Brighton City Council study session focuses on recommendations from marijuana task force

BRIGHTON – City Council continues to monitor the implementation of Amendment 64.

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During the March 12 study session, council members heard from Christian Sederberg, an attorney who played a key role in the drafting of the amendment and served as a representative of the campaign on Gov. John Hickenlooper’s task force.

Sederberg told council about the task force and said their recommendations will be considered by state Senate and House members serving on the Joint Committee on Amendment 64. He said the group is expected to meet for the first time on Friday and that the amendment will be passing through the House and Senate in the near future.

“They can choose to accept or reject any of them, although I think the work done was very thoughtful and it resulted in a lot of compromise,” he said.

Sederberg told council the primary issue that will affect the city is the local control issue. Under the amendment, local governments can opt out of participating in a regulated market and can determine time, place, manner and number of use.

“You can opt out of the entire regulation if you want to, so no retail sales, no cultivation facilities and no product manufacturers,” he said.

Council decided it would continue to monitor the implementation of the amendment during its Dec. 11, 2012, study session and will make a decision at a later date. The city has until July to determine how to regulate the sale of marijuana.

As co-chair of the task force’s consumer safety and social issues sub-committee, Sederberg said they recommend that all marijuana and marijuana edibles such as brownies and cookies sold in retail stores would have to leave the store in child-proof containers. Other consumer safety recommendations wouldn’t allow chemical additives such as nicotine in the product, wouldn’t allow marijuana to be mixed with alcohol and would determine which chemicals cannot be used in the production of marijuana. He said the task force also considers how to educate people about the use of marijuana and how to keep kids from using it.

The governor’s task force released its recommendations to lawmakers March 13. He said applications for retail marijuana stores will be accepted around Oct. 1 for local governments that decide to regulate marijuana, and that the first stores would open around Jan. 1 of next year.

Ron Kammerzell, senior director of the Colorado Department of Revenue Enforcement Business Group, was unable to attend the study session on Tuesday but will speak to council during its March 27 study session.