Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
There seems to be an element of the blind leading the blind in how state and local governments will regulate legalized recreational marijuana when the state starts issuing licenses to cannabis-based businesses on Sept. 1.
City and county governments in Roosevelt and Curry counties have expressed confusion, especially because they face a choice of passing local laws while the state is still rustling up its own regulations on or before Sept. 1, or being subject to state regulations if they don’t come up with alternatives by that date.
It’s confusing because state regulations would supersede local ordinances if there is conflict, anyway.
Both Clovis and Portales are thinking hard about where consumption of cannabis should be allowed.
Cannabis products are not known for smelling nice. Some varieties, as one Portales councilor noted, are called “skunkweed.”
Most of the thinking at the local level that I am aware of seeks to apply similar restrictions for marijuana as for alcohol, but also to make sure that what gets smoked in a marijuana consumption area stays there.
They are considering rules that would not allow marijuana consumption in a building close to another business or residential areas.
They also want to make sure that marijuana businesses stay the same distance from schools and daycare centers as alcohol establishments are, usually at least 300 feet.
Some of the state’s thinking is summarized on the state Regulation and Licensing Department’s website.
Local government, according to that website, will have “the power to limit the locations of marijuana business and their hours of operation under zoning ordinances, though current medical marijuana dispensaries will not have to relocate.”
Further, according to the website, there are some things local jurisdictions can adopt “and “some things they definitely can’t do.”
For example, a local jurisdiction can adopt rules to reasonably limit the density of cannabis licenses and the operating times of cannabis businesses in their community.
Examples: Local governments can prohibit access to a cannabis consumption area to anyone under 21 years of age and specify distances from schools or daycare centers.
But local jurisdictions cannot prevent anyone properly licensed from transporting cannabis on public roads; completely prohibit a licensee’s operation; prohibit or limit signage attached to or located on a cannabis business; require an existing cannabis licensee to move; or keep adult New Mexicans from growing their own marijuana.
That last prohibition may cause problems because some marijuana plants emit bad odors as they are growing, too.
Then the website refers readers to the state legislation that legalizes recreational marijuana, which Curry County Attorney Stephen Doerr described as 186 pages of rules and regulations in no particular order.
Well, I predict that in its early days, the legalized recreational marijuana industry in New Mexico will travel a rocky road.
But I hope the revenue it produces will help pull much of the state out of its current doldrums.
Steve Hansen writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: