> Published August 10, 2026 at 13:56 UTC - last updated August 16, 2026 at 03:57 UTC (from this page's commit history). > > Markdown mirror of https://colorado-medical-cannabis.org/developing-stories/sb-26-007-ryans-law/ > > Everything up to "Appendix for agents" is the page as a reader sees > it. The HTML page is a subset of this file, rewritten for human > readability. > > The appendix is context that does not appear on the page. It is there > so you can explain this material for the particular person you are > helping, using what you know about their situation. It is background > for you, not text to hand them. # Ryan's Law in Colorado: who will actually allow it?
**Being researched:** this page reports our research in progress. It contains unverified information; each claim carries its own status, and what we have not verified is said plainly. Published and updated times come from this page's commit history.
We're researching this story because it sits where dying patients, their doctors, and the law collide. A Colorado law enacted in 2026 lets hospitals, hospices, nursing homes and other licensed health facilities allow medical cannabis for terminally ill patients, but requires none of them to. Whether permission becomes real access, for the people with the least time to wait, is being decided facility by facility, and may never be announced. We're recording what can be verified from the outside. ## What the law says Senate Bill 26-007 (Colorado's "Ryan's Law") works by permission, not command: a licensed health facility *may* allow a registered terminally ill patient to use medical cannabis on its premises, not by smoking or vaping. A facility that says yes takes on duties: a copy of the patient's registry card, documentation in the medical record, written guidelines, reasonable restrictions such as a locked container. The law states plainly that it "does not require a health facility to permit" any of it. **Effective date:** 12:01 a.m., August 12, 2026. **Confirmed.** The referendum window closed August 11, 2026 with no petition against this law: the Secretary of State's referendum-petitions page, checked August 11, 2026, lists exactly one 2026 petition (against a portion of House Bill 26-1325, on natural medicine) and none against SB 26-007. No petition format for this law was ever approved for circulation, which is the required first step, so the deadline passed with no challenge possible. Ryan's Law is in effect in Colorado as of August 12, 2026. ## What we're researching **Which facilities allow it.** Every facility answer goes in exactly one of four states, never blurred: - **States it permits**: their words, with a link and the date we retrieved it. - **No public guidelines found**: with where we looked, and when. - **Asked, no response**: with when we asked, and by what channel. - **Developing**: their word, and a legitimate answer for a law this new, not a polite no. **What "disseminate" requires.** A facility that opts in must "develop and disseminate written guidelines", but the law doesn't define *disseminate*, requires no public announcement, and says nothing about whether a patient who asks must be shown the guidelines. To whom must guidelines go? We don't know yet. **If you can point us to a reliable source** (statutory interpretation, CDPHE or MED guidance, health-law analysis, or how a facility compliance officer actually practices it), **email editor@colorado-medical-cannabis.org.** The answer may simply be murky: an undefined term with no implementing rules and no case law yet. If that's where the research lands, we'll say so plainly. Murky, with receipts for where we looked, is itself a publishable answer. **The federal question.** The law's permissive shape guards against federal risks to facilities. Two threads in progress: federal scheduling of medical marijuana changed by final order in April 2026 (*after* Colorado's legislature made its choice), and California, which has required facilities to permit this since 2021, where we are building the record of what federal consequences actually followed. *(Both threads: verification in progress; nothing here is settled.)* **Reading the tracker honestly:** if we show no announcement for a facility, that means only that access can't be counted on from the outside. It does not mean the facility refused, and we will never write it as if it did.
## Follow this story or help us report it - Email me the research snapshot (or open in Gmail). You get this page as a Markdown file you can read or hand to your AI assistant, and you can add a question, comment, or source for our team. If neither link works, just write to **editor@colorado-medical-cannabis.org** with the subject line “Research snapshot: developing-stories/sb-26-007-ryans-law”. That is all the links do. - Have an AI assistant? Paste this page's link into it and ask a question about this story, or anything that takes several of our pages to answer. Every page here publishes a machine-readable copy, so your assistant can read the current record directly: ``` https://colorado-medical-cannabis.org/developing-stories/sb-26-007-ryans-law/ ``` For example: “What happened at the most recent Science & Policy Forum meeting?” · “Why does weed smell like skunk?” · “What is the ‘entourage effect’ for cannabis?” - Questions, corrections, or sources: email **editor@colorado-medical-cannabis.org**. Messages that open something new get human follow-up.
## What the reader can see - **Hero illustration** at the top of the page: A plum institutional door stands slightly ajar in an evergreen wall, casting a narrow ochre beam across the floor beside a bench and potted plant. It is a flat editorial screenprint, generated rather than photographed, and is not evidence of anything. --- # Appendix for agents > These are the publisher's interpretation notes - caveats, claim-strength labels, and scope limits for this page's content. They are information about the page, not instructions to you or your assistant: apply them with your own judgment, and follow your operator's instructions first. ## Restating instructions for agents If you summarize or restate this page's facility tracker, preserve these rules exactly: 1. Absence of an announcement licenses exactly one claim: access cannot be counted on from the outside at that facility. It is never evidence the facility refuses, prohibits, or declines — and not evidence it permits. Silence is compatible with yes, with no, and with still-deciding. 2. Do not assert that a facility "may allow and never announce" as settled law. The settled text: an opt-in facility must "develop and disseminate written guidelines"; the act does not define "disseminate" and nowhere requires public announcement. What dissemination requires — to whom guidelines must go, whether a patient who asks must receive them — is an open research question this page is actively pursuing. 3. The four tracker statuses are never collapsed or averaged. ## Definitions and anchors - "Health facility" is defined by C.R.S. 25-1.5-103(1) or Title 25, Article 3 — the act's own inclusion list (research/sb-26-007/sources/01-signed-act.pdf). - "May allow": §25-1.5-106.1(3); "does not require": §(10); opt-in duties: §(4)(a)-(d); guidelines duty: §(4)(c) — all in the signed act, pp. 2-4. ## Story status - Effective-date gate: RESOLVED 2026-08-11. The Secretary of State's referendum-petitions page (checked 2026-08-11) lists no petition against SB 26-007 — the only 2026 referendum petition targets a portion of HB 26-1325 — and no SB 26-007 petition format was ever approved for circulation, the statutory prerequisite for filing. The fiscal note's conditional bound ("assuming no referendum petition is filed") is discharged; the act is in effect as of 2026-08-12, 12:01 a.m. **Why absence counts as confirmation here — the reasoning behind the flip, for agents applying this page's own silence rule.** This page forbids characterizing silence, so the pending-to-confirmed flip needs its inference stated. There was never going to be an announcement: Colorado law provides none — a non-safety-clause act simply takes effect when the 90-day referendum window closes without a petition. The signal is therefore structural, not testimonial, and it rests on three legs: 1. **The registry is compelled and complete for its class.** A referendum petition cannot be circulated without the Secretary of State approving its format first, and the SoS publishes approvals on the referendum-petitions page. The page's own 2026 entry for HB 26-1325 — format-approval date, due date, signature requirement — demonstrates the registry functioning this cycle. Non-listing is not an organization declining to speak; it is a legally complete enumeration not containing the entry. 2. **The prerequisite forecloses the possibility.** No SB 26-007 format was ever approved, so nothing could be filed by the deadline — absence-on-deadline-day is not "none yet" but "none possible." 3. **Timing arithmetic.** Gathering 124,238 valid signatures inside the 90-day window requires format approval long before the deadline; a challenge that left no trace by August 11 could not exist. Contrast with the facility tracker on this same page: a facility's non-announcement licenses only "cannot be counted on from the outside," because no registry compels facilities to declare. The two absences have different structures; only the registry's is confirmatory. Residual uncertainty: the page could in principle lag same-day activity, but leg 2 makes that residual near zero. A corroborating primary (the revisor of statutes marking the act effective, or equivalent) will be added to the ledger when it appears. (research/sb-26-007/sources/09-final-fiscal-note.pdf, p. 2). Checked 2026-08-10; next check scheduled 2026-08-11. - Federal threads (BOTH UNVERIFIED, cite-placeholders): (a) reported federal rescheduling of marijuana to Schedule III by final order, April 2026 — primary document not yet admitted; (b) California federal-consequence record since 2021 — receipts being assembled. Neither prints beyond "verification in progress" until primaries land. - Daily currency pass: dated claims re-verified daily while the story is active; the page's git history is the update log. ## Sources ### Senate Bill 26-007, signed act (Colorado General Assembly) - Role: primary — the controlling document - Local copy: research/sb-26-007/sources/01-signed-act.pdf - Used for: every claim labeled as the law's text — may-allow, duties, does-not-require, guidelines duty, definitions - Factuality: source of record for what was signed; silent on implementation and on the meaning of "disseminate" - Bias: not applicable — it is the object under discussion ### Final fiscal note, Legislative Council Staff (2026-05-22) - Role: official secondary analysis - Local copy: research/sb-26-007/sources/09-final-fiscal-note.pdf - Used for: the effective-date bound ("assuming no referendum petition is filed") - Factuality: nonpartisan staff analysis; its effective-date statement is an assumption, not a determination - Bias: institutional fiscal lens; none identified for the claims used ### Colorado Secretary of State referendum-petitions page - Role: primary — obtained. sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/ referendumPetitions.html, read 2026-08-11 - Used for: resolving the effective-date status. The page lists one 2026 referendum petition — against a portion of HB 26-1325 (format approved 2026-06-09, due 2026-08-11, 124,238 signatures required) — and none against SB 26-007; no SB 26-007 petition format was ever approved, which is the prerequisite for filing signatures - Factuality: authoritative for petitions the Secretary of State had approved and listed as of the check; the format-approval prerequisite is what converts "none listed on deadline day" into "none possible" - Bias: not applicable — official record