Colorado’s auditor recently released a performance audit that revealed the state is not meeting its goals in marijuana enforcement.

The report from the Office of the State Auditor states that the Marijuana Enforcement Division “could improve its processes for prioritizing retail marijuana store inspections, taking enforcement action when investigations identify evidence that marijuana laws and rules may have been violated, and procuring its seed-to-sale marijuana inventory tracking system.”

According to the report, the division responsible for making sure marijuana is not sold to children or threatening public safety is not doing its job up to par.

Cannabis inspection failures

The division’s policy states that it will strive to inspect all marijuana retailers within one year of licensure, but according to the report, 40 out of 112 newly licensed marijuana retailers, or 36%, were not inspected within one year of the retailer’s license approval between 2019 and 2022.

Additionally, the Marijuana Enforcement Division did not inspect some businesses that met risk factors during that same period of time.

On a list of 567 licensed marijuana retailers that had not been inspected in the last 2 years, the enforcement division did not inspect 182. Of those uninspected retailers, 75 had never been inspected, according to the auditor’s report.