News » Big Brother Coming to Colorado Medical Marijuana

September 29, 2010 by Aaron Turpen

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Colorado’s regulators are looking to install a seed to smoke tracking system to monitor medical marijuana in the state.  Ostensibly, they say this is to keep drug dealers from obtaining medical marijuana cards, buying large quantities from dispensaries, and selling it elsewhere.  Nevermind the economics of such an enterprise or the costs the state will bear to implement their Big Brother scheme.

What’s worse, Colorado sees this as a “model” that other states could follow for their own legalized marijuana tracking.  Under Proposition 19 in California, this would be perfectly legal, by the way.

Other ideas that lawmakers and regulators in Colorado are floating include biometric tracking of patients to ensure they are not “gaming the system” to get more pot.  Things like fingerprint scans connected to both patient ID cards and required for purchase at the register and using radio frequency (RFID) tags in marijuana containers itself have been suggested.  Even capturing patient’s driver’s licenses or ID cards on camera before any purchase is on the table.

The senior director for medical marijuana enforcement in Colorado, Matt Cook, likens the measures to what you’d experience at the horse or dog track or at pharmacies.  His idea is contradicted by the fact that you don’t have to give fingerprint ID or do anything more than show picture ID (no photographs or other tracking) in order to fill a prescription at most pharmacies in Colorado.

Of course, all of this is “for public confidence.”

The question is.. which public and confidence in what?

Worse yet, the tracking would not require the approval of duly elected lawmakers, but could be implemented at Cook’s whim.  Public hearings are planned on the issue in January and medical marijuana advocates and patients in Colorado are planning to fight it.

[source Associated Press]

Tags: big brother, Colorado, medical, tracking