Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division's next available appointment: February 2013

By William Breathes Fri., Sep. 7 2012 at 4:20 PM

Want a job working in the MMJ industry in Colorado? Well, get comfortable, because it might be a while before you can even start. In yet another sign of the struggles afflicting the Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division, the department is now informing potential new employees that there are no appointments available until next year.

Here's a public notice placed on the
MMED website:

The MMED will continue to provide occupational licensing at our office located at 455 Sherman Street, Suite 390, Denver, CO 80203. However, due to the high demand, there are no available appointments until well into 2013. With the number of weeks intervening between the setting of an appointment and the actual date of an appointment we are experiencing a large number of missed appointments. Therefore, in an effort to make the best use of our limited resources and increase participation from the applicant population the MMED will no longer be setting appointments until Monday, February 18, 2013.

Employees must have badges and, depending on their level of involvement, submit themselves to background checks before they are legally allowed to work in a medical marijuana facility.

This six-month lag comes on top of the year-plus delay in getting medical marijuana centers licensed. There are even a number of medical marijuana centers up for license renewal, including Choice Organics just outside of Fort Collins. Owner Erica Freeman told us earlier this week that she felt lucky she was the first dispensary in the state to be licensed in September of 2011, before all of the delays began.

At this rate, it wouldn't be surprising if there wasn't an MMED to issues licenses come February.

Tags:

Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division, MMED licensing delays

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nemopunk15 topcommenter

Come on MMED! You raked in millions! This is unbelievable! Where the hell is the oversight!

IcePick

Great read William. Please do a followup on this: http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/05/marijuana_industrial_hemp_stud.php

Jack

Just as well. Save these poor people from getting on a public list of MMJ workers, which may result in the denial of their health insurance, employment discrimination, having their children taken away or losing their student loans/grants. The MMED is just an information-gathering arm for the feds. Most, if not all, of these dispensaries have NOT been granted a license by the state, making them unlicensed, criminal enterprises in the eyes of the feds. So go get another $10 job. Working in the MMJ business is too risky. Will your dispensary pay for your lawyer when that dispensary is raided by the feds? Are you ready to do 5 to 40 years for a kewl dispensary job?

Jason Garrison

This is just for denver, right? Faster in FOCO and CO Springs??

dante

Probably because of A64. Waiting to see if it passes or not before they hire more people.

IcePick

@dante Main reason is lack of employees at MMED. They went from 30 to 12.

actualpatient

@IcePick @dante exactly what we need, limits on jobs in a lucrative business

TheSpleen

Total incompetence. This along with the rest of the MMED follies -- useless SUVs included -- would be funny if it didn't do so much damage to patients and the eager young optimists who want to work in the industry.

The MMED and their failures are so ludicrous it could be an absurdist play: they claim to "clean up the industry" but instead do nothing but embarrass themselves while forcing everyone to jump through administrative hoops that have no purpose or goal. They are not even competent enough to administer the system they themselves built from the ground up, for chrissakes. It's like a Kafka novel filmed by the Three Stooges.

TheSpleen

...and of course the MMED doesn't do a single bit of the work to which it should be truly dedicated: insuring safe, quality medications are sold to patients who need them.

The lack of oversight on things like edibles and extracts is fucking appalling. I am quite sure no one ever followed up on the toxic flaming "hash" Mr. Breathes risked his life to film.