Stoners Against Legalization II: Colorado Boogaloo
By "Radical" Russ Belville
Kathleen Chippi (top right): "(T)his will be (P)rop 19 all over again, and we will help kill it with smiles on our faces."
Remember all the fun we had in 2010 with the “Stoners Against Legalization”? These were a loose collection of starry-eyed idealists, anti-authority anarchists, and unscrupulous medical marijuana business owners who believed that keeping healthy people out of jail for using pot would end the gravy train they’re enjoying from their current medical marijuana laws. I dubbed them the “I Gots Mine” crowd and unleashed a torrent of blogging fury to call them out and expose them as the enemies of legalization they are.
Well, get ready for Round Two. An unprecedented coalition of pro-legalization groups, including Drug Policy Alliance, Marijuana Policy Project, Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation, Sensible Colorado, National NORML, Colorado NORML, and Mile High NORML, filed eight ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana in Colorado. From those eight they will see which pass muster from the Secretary of State’s office, which gets the best official ballot title, and which poll with the best chance of winning.
However, one group, Cannabis Therapy Institute (the folks that brought you Miguel Lopez making a scene at the Capitol that killed a patient-friendly amendment… and then blamed the legislator who submitted it!) is fuming mad that they weren’t given the chance to vet the language before submission. Here are some of the reasons why CTI thinks we should continue to lock up people who are too healthy to be a part of their marijuana club:
“Conservative cannabis group SAFER”? Wow, I’ll have to check with National Review, The Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, and The Christian Science Monitor so they can write articles on their conservative brethren. Oh, and FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, all those AM talkers on right-wing radio, they’re all big fans of SAFER and marijuana legalization.
So let’s get this straight: because a legalization initiative might limit you to purchase and possession of an ounce, instead of allowing you to buy as much as you want and possess as much as you want, you’d prefer that healthy Coloradoans continue to be arrested, jailed, and saddled with a lifetime criminal record? If your input is “We ought to be able to have all the marijuana we want!” and you seriously think that will pass in a state that rejected one ounce legalization by a 59% vote in 2006, I’m not surprised if you weren’t consulted.
News flash: Driving under the influence of marijuana is a crime in Colorado NOW. Here is the scary language in Section 6 of the initiatives CTI is scaremongering:
So… employers can continue to do to cannabis consumers what they do NOW, but at least those consumers won’t be arrested and jailed for cannabis use. And those consumers would have a better case to fight discrimination against cannabis use since it will be legal. CTI would prefer an initiative that forbids employer discrimination and without it, those healthy cannabis consumers should continue to be locked up. Despite the fact that Prop 19 had that kind of anti-discrimination language and it was cited as a major reason the business community opposed it.
So… the cops can still bust you under the DUID laws that exist NOW. Now read carefully, do you see any of that THC/DUI language CTI mentioned they killed? No? CTI would prefer an initiative that protects cannabis consumers from driving discrimination and without it, healthy cannabis consumers ought to still be locked up even when they’re not driving.
To their credit, at least CTI (to my knowledge) isn’t bellyaching about this paragraph. My personal preference would be an age of 18 but I’m politically wise enough to know that nothing under 21 has a shot in hell of passing.
So… your landlord, boss, etc. can still prevent you from possessing and using marijuana on their property like they can NOW. CTI would prefer an initiative that allows you to take your marijuana into any public space and without it, healthy cannabis consumers should still be locked up if caught with marijuana in their private spaces.
Back to CTI. Another of their complaints is that taxes would be collected on marijuana sales and would go to the big bad gub’mint!
Handcuffs for all those cannabis consumers who will not be arrested for buying, selling, and possessing one ounce of legal marijuana? So let’s be clear; CTI thinks if marijuana is legalized, no money should go toward the enforcement of those laws.
And let’s make one provision of the initiative perfectly clear: It specifically and directly does not affect Colorado’s medical marijuana laws:
So if you’re healthy, you get an ounce away from the home, three mature and three immature plants in the home and all the marijuana produced on the premises (a.k.a. “a shit-ton of marijuana”):
Beyond complaints with the language, CTI adjusts the tinfoil hat and offers explanations why this out-of-state cabal (whose Mason Tvert and Brian Vicente are Coloradoans) went ahead with legalization initiatives without the CTI’s blessing:
“These conservative groups” that WON their medical marijuana campaigns in 1997/98, you mean? That helped to WIN the medical marijuana law in Colorado? CTI keeps trying to paint this as some sort of “conservative” vs. “progressive” argument and in the very next sentence, shred any credibility one might have of their understanding of those ideological terms:
Yes, George Soros, the man demonized by conservatives from Glenn Beck to George Will as the liberal billionaire scourge trying to legalize drugs , is CTI’s conservative boogey man.
