A bill to protect children from consuming medical marijuana edibles moved out of the House Finance Committee today and is on its way to the House floor. HB 1250 exited committee with only one ‘no’ vote coming from Rep. Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, who said the bill had little real impact but that in the end parents should take responsibility for their children.
“I think it is important–since we have opened a whole new industry with this medical marijuana–that our kids and communities are safe,” bill sponsor Rep. Cindy Acree, R-Aurora, told the Colorado Independent.
The bill, originally designed to make medical marijuana edibles illegal in the state, was amended, through the suggestions of medical marijuana lobbyists, to put in place safeguards against children consuming what Acree sees as a medical, and potentially dangerous, product.
“We don’t want to deprive anyone’s rights to its use for medicinal purposes, but if it is going to be medicine it needs to be treated as a medicine and properly packaged and labeled and warned.”
As amended the bill now would require brownies, suckers and other similar marijuana products be packaged in childproof containers with medicine-like labeling.
“I just don’t think this bill is necessary. I think that the Department has the ability to promulgate rules; they have been in that process; they have stakeholders at the table to do this,” Duran said. “I am not in favor of children getting access to medical marijuana but a lot of these issues really come down to parental responsibility.”
Acree, however, felt her bill would help guide the rule making process to ensure that children were unable to access the drug.
She pointed to a number of cases where children, thinking the product was candy, got in to their parents’ stash.
The bill will now be heard for debate on the floor of the House.
