1) Affirmative defense may be denied to patients with unlisted conditions/symptoms.
The AMR initiative will allow a patient to make an affirmative defense if tried for possession or cultivation of amounts over the limits delineated in the Constitutional amendment.  However, this only applies to patients with “debilitating medical conditions” as defined in the AMR amendment.

If this really is the hallmark of the initiative, then why not open it up to patients of all kinds, and not just those with the select few conditions/symptoms listed in the initiative?

Why not let the jury decide if the asthma/depression/mild pain sufferer really needed marijuana as medicine?  Why bar these people from making an affirmative defense?

In addition to not specifically allowing an affirmative defense for the unlisted conditions/symptoms, the AMR initiative may actually preclude the use of an affirmative defense by these people under current Colorado law.

The AMR amendment will make Colorado law worse by denying certain patients a defense that is currently available to them now.

2) Possession limits may lead to felony charges for patients and to the re-criminalization of marijuana for non-medical use.

Currently, possession of one to eight ounces is a misdemeanor in Colorado.  The AMR initiative sets a two-ounce limit for medical patients.  This sends the message that “anything over two ounces is dangerous.”  What is to prevent the state legislature from changing possession of over two ounces to a felony for patients?  What is to prevent the state legislature from changing the current misdemeanor status of 1 to 8 ounces to a felony charge, in light of the fact that “only two ounces is a safe amount”?

Absolutely nothing in the AMR initiative prevents the legislature from doing this.  Worse, the AMR initiative sends the message that this would be the right thing to do.

3) May be unconstitutional.
Under the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, every citizen is required to have equal protection of laws.  The AMR initiative gives some medical cannabis users protection of the law, but denies it to others.

This, of course, could have been avoided if AMR trusted physicians to decide who could benefit from medical marijuana.