CO Voters legalize Ounce or Less

Rink · Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:54 pm Post subject: CO Voters legalize Ounce or Less

I am surprised nobody else has posted any information on this,
and if they did, and I missed it I apologize.

OK of pot issue gives new meaning to Mile High City

By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News
November 2, 2005

Marijuana advocates scored a breathtaking victory in the Mile High City as Denver voters legalized adult possession of small amounts of marijuana.

"I think it just goes to show that people in Denver were fed up with a law that prohibited adults from making a rational, safer decision regarding what they put into their bodies," said Mason Tvert, the 23-year- old Denver man who spearheaded the Initiative 100 campaign.

While other big cities, such at Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have passed laws making adult pot use a low police priority, supporters said passage of I-100 would make Denver the first major city to legalize adult pot possession of 1 ounce or less.

Denver officials maintain amending local law changes nothing, because the vast majority of marijuana possession busts will continue to be prosecuted under state law.

"It's still illegal in the city of Denver, because Denver's in Colorado," Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said.

Mayor John Hickenlooper, who opposed the measure because he says marijuana is a "gateway drug," chalked the victory up to "a generational thing."

"People's attitudes toward marijuana; they're clearly changing," he said. "If that election had been 20 years ago, it would have been a very different outcome."

Yet, Hickenlooper stressed: "The bottom line is, it doesn't change state law. I think it's more symbolic than anything else."

The marijuana debate was anything but mellow.

Critics accused the I-100 supporters of masking their pro-pot agenda by plastering the city with "Make Denver SAFER" signs omitting the word marijuana, exploiting residents' fear of rising crime rates and publicized calls for more police.

I-100 forces kept hitting the Alcohol-Marijuana Equalization Initiative's theme: Adults should have the right to legally choose marijuana, because it's a safer alternative to booze. The ballot supporters turned the tables on the drug war, attacking alcohol for fueling violent crime, deadly car wrecks, collegiate binge- drinking and liver disease.

The strategy was intensely watched by national marijuana advocates weighing a Nevada ballot initiative next year to tax and regulate pot like alcohol.

"A Denver victory clearly means that the drive to end marijuana prohibition has become a mainstream issue," said Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. "For a city of Denver's size in a red state to endorse something like this is really quite remarkable."

Rink · Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:54 pm Post subject:

Denver Votes to End Marijuana Prohibition

City is Largest U.S. Jurisdiction to Endorse End to Ban on Marijuana

DENVER, COLORADO—In a vote expected to reverberate nationwide, Denver today became the second major U.S. city in less than a year to pass a measure aimed at replacing marijuana prohibition with policies designed to treat marijuana in a manner comparable to alcohol, passing I-100 by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent, with 83 percent of precincts reporting. A similar measure won by a wide margin in Oakland, California, in November 2004.

I-100 makes possession of less than one ounce of marijuana non-punishable under Denver city ordinances. The I-100 campaign, organized by Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), built its effort around the large volume of scientific evidence indicating that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol, America's most commonly used recreational drug. The initiative's language puts the city on record in support of treating private, adult use and possession of marijuana "in the same manner as the private use and possession of alcohol.

"A few years from now, this vote may well be seen as the proverbial 'tipping point,' the beginning of the end of marijuana prohibition in the U.S.," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. "Replacing the failed policy of prohibition with common-sense taxation and regulation of marijuana has become a thoroughly mainstream issue, with the voters of two major U.S. cities endorsing such an approach within one year. Even the Denver Post, which opposed I-100, said in its editorial, 'We think it probably would be preferable for the state and federal governments to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana use.'

"Last year, there were more than three-quarters of a million marijuana arrests, an all-time record," Kampia added. "That's equivalent to arresting every man, woman, and child in the state of Wyoming plus every man, woman, and child in St. Paul, Minnesota. The public understands that this simply makes no sense. Regulating marijuana will take money out of the pockets of criminals and free police to go after violent crime, and the voters of Denver took their first step in that direction today."

Rink · Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:57 pm Post subject:

I am sure everyone will be able to see the tremendous effect this will have. Opposition is strong, and it is still a battle we have yet to win, but I feel this is a huge start in the right direction.

What do you think?

**Ferre** · Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2005 6:29 pm Post subject:

It was posted before, but it don't hurt to be posted again. Smile

http://www.thc-ministry.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5676
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