State lawmakers on the House Finance Committee will consider two bills Monday aimed at cracking down on Colorado’s “gray” marijuana market.

This is the term for plants grown under legal pretenses that wind up on the black market – which happens because the state has overly generous home-grow limits.

Voters legalized medical marijuana and, later, recreational marijuana, in part on the promise that the measures would stem the illegal drug trade. But loopholes have made the state attractive to criminals.

Colorado law allows up to 99 marijuana plants to be grown on residential property for medical use and places no hard limits on recreational-use home grows. As a result, the state is witnessing increasing numbers of large-scale growing operations by criminal enterprises involving hundreds of plants.

Read more at The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.