Just when the state was making headway in tightening lax marijuana regulations to protect Colorado’s kids – a new bill in the legislature would kick the door wide open to more abuse.

Senate Bill 23-081 would roll back safeguards enacted by the legislature only two years ago to prevent high-potency medical marijuana from falling into the hands of minors. This grossly irresponsible measure is scheduled for its first committee hearing Thursday at the State Capitol.

Lawmakers would do the state, and especially its kids, a great service by rejecting SB 81 and leaving the current law’s protections in place.

Approved by voters in 2000, medical marijuana was touted as a form of alternative medicine that could minister to people in pain. But watchdog groups say it turned out to be a major conduit for kids using pot recreationally.

It allowed 18-to-21-year olds to obtain marijuana legally, in theory for medical use. Recreational retail pot, legalized in 2012, limited purchases to adults 21 and older. The medical-marijuana law thus allowed a loophole for those under 21 to obtain pot legally on the pretext of using it for health-related reasons.

That, in turn, opened the door to, say, an 18-year-old reselling a bulk buy of pot to teen friends who were even younger. Rachel O’Bryan, a co-founder of the children’s-advocacy group One Chance to Grow Up, says medical marijuana “was a pipeline to our high schools and fed underage use of high-potency marijuana products.”

A broad coalition of children’s-advocacy groups persuaded the legislature in 2021 to clamp down. Bipartisan reforms signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis included key provisions strictly limiting the amount of pot concentrates medical marijuana patients under 21 could purchase, and requiring physicians who write the “recommendations” needed for medical marijuana to include some of the same basic details that would be required for any other drug. That means directions for use and maximum allowable potency of THC, pot’s psychoactive ingredient.

The law had a significant impact. According to a statement released this week by One Chance to Grow Up, the number of medical marijuana patients between the ages of 18-20 decreased by 56%.

Now, the lawmakers behind SB 81 want to scrap that progress.

Among other provisions, the legislation would quadruple the amount of high-potency medical pot concentrate that 18-to-21-year-olds could purchase – from two grams to eight grams a day. It would raise the amount of medical pot concentrate those 21 or over could buy from eight grams a day to 40 grams – five times higher.

Incredibly, the bill also would erase some of 2021’s standards for doctors to recommend medical pot. Physicians no longer would have to include on their recommendations – essentially, prescriptions – their U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration number; the maximum allowable THC potency for the patient; the daily amount of medical marijuana the patient is authorized to have; directions for use, and the specific marijuana product being recommended.

In other words, the same information required by law on any other prescription no longer would govern medical marijuana in Colorado.

SB 81 is patently reckless and only can be interpreted as a giveaway to the cynical marijuana industry, which wants to push more product.

We cannot fathom what prompted state Sens. Kevin Van Winkle, R-Highlands Ranch, and Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Longmont, to introduce the bill in the Senate, or state Reps. Matt Soper, R-Delta, and Marc Snyder, D-Manitou Springs, to agree to carry it in the House.

This is one for the governor’s must-veto list, assuming it gets that far.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board