An interesting story from the Colorado Independent’s Joseph Boven Friday, worth a mention:
A tense exchange Thursday sidetracked a House amendment that would end a proposed requirement that medical marijuana patients for tax purposes to present their ID cards to