COLORADO CITY, COLO. -- Detectives from the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office Narcotics Unit busted a possible illegal marijuana growing operation in Colorado City.
Detectives received numerous calls from residents who expressed concerns about marijuana growing near a property in the 4000 block of West Colorado Boulevard.
As detectives began to investigate they found the renter of the property had marijuana documentation, but it was expired.
Authorities received a search warrant on Sunday and found 66 plants along with seven pounds of dried marijuana.
"If you have three people with marijuana certificates with no extended plant counts, you're looking at 18 plants total, which half have to be in flowering stage, half in vegetation stage, which means a smaller plant. So when you're looking at 68 plants, 10 pounds of already grown marijuana dried, clones being started, that's a lot of marijuana for three people," Sgt. John Pannunzio with the narcotics unit of the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office said.
Sheriff Kirk Taylor said that the amount of marijuana found does not appear to be for medicinal purposes.
Pannunzio said they investigate those growing medical marijuana often.
"If you want to grow medical marijuana and you want to do it legitimately and you have your paperwork and you have your certificates in order, we investigate those cases every month and those that are legit there's no issue," he said.
But even those growing medical marijuana legally aren't completely safe.
"Yeah you're allowed to grow medical marijuana in Pueblo County and the state of Colorado, but it is still against federal law. It is still a Schedule 1, that's sometimes hard to deal with. I don't know what we're saying there allowing it, when it's still against federal law," Pannunzio said.
Pannunzio said under Amendment 20 growers with a medical marijuana certificate are allowed to have six plants, three which must be in a vegetation state and three in a flowering stage and up to two ounces of dried marijuana. Still he said he believes it is a dangerous drug, even when prescribed for medicinal purposes.
"I can assure that the cocaine users, the meth users, the heroine uses will all tell you they started smoking marijuana. It is an addictive drug. It will harm you," he said.
No arrests have been made at this time, but Pannunzio said they will be pursuing several felony charges.
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