A bipartisan bill focused on the increasing potency of Colorado’s cannabis products gets its first committee hearing on Tuesday. The bill has raised numerous controversies already, leading sponsors to promise multiple changes at its first hearing.

Current law limits edible cannabis products to 10 milligrams of THC per serving. The proposal would add the same restriction to cannabis that’s smoked or vaped. And it would create a new labeling system to help consumers understand the potency of what they’re buying. 

Initially — and most controversially — SB25-076 also looked to cap the potency level and amount of cannabis someone 25 or younger could buy. Sponsors have said that the provision, which gained the most pushback online and from stakeholders, will be removed.

Senators Judy Amabile, a Democrat, and Byron Pelton, a Republican, are the main sponsors, along with Democratic state Rep. Kyle Brown. 

“There’s been a big reaction to the bill, and I just want to say we’ve been responsive to that and we have made some major adjustments to the policy and put forward a much smaller policy,” Amabile told CPR News. “And the negative attacks have been, I think, misguided.” 

Pelton did not respond to CPR News’ request for comment.

Hart Van Denburg/CPR News

The bill has caught pushback in online spaces like Reddit, where users are calling it too restrictive and likening the proposed age restriction to Prohibition. 

Lawmakers said they added the age restriction due to health concerns, particularly having to do with brain development in early adulthood and what high-potency cannabis products may do to impede that development. According to the CDC, cannabis can impact brain development and its “effects on attention, memory, and learning may last a long time or even be permanent, but more research is needed to fully understand these effects.”

Since Colorado legalized marijuana, the average THC potency of cannabis flower has increased — meaning the amount of the psychoactive substance found in the plant product. Producers have also developed products like wax, vapes and edibles with higher concentrations of THC. According to the National Health Institute, from 1990 to 2015 there was a 212 percent increase in the average THC potency of cannabis flower.

Another part of the bill aims to restrict natural medicine license holders — such as psilocybin licenses — from distributing, manufacturing or transferring any infused candy products, including gummies and chocolates. Proponents say those products tend to be more attractive to kids. However, advocates for psilocybin therapy told the Denver Post that it would be unfair to treat mushroom products like cannabis, noting that Colorado doesn’t allow retail sales, so the risk of more palatable products making their way to unauthorized consumers is less.

Public health concerns or Prohibition?

Sen. Amabile says she and Sen. Pelton were inspired to craft the bill after hearing concerns from parents and schools about the effects of highly potent marijuana on young adults and teens. 

“These parents just want to make sure that we’re doing the best we can in terms of smart regulations,” Amabile said. “I will say I have no interest in making anything illegal or going back to prohibition. I just want us to move forward in a careful way.”

Hart Van Denburg/CPR News

Additionally, she said the proposal was inspired by personal experience. Amabile told CPR News that one of her children developed psychosis and Schizoaffective disorder after “early and persistent” marijuana use. 

“There’s a large group of families that have been affected in this way or similar ways; other families whose person had cannabinoid hyperemesis, which is when you develop an allergy to marijuana and it causes you to be violently ill,” Amabile said. “We’ve made a lot of progress on that in the last few years. The ERs are now aware. So, this is just another step along the way to make sure that we’re regulating this industry in a smart way — not dissimilar to how we regulate tobacco products and oil and gas and things like that.”

But Jon Spadafora, the founder and CEO of Flower Union Brands, a new gummy cannabis edible brand, said legislation like this continues to peddle a “brutal stigma” for marijuana. 

“None of us are trying to create something that appeals to a child,” Spadafora said. “There was a time when that was happening. One of the very first products on the market in Colorado was cannabis to spray on top of gummies, all kinds of different candy that you would find in the grocery store. That’s gone. It should be gone.” 

According to Spadafora, the proposed age restrictions would cause harm to the industry by shutting off a large portion of its customer base.

“Between the childproof packaging, the challenge of purchasing them, the purchase limits associated with them, I don’t think that edibles getting into kids’ hands is nearly as big of a concern as looking at the amount of jobs that would be lost and companies that would close,” he warned.

Hart Van Denburg/CPR News

Sponsors appear to have listened to those concerns. Amabile says they’re removing the age restriction in response to pushback. 

“The bill has been heavily amended in response to stakeholder input,” she said. “We did take out the section of the bill that said you had to be 25 to buy high-potency products. It had a big fiscal impact because it turns out they’re selling almost all of that high-potency product to young people, 21 to 25. It was a big revenue reduction for the state.”

The bill’s new labeling system 

Under the bill, producers would be required to use a new labeling system with colored strips to indicate potency, and dispensaries would have to post signs explaining the meaning of the colors. In edibles, THC concentration is generally listed in milligrams per serving. In flower or inhaled substances, it’s listed by percentage.

Packaging color strips will indicate the THC potency a marijuana product

Inhaled marijuana products will also be required to include more information on their labels:

• The amount of THC per serving
• The amount of THC per package
• The number of servings per package
• Directions for consumption of a serving

Spadafora says if the new standards for labeling create more transparency, then he can’t see it being an issue for the industry. But he isn’t so confident about its impact. 

“I’m all for communication to the customer. I think it’s a really important thing to do,” he said. ”But as I look at those numbers, I don’t really think there’s a tremendous amount of information the average consumer is going to gain from it.” 

The THC symbol is already required to be on the casing of marijuana products and concentration is on most product labels as a percentage or in milligrams.

“At the end of the day, I think that the cannabis community deserves to be treated like alcohol,” Spadafora said. “Whether you’re concerned about keeping regulated items out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them or if you want to make sure that the items that are in regulated channels are safe and the taxes are paid on them, we already have a system.” 

“The fact that we aren’t leaning more heavily towards (an alcohol regulation style) is, I think, a travesty,” he said. “And if we really want to fix this product, that’s the pathway.”

The bill goes in front of the Business, Labor and Technology Senate Committee on Tuesday.