Colorado tourists might be taking their Rocky Mountain vacations to all new “highs” if a new bill gets passed. The bill would get rid of the state’s limits on how much weed tourists can buy.
Under current laws in Colorado all adults older than 21 can have up to an ounce of marijuana at any time. But dispensaries are only allowed to sell a quarter of an ounce per day to people who don’t have a Colorado ID.
The limit on how much out of staters can buy in a day was put in place in 2013. It was originally created to prevent people from leaving the state with marijuana.
But now all that could change. If the current proposal passes, Colorado tourists will be able to buy as much cannabis as a regular Colorado resident.
The proposal has already passed the state House and is now waiting to be approved by the Senate. A spokesperson for Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper said that the governor hadn’t yet looked at the bill.
Ever since Colorado legalized recreational cannabis there have been worries that people would take marijuana out of Colorado and sell it in places where it’s illegal.
Nebraska and Oklahoma actually tried to sue Colorado for this very reason. The states claimed that too many people were leaving Colorado with cannabis. They said it was making it hard for them to enforce their own cannabis laws.
But in late March the Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit. Many saw the decision as an important one for the cannabis legalization movement.
Despite the claims of states like Nebraska and Oklahoma, it looks like people taking weed out of Colorado isn’t as big a problem as people feared.
“We don’t want people taking it out of state, Colorado Senator Cheri Jahn said. “What we found was that’s really not happening.”
This is a big reason why lawmakers are now proposing that Colorado remove its limit on how much cannabis out of state tourists can buy.
Marijuana dispensary owners have said that keeping track of limits like these adds extra complications to their businesses. They also said that removing those limits could make the day to day operations of their shops a lot easier to manage.
