Starting next year, Colorado will become the second U.S. state after California to open retail stores selling recreational marijuana and edible marijuana products to customers over 21 years of age.
According to the Denver Post, Colorado state officials released over 60 pages of extremely detailed rules yesterday that pertain to how the sale of marijuana and edibles will be licensed and regulated.
Recreational marijuana has been fully legal in Colorado since last year, but retail stores (not medical dispensaries) are not set to open until January of 2014.
The rules set by the Colorado Legislature and Department of Revenue state that buyers must have a government-issued photo ID to prove their age. Perishable edibles must have an expiration or use-by date on the label.
These labels must also list the amount of marijuana in the product and carry warnings such as, “There may be health risks associated with the consumption of this product” and “Keep out of the reach of children.”
All products will include the license number of the producer that makes them and will be sold in child-proof packages.
Keep in mind that these rules are merely placeholders that Colorado officials will probably have rewritten by 2014. These regulations were released in accordance with a deadline set by Amendment 64, the measure approved last November that legalized marijuana retail stores to people 21 and over.
These parameters will expire in late October, and state officials have already announced that they are in the process of developing more in-depth rules, mostly dealing with inventory control.
“Our work is not done and we will continue to move forward and provide our state with a well-regulated industry that maintains a clear focus on public safety,” Barbara Brohl, executive director of the Colorado Department of Revenue, said in a statement.
The new regulations will most likely include more scrupulous and organized guidelines for keeping inventory known as “seed-to-sale” tracking, along with other rules designed to keep retail marijuana from entering the black market.
Via: Denver Post, Photo Courtesy: Tumblr