No, what this is really a “divide” between is the rational, educated, politically mature adults and the people who have their hearts in the right place but their brains in vapor-lock by thinking a majority of the voting public is ready to treat marijuana like tomatoes. In politics, you don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If there is an opportunity to prevent the arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of cannabis consumers and you are publicly opposing it, you are my enemy as much as the prohibitionists who will be voting along with you against reform.
The real fun Stoners Against Legalization tirades take place in the comments:
You read it right: she and her allies will kill legalization with a smile on their faces. That’s something you’d expect a drug czar or a narc to say, huh?
Yeah, you Nazi, enough with the personal attacks.
You keep using this word “fascist”. I do not think it means what you think it means.
By the way, it wasn’t Paul Armentano. Oddly enough, Paul has a little too much on his plate reviewing thousands of medical and scientific studies on cannabis to engage people who violate Godwin’s Law on WestWord comments sections.
Seriously, this is the level of political reason and basic logic the Stoners Against Legalization possess. If you make it legal to have six plants (and ALL the cannabis you harvest from them) and an ounce (outside the home), that’s not legalization because people with 30 grams and seven plants could be prosecuted. Which leads me to believe if it was twelve plants and a pound or a hundred plants and a pickup truck load, those wouldn’t be legalization either, because people above those limits could still be busted.
If marijuana can’t be grown by anyone, anywhere, bought and sold in farmer’s markets, available to children (kids can have tomatoes), and grown in unsecured backyard gardens, then adults over 21 who possess less than an ounce and grow six plants at home should continue to be arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated. (HCG, you need nobody’s help to look the fool.)
What all these detractors misunderstand is the word “legalization”. What they want is “deregulation” – they’re looking for no regulations, as in “treat it like tomatoes”. Sorry, folks, legalization requires regulation and marijuana is never going to be treated like tomatoes. For one, tomatoes do not get you high. Nobody is worried about their kids sneaking tomatoes from your garden. Nobody is concerned with how many tomatoes you’ve eaten before you drive a car. Nobody’s worried about people overeating tomatoes and how they may behave in public afterward.
By "Radical" Russ Belville
Kathleen Chippi (top right): "(T)his will be (P)rop 19 all over again, and we will help kill it with smiles on our faces."
Remember all the fun we had in 2010 with the “Stoners Against Legalization”? These were a loose collection of starry-eyed idealists, anti-authority anarchists, and unscrupulous medical marijuana business owners who believed that keeping healthy people out of jail for using pot would end the gravy train they’re enjoying from their current medical marijuana laws. I dubbed them the “I Gots Mine” crowd and unleashed a torrent of blogging fury to call them out and expose them as the enemies of legalization they are.
Well, get ready for Round Two. An unprecedented coalition of pro-legalization groups, including Drug Policy Alliance, Marijuana Policy Project, Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation, Sensible Colorado, National NORML, Colorado NORML, and Mile High NORML, filed eight ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana in Colorado. From those eight they will see which pass muster from the Secretary of State’s office, which gets the best official ballot title, and which poll with the best chance of winning.
However, one group, Cannabis Therapy Institute (the folks that brought you Miguel Lopez making a scene at the Capitol that killed a patient-friendly amendment… and then blamed the legislator who submitted it!) is fuming mad that they weren’t given the chance to vet the language before submission. Here are some of the reasons why CTI thinks we should continue to lock up people who are too healthy to be a part of their marijuana club:
“Conservative cannabis group SAFER”? Wow, I’ll have to check with National Review, The Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, and The Christian Science Monitor so they can write articles on their conservative brethren. Oh, and FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, all those AM talkers on right-wing radio, they’re all big fans of SAFER and marijuana legalization.
So let’s get this straight: because a legalization initiative might limit you to purchase and possession of an ounce, instead of allowing you to buy as much as you want and possess as much as you want, you’d prefer that healthy Coloradoans continue to be arrested, jailed, and saddled with a lifetime criminal record? If your input is “We ought to be able to have all the marijuana we want!” and you seriously think that will pass in a state that rejected one ounce legalization by a 59% vote in 2006, I’m not surprised if you weren’t consulted.
News flash: Driving under the influence of marijuana is a crime in Colorado NOW. Here is the scary language in Section 6 of the initiatives CTI is scaremongering:
So… employers can continue to do to cannabis consumers what they do NOW, but at least those consumers won’t be arrested and jailed for cannabis use. And those consumers would have a better case to fight discrimination against cannabis use since it will be legal. CTI would prefer an initiative that forbids employer discrimination and without it, those healthy cannabis consumers should continue to be locked up. Despite the fact that Prop 19 had that kind of anti-discrimination language and it was cited as a major reason the business community opposed it.
