Pubdate: Thu, 18 Oct 2012
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2012 Boulder Weekly
Contact:  http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Paul Danish

THE POST SUPPORTS MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION - BEFORE OPPOSING IT

The Denver Post ran an odd editorial on Oct. 15 in which it averred 
its support for marijuana legalization, but opposed the passage of 
Amendment 64, which would legalize marijuana in Colorado.

Legalization should be done by the feds, not the states, the paper argues.

In a perfect world, the proper way to end the war on marijuana would 
be for Congress to end it. But this isn't a perfect world, and it is 
especially imperfect insofar as the war on marijuana is concerned.

"It's long past time for the federal government - both Congress and 
the executive branch - to move toward a less punitive and more 
realistic approach toward marijuana," the Post asserted.

True enough - and the paper should have started its analysis by 
asking the obvious question that follows from that assertion: Why haven't they?

Most members of Congress have known for decades that the war on 
marijuana was a multi-billion-dollar-a-year failure, that it was 
doing enormous violence to Americans' civil liberties and to the 
respect for law generally, that it was infusing the twin poisons of 
tyranny and distrust throughout our national life, that it was 
fueling criminal enterprises as large as anything prohibition 
produced. They have also known that smoking pot is no more harmful 
than drinking beer, and that arresting nearly a million Americans a 
year on marijuana offenses was and is a monstrous injustice.

As for the executive branch, President Obama smoked pot like a 
chimney as a teenager, and it obviously didn't keep him from 
succeeding later in life, either by killing his ambition or making 
him stupid. He knows from first-hand experience that the most 
dangerous aspect of marijuana use is the risk of getting caught.

So why haven't the feds acted? No mystery there. When voting for 
president or members of Congress, most Americans don't take a 
candidate's views on marijuana into consideration. To most voters, 
the issue isn't as important as national security, or jobs and the 
economy, or taxes and spending, or health care, or education, or the 
environment, or a host of other issues.

So most candidates for federal office duck the issue and go with the 
status quo ante; they take another snort of prohibitionist moonshine 
and ignore the ugly realities of pot prohibition behind the curtain.

When it comes to marijuana reform, both the president and most 
members of Congress are like alcoholics in denial, and they will 
continue to be until the American people do an intervention.

Which is one of the things that passage of Amendment 64 will do. 
Legalizing marijuana on the state level will send a brusque message 
to Congress that the time has come for it to act. More important, it 
would tacitly give Congress permission to act.

The Post seems to find this disconcerting, but state and local action 
before federal action is hardly unprecedented on social issues. And 
state action ahead of Congressional action is particularly 
appropriate in the case of marijuana law, since the states do most of 
the enforcing (about two-thirds) and pay most of the cost of enforcement.

The feds - both the executive branch and Congress - have made it 
abundantly clear that they won't lead on marijuana reform, a point 
the Post essentially concedes. There is no reason for the states to 
defer to them. To do so would be like waiting for Godot (spoiler 
alert: he was a no show).

The Post also frets that if Colorado "becomes an island with legal 
marijuana" by passing Amendment 64, it would attract marijuana 
tourism from other states. Well yes, but this would not necessarily 
be a bad thing - either for Colorado or the tourists. For many years 
the state of Nevada was a gambling island. It did wonders for the 
state's economy and provided millions of Americans from other states 
with safe, honest places to gamble.

The Post claims that there would be no way to stop out-of-staters 
from coming to Colorado to stock up on pot to take home with them. 
Perhaps not, but why stop them? If they were buying legal marijuana 
from licensed distributors in Colorado, they wouldn't be buying 
marijuana from drug cartels like the Zetas. That's a big plus for 
everyone except the Zetas.

Moreover, chances are that if Coloradans pass Amendment 64, Colorado 
will not remain a marijuana island for long. Polling shows American 
public opinion is shifting in favor of marijuana legalization, and 
it's widely assumed that if Colorado (or Washington or Oregon, which 
also have legalization measures on the ballot this year) votes to 
legalize, others will swiftly follow.

The Post also objects to the fact that Amendment 64 is an amendment 
to the state constitution instead of an initiated law that the 
legislature could modify and perfect. The reason for that, of course, 
is that the Colorado legislature has more than once gutted 
citizen-passed laws in the name of perfecting them. That's why there 
is a lot of stuff in the Colorado Constitution that in a perfect 
world wouldn't be there.

The Post thinks fears that the legislature would do such a thing with 
Amendment 64 are unfounded, and that the sponsors of the Amendment 
are being overly paranoid.

That's an astonishing assertion on the Post's part, considering that 
not 30 days ago the Legislative Council, a standing committee of the 
legislature, censored the pro-Amendment 64 section of the voter guide 
that the state sends out to two million Colorado households by 
removing three of the supporters' strongest arguments.

Putting Amendment 64 in the Constitution instead of enabling hostile 
politicians to mess with it isn't being paranoid. It's being prudent.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom