Colorado legal term
Dispense in Colorado Criminal Law
Current through 2026 Colorado legislative session
In Colorado criminal law, “Dispense” is a term defined by statute rather than by its everyday meaning. Its statutory definition — quoted verbatim below — controls how the term is applied throughout the Colorado criminal code.
What does “Dispense” mean in Colorado criminal law?
"Dispense" means to deliver a controlled substance to an ultimate user, patient, or research subject by or pursuant to the lawful order of a practitioner, including the prescribing, administering, packaging, labeling, or compounding necessary to prepare the substance for that delivery. (C.R.S. § 18-18-102)
Statutes defining or using this term
Charges using this term
- Offenses relating to marijuana and marijuana concentrate
- Offenses relating to natural medicine and natural medicine product
- Unlawful distribution, manufacturing, dispensing, or sale
- Furnishing cigarettes, tobacco products, or nicotine products to persons under twenty-one years of age
- Furnishing kratom products to persons under twenty-one years of age
- Tampering or drugging of livestock
- Unlawful distribution, manufacturing, dispensing, sale, or cultivation of synthetic cannabinoids or salvia divinorum
- Unlawful distribution or purchase of dextromethorphan
- Unlawful use of a controlled substance
Related terms in the same statutes
This reference is informational and is not legal advice.