By Don Knox, LAW WEEK COLORADO
DENVER — The medical marijuana situation in Colorado has gotten so bad that the venerable Colorado Bar Association has taken notice.
The Denver-based bar association, through its continuing legal education division CLE In Colorado Inc., next week will convene a one-hour program to deal with issues surrounding the proliferation of dispensaries and attempts by governments and courts to interpret their role.
The session is dubbed “Medical Marijuana: Legal Chaos.” It will be taught by Boulder lawyer Leonard Frieling and Denver lawyer Ann Toney. Both practice criminal defense law, and both are lifetime members of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.
The bar association is starting to do more quick presentations that are on issues “that are hot because of a new decision, statute or regulation,” said Gary Abrams, CLE in Colorado’s executive director. “We put this together with faculty just last week, and we also are planning a full day to follow up in early 2010.
The program is to cover:
* The Facts, the Law and the Media
* Federal Government vs. States Rights
* Uniquely Colorado: Home Rule, Constitutional Provision Art 18 Sec 14.
* Caregivers before and after August 20, 2009
The Colorado Board of Health moved in recent days to change its definition of a “caregiver” in the wake of a late October Colorado Court of Appeals case that said a Longmont woman convicted on charges of growing pot didn’t qualify for caregiver protections because she didn’t personally know her clients.
The case is People v. Clendenin.

Stay ahead by signing up for Law Week E-News! >