Two Colorado lawmakers today introduced a bill to develop a technology to identify legally grown marijuana plants.
Senator Leroy Garcia and Representative Dan Pabón are the authors of the SB 18-029 project that asks the Cannabis Research Institute of the Colorado State University to develop the technology to “mark” legal marijuana.
The proposal, now analyzed by the Business, Labor and Technology Committee of the local Senate, calls for an “agent” to be applied to marijuana plants, which must remain and be detectable in the products created from them, be they human consumption or industrial use.
That agent, the text adds, could be some type of isotope that would be applied to the water used to water the marijuana plants.
Although the technology to apply chemical agents to plants can already be found in the market, what has not yet been developed is a hand-held scanner that allows detecting their presence in them and their by-products.
In order to cover the cost of the development of this technology and its use by police agents, part of the funds for the sale of recreational marijuana will be allocated to the local security forces.
“The scanner, at a minimum, will indicate whether marijuana or hemp was cultivated, manufactured or sold by a licensed marijuana business or by a registered hemp grower,” García said when presenting his initiative.
Police officers in several Colorado counties have complained in recent months about the growing presence of illegal marijuana crops and that they do not have enough resources to adequately respond to that situation.
In fact, police from El Paso County (100 kilometers south of Denver) conducted three operations today that resulted in 175 illegally cultivated marijuana plants.
The local governor, John Hickenlooper, has expressed his support for the project, considering it an extension of the seed analysis system he already uses in this state to determine the origin of the plants seized in the unregulated market.
