The Denver Fire Department issued 58 permits for warehouses to grow marijuana in non-licensed facilities last year – marijuana not to be sold in dispensaries. This marijuana was to be grown primarily by caregivers for consumption by medical users, or for the growers’ personal use.
With the permits, the department was acknowledging state law, approved by voters through a constitutional amendment in 2000, which gave caregivers the right grow six plants for five patients and six for themselves, or 36 plants.
But when the Denver City Council dropped the hammer on the permitted warehouses on March 23, it was because the city’s fire department presented evidence that the process had gotten far out of hand.