Medical Pot Goes Up in Smoke in Delaware, Fort Collins

Medical marijuana has taken some big hits, with Delaware backing off plans to allow it and Fort Collins, Colorado, outlawing it.

Image: iStockphoto

As The Dude would say: “Bummer, man. This is a bummer.”

Medical-marijuana entrepreneurs are under siege from Delaware to Fort Collins, Colorado, as tough federal drug-enforcement talk and fed-up locals drive officials to back away from allowing cannabis for use in treating patients.

Though his state is one of several that has decriminalized marijuana for use in treating such ailments as chemotherapy-related nausea and glaucoma, Delaware Governor Jack Markell, under pressure from a federal official, has suspended regulation-writing to put the state law into effect.

Markell suspended his state’s decriminalization efforts after receiving a letter from U.S. Attorney Charles Oberly III, who took a hard line, pointing out disparities between Delaware’s plans and federal law.

According to Delaware Online, Oberly wrote:

"[G]rowing, distributing, and possessing marijuana, in any capacity, other than as part of a federally authorized research program, is a violation of federal law regardless of state laws permitting such activities. Moreover, those who engage in financial transactions involving the proceeds of such activities may also be in violation of federal money-laundering statutes."

In Fort Collins, instead of a Rocky Mountain High, Tuesday marks a Valentine's Day downer for that college town’s medical-marijuana dispensaries and patients.

Fort Collins is joining a growing list of 80 communities in Colorado—where medical marijuana is legal by state law—to shut down local dispensaries through local ordinances. In Fort Collins, voters approved the shutdowns.

Tuesday is the last day to legally sell pot in the hometown of Colorado State University, and police have been inspecting the city’s 20 dispensaries to make sure that owners have either unloaded their stashes or are ready to turn over any remainders to law enforcement for destruction.

So far, Fort Collins Police Sergeant Jim Byrne told local public radio station KUNC, the marijuana-shop shutdown has gone smoothly.

Of course, that’s just good business. The entrepreneurs who run those shops don’t want to run into problems with Fort Collins authorities and jeopardize their chances of getting a license elsewhere in Colorado.