John Suthers

DENVER– A House Judiciary Committee hearing on a bill that seeks to regulate the burgeoning number of Colorado medical marijuana dispensaries Thursday featured strong praise and strong critiques of the proposed law from inside and outside the Old Senate Chamber here. The hearing amounted to a formal exploration of the state’s path-breaking pot industry, where existing law and the intent of voters were weighed in light of frank descriptions of how businesses are actually operating on the ground.

The two controversial high-profile medical marijuana bills introduced this session keep being pushed down into the works of the legislative process. A bill seeking to regulate dispensaries hasn’t made it out of committee and a Senate bill seeking to define doctor-patient relationships introduced the first week of the session has only reached a second reading [...]

What seemed an interminable Denver City Council meeting last night ended as expected: the council established new rules regulating marijuana clinics. Since the fall, when the Obama Justice Department declared it would not seek to prosecute participants in legal marijuana operations, pot pharmacies (farmacies?) have been popping up across the city, leading even some clinic [...]

State Sen. Al White (R-Hayden) has scrapped plans for a bill this session that would have set up a state medical marijuana growing and distribution monopoly to keep drug cartels out of Colorado. It also would have required prescriptions to be filled out by licensed pharmacists.
White Monday told the Colorado Independent that Colorado Attorney General [...]

In an oddly rational television conversation on politics, the Independence Institute’s Jon Caldara hosted state Sen. John Morse and Attorney General John Suthers in an exploration of sentencing reform this weekend on the Institute talk show Independent Thinking. The last segment touched on drugs. Here suddenly you had three men, a libertarian, a Democrat and [...]

Six weeks after an investigation by The Colorado Independent found repeated violations of the Colorado Open Meetings Law by the Independent Ethics Commission, the panel charged with enforcing ethical standards among public officials across the state has taken dramatic steps toward greater transparency and disclosure.

Dozens of chief legal officers from around the country meet this week in Colorado Springs to discuss state legal issues at the National Association of Attorneys General’s summer meeting. Amid scenic tours and an authentic Wild West show at a nearby dude ranch, the attorneys general plan to consider questions about U.S.-Mexico border problems, sharing DNA databases, attacking Ponzi Schemes and dealing with the federal Communications Decency Act.

An Arapahoe County jury decided Monday that Robert Keith Ray will be sentenced to die for arranging the 2005 killing of a witness to another murder committed by Ray a year earlier, the Aurora Sentinel reports.

Attorney General John Suthers told Colorado residents to be on the lookout for door-to-door scammers selling subscriptions to the “new” Rocky Mountain News, a Denver newspaper that ceased publication in February. According to a warning issued Friday by Suthers and AARP Elder Watch, salesmen have been selling the bogus subscriptions in Colorado Springs, telling victims they can only accept cash.

Colorado Independent readers, your citizen journalism moment has arrived.

Rocky Mountain PBS talk show host Aaron Harber is requesting questions for his two-part series on the future of the Colorado Republican Party. But hurry, your deadline is 10 a.m. Monday.