A marijuana tracking bill that drew the ire of the cannabis industry died almost as quickly as it appeared in the Colorado General Assembly on Thursday, May 3. Introduced by Senator Kent Lambert late in the legislative session on April 27, SB 279 would have required a tracking agent on all medical and retail marijuana plants and products in Colorado, but it was voted down unanimously by the Senate Finance Committee. However, committee members seemed open to a similar proposal in the future.
Marijuana industry reps and advocates for medical marijuana patients testified against the bill during its first reading on May 3, voicing concerns that unknown additives might be applied to marijuana and also noting that text in the bill could create a potential monopoly for one company to make a specific type of tracking system that has yet to be developed by Colorado State University-Pueblo's Institute of Cannabis Research.
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In February, the Senate Business, Labor, & Technology Committee voted down a similar bill introduced by Lambert. That proposal, SB 029, was also opposed by marijuana industry members, but it had three other sponsors: Senator Leroy Garcia and state representatives Dan Pabon and Yeulin Willett. Lambert, who says he wrote the bill to help track out-of-state marijuana diversion, couldn't get anyone to co-sponsor his second attempt, however, with Pabon indicating earlier this week that the language concerning the use of an additive in the proposed tracking technology would present challenges for the bill.
"The marijuana certification technology must include two components: an agent applied to marijuana plants or marijuana products and a device capable of scanning the agent. The agent must be applied to a marijuana plant or a marijuana product and then scanned by a device that at a minimum would indicate whether the medical or retail marijuana plant or medical marijuana-infused product or retail marijuana product was legally cultivated, manufactured, or sold. Any agents used as traceable identifiers must be safe for human consumption according to standards approved by the Department of Public Health and Environment," the bill reads.
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