14 new Colorado laws went into effect as of 2022 that involve a wide range of topics, from marijuana purchasing to driving rights for the poor to legal recourse for victims of child sex abuse.
Starting tomorrow in the state, a driver’s license suspension will no longer be allowed for people who have outstanding court debt. There are people whose driving rights were taken away not for dangerous traffic offenses, but because they owe a court money for something unrelated to driving.
Purchases of marijuana will be limited to two ounces of flower and eight grams of concentrate for medical marijuana patients. The previous daily concentrate purchase limit for medical patients was 40 grams. The law was largely advocated for by parents who claimed their children had suffered from abuse of high-potency concentrated marijuana products.
People who were sexually abused in Colorado when they were children can, as of tomorrow, sue the institutions that hid the abuse or did nothing to stop it. The new law removes the statute of limitations for child sex abuse lawsuits. Previously, survivors had only six years after they turned 18 to sue their abusers.
A new law also taking effect tomorrow is meant to cut down on so-called restrictive housing in jails. That’s another term for solitary confinement, which many critics claim is torture. The law will limit the number of people placed in solitary confinement in Colorado jails, but the law is nothing close to the outright ban many reform minded advocates sought.
And, let’s say you’ve just subscribed to an online service—a paid dating app or Hulu, say—for a free trial or for a cheap limited time deal. You forgot about the auto-renewal provision, and you are alarmed to find you’re paying $10 or $20 per month for something you never meant to commit to in that way. Colorado lawmakers created a new law they hope will make it easier for people to avoid that scenario.
The minimum wage is Colorado rose with the arrival of the new year. The new Colorado minimum wage is $12.56 per hour.