So… the cops can still bust you under the DUID laws that exist NOW. Now read carefully, do you see any of that THC/DUI language CTI mentioned they killed? No? CTI would prefer an initiative that protects cannabis consumers from driving discrimination and without it, healthy cannabis consumers ought to still be locked up even when they’re not driving.
To their credit, at least CTI (to my knowledge) isn’t bellyaching about this paragraph. My personal preference would be an age of 18 but I’m politically wise enough to know that nothing under 21 has a shot in hell of passing.
So… your landlord, boss, etc. can still prevent you from possessing and using marijuana on their property like they can NOW. CTI would prefer an initiative that allows you to take your marijuana into any public space and without it, healthy cannabis consumers should still be locked up if caught with marijuana in their private spaces.
Back to CTI. Another of their complaints is that taxes would be collected on marijuana sales and would go to the big bad gub’mint!
Handcuffs for all those cannabis consumers who will not be arrested for buying, selling, and possessing one ounce of legal marijuana? So let’s be clear; CTI thinks if marijuana is legalized, no money should go toward the enforcement of those laws.
And let’s make one provision of the initiative perfectly clear: It specifically and directly does not affect Colorado’s medical marijuana laws:
So if you’re healthy, you get an ounce away from the home, three mature and three immature plants in the home and all the marijuana produced on the premises (a.k.a. “a shit-ton of marijuana”):
And if you’re sick or disabled you can still get your card and have your three plus three plants, two ounces away from the home, and the new legalization allowance of all the processed marijuana at your grow site, and you still have an affirmative defense for more. But because some of the taxes might buy handcuffs, according to CTI, the healthy people should be arrested and locked up for even one plant.
Beyond complaints with the language, CTI adjusts the tinfoil hat and offers explanations why this out-of-state cabal (whose Mason Tvert and Brian Vicente are Coloradoans) went ahead with legalization initiatives without the CTI’s blessing:
“These conservative groups” that WON their medical marijuana campaigns in 1997/98, you mean? That helped to WIN the medical marijuana law in Colorado? CTI keeps trying to paint this as some sort of “conservative” vs. “progressive” argument and in the very next sentence, shred any credibility one might have of their understanding of those ideological terms:
Yes, George Soros, the man demonized by conservatives from Glenn Beck to George Will as the liberal billionaire scourge trying to legalize drugs , is CTI’s conservative boogey man.
No, what this is really a “divide” between is the rational, educated, politically mature adults and the people who have their hearts in the right place but their brains in vapor-lock by thinking a majority of the voting public is ready to treat marijuana like tomatoes. In politics, you don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If there is an opportunity to prevent the arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of cannabis consumers and you are publicly opposing it, you are my enemy as much as the prohibitionists who will be voting along with you against reform.
The real fun Stoners Against Legalization tirades take place in the comments:
You read it right: she and her allies will kill legalization with a smile on their faces. That’s something you’d expect a drug czar or a narc to say, huh?
.
Yeah, you Nazi, enough with the personal attacks.
You keep using this word “fascist”. I do not think it means what you think it means.
By the way, it wasn’t Paul Armentano. Oddly enough, Paul has a little too much on his plate reviewing thousands of medical and scientific studies on cannabis to engage people who violate Godwin’s Law on WestWord comments sections.
Seriously, this is the level of political reason and basic logic the Stoners Against Legalization possess. If you make it legal to have six plants (and ALL the cannabis you harvest from them) and an ounce (outside the home), that’s not legalization because people with 30 grams and seven plants could be prosecuted. Which leads me to believe if it was twelve plants and a pound or a hundred plants and a pickup truck load, those wouldn’t be legalization either, because people above those limits could still be busted.
If marijuana can’t be grown by anyone, anywhere, bought and sold in farmer’s markets, available to children (kids can have tomatoes), and grown in unsecured backyard gardens, then adults over 21 who possess less than an ounce and grow six plants at home should continue to be arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated. (HCG, you need nobody’s help to look the fool.)
What all these detractors misunderstand is the word “legalization”. What they want is “deregulation” – they’re looking for no regulations, as in “treat it like tomatoes”. Sorry, folks, legalization requires regulation and marijuana is never going to be treated like tomatoes. For one, tomatoes do not get you high. Nobody is worried about their kids sneaking tomatoes from your garden. Nobody is concerned with how many tomatoes you’ve eaten before you drive a car. Nobody’s worried about people overeating tomatoes and how they may behave in public afterward.
