had that skill for doing tax investigations."
John Suthers.
A couple of years later, Harris continues, "I didn't like the direction management was taking us -- that's something that happens to a lot of us at some point in our career. So I decided to leave criminal tax enforcement, and I got an investigator job in liquor enforcement. My expertise was financial investigations, investigations of hidden ownership and focusing on supplier trade-practice violations. I was the division's in-house expert, if you will, on the more complex types of financial investigations.
"Then I got an opportunity to go into management. I was promoted to licensing director in liquor enforcement, and I was able to demonstrate some good instincts. I did that job until 2007, when I was promoted to division director, taking over for then-director Matt Cook. And that leads me to where we are right now."
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