Tourists in Colorado may soon be able to buy as much marijuana as the state’s residents, according to The Denver Post.
The change would come from an advancing piece of legislature that seeks to repeal restrictions first established in 2013, which were designed to combat the illegal, out-of-state trafficking of legally-purchased cannabis. The original law allows any adult 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of cannabis, but limits dispensaries to selling only a quarter of an ounce per day to someone without a Colorado-issued ID.
However, regulators are now saying that retail cannabis is not the main problem causing marijuana diversion in Colorado. Rather, it is more likely that underground growers are taking advantage of the state’s loosened prohibition to grow and distribute black market cannabis across state lines. The Marijuana Enforcement Division has not cited a single dispensary for breaking the quarter-ounce rule.
New possession limits for cannabis concentrates and edibles are now likely to even further complicate the rules, and the industry is lobbying to drop the quarter-ounce restriction on tourist sales for simplicity’s sake. “We’d have to hire math professors to work in the dispensaries,” said Mark Slaugh, head of the Colorado Cannabis Business Alliance.