With a picture of Bob Marley, the patron saint of ganja, behind him, a straight-laced attorney from Eagle County on Wednesday advised hundreds of county commissioners they’d be better off zoning than banning marijuana dispensaries.That’s the best option if they don’t want to get stoned by lawsuits.Playing off the lyrics of a popular Marley song, “Let’s Get Together and Feel Alright,” attorney Bryan Treu said, “Let’s get together and zone consistently, and we’ll be all right.”Treu was a speaker on the final day of a three-day conference of Colorado Counties Inc. at the Crowne Plaza in Colorado Springs. During a session on medical marijuana, he told the county commissioners the dispensaries are legal.“You can’t regulate the operations, but you can regulate the locations,” he said.Zoning regulations, which can be patterned after rules governing the location of liquor stores and adult businesses, also have to be carefully developed so that they are not unduly restrictive or unconstitutional, he added.Counties could require medical marijuana dispensaries to obtain conditional use permits, determine how far away from schools and churches they have to be, and regulate the hours, the appearance of the buildings and the concentration of dispensaries in particular areas.Above all, Treu warned commissioners to stay out of debates about the pros or cons of medical marijuana.The state has been overwhelmed in recent months with requests for patient identification cards certifying that the pot is being used for a legitimate medical purpose, said Ann Hause, director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Legal and Regulatory Affairs Office.Five years ago, the department had only a couple of thousand applications. But the number skyrocketed to nearly 24,000 this year. “We are buried in paperwork,” she said, adding that the department is processing 500 pieces of mail, 200 phone calls and 100 e-mails, as well as about 40 walk-in customers a day.The Department of Health and Environment issues the identification cards that medical marijuana users carry with them. Applicants have to include documentation from a physician showing they have a legitimate medical need and identify their caregivers. If applicants don’t receive their card within 35 days, they are automatically enrolled in the program, she said.Coloradans voted to legalize medical marijuana in 2000. Under the law, patients and their primary caregivers may collectively possess two ounces of marijuana in usable form and six plants, only three of which may be mature.Hause said the number of applications increased tremendously after the U.S. Justice Department said it no longer would be prosecuting users in states that have legalized medical marijuana. Another factor was a decision by the state Board of Health to define a caregiver as anyone who supplies a patient with marijuana. The agency, she added, has no authority to regulate the dispensaries.That has raised concerns and confusion among local officials and law enforcement authorities about how to deal with the proliferation of dispensaries serving the growing number of patients and the criminals that target them.

At the Pikes Peak Historical Street Railway Foundation, Kurt Timerman worked on restoring Car No. 59 in January. The trolley car was used in Colorado Springs between 1901 and 1932. It is being restored with a grant from the Colorado State Historical Fund. Photo by The Gazette file, Jerilee Bennett