New Rules for Colorado Cannabis Industry Include Patient Purchase Limits

Colorado will impose stricter cannabis purchase limits, require retailers to provide a concentrate information pamphlet to customers who purchase the products, and impose a ban on medical cannabis marketing to people under 21-years-old, under new industry rules announced last week, the Denver Post reports. The new regulations take effect January 1.

The policies limit daily purchases to two ounces of flower and eight grams of concentrate for medical cannabis patients, and the concentrate limit goes down to two grams per day for patients between 18- and 20-years-old. The previous daily concentrate purchase limit for patients was 40 grams, the report says.

Dispensaries must enforce the new limits by inputting patient ID numbers and are required to refuse sale to anyone who seeks to exceed the limit. The collected data must be kept confidential.

Patients are able to receive exemptions from the rule from their physician indicating a physical or geographic hardship. The patient must also designate a store as the primary place to get their medicine, the report says.

This pamphlet will include a small black dot which will display Colorado’s recommended serving size for concentrates and feature information on how to safely consume the products, along with a list of potential negative outcomes the state claims can result from the use of concentrate, including psychotic symptoms, “uncontrolled and repetitive vomiting,” and “physical and psychological dependence,” according to the Post report. The pamphlet will include numbers to hotlines for people experiencing any of the negative outcomes.

The marketing ban is a change from the previous rules on advertising to people under 18. The state will now consider it a violation if an ad appears in a form of media estimated to have at least 28.4% of its audience under the age of 21. In concentrate advertising, medical and recreational businesses must include language approved by the state warning of the overconsumption risks.

Gov. Jared Polis (D) in June signed into law a bill package that included purchase limits by the state’s medical cannabis patients. It also included language requiring patients under 21 to receive a diagnosis of a “debilitating or disabling medical condition” by two physicians from different medical practices, and in-person follow-up appointments every six months unless the patient is homebound.

A patient has filed a lawsuit over provisions in the bill that require physicians to prescribe medical cannabis, instead of recommending it, which runs afoul of federal law.