Colorado Leads was at the table during this year’s legislative session, collaborating with policymakers and stakeholders to help create a bill with responsible regulations and balanced public policy.

HB-1317, floated by a Democratic state lawmaker, was originally a broad and far-reaching bill. It included provisions to ban any form of legal marijuana, recreational or medical, that tested over 15% on THC potency. Politics surrounding the bill made outright opposition difficult, if not impossible, so Leads seized the opportunity to influence changes to the bill that would not jeopardize the continued existence of the cannabis industry.

Leads organized and led strategy sessions with lobbyists, stakeholders, and patient advocates to fight the bill in the Legislature and in the court of public opinion. Leads and other industry leaders proactively recommended limits to how much marijuana product 18- to 20-year-olds with medical marijuana cards can purchase daily and proposed using the already-in-place statewide tracking system to determine when individuals reach their daily legal limit.  Leads also engaged in a proactive communications strategy through reaching out to patients, parents, veterans, law enforcement, and cannabis leaders for news stories, letters to the editors, op-eds, and TV interviews.

These careful and thoughtful recommendations were adopted by the sponsors of HB-1317 and are perhaps the most critical provisions in the legislation that passed in the General Assembly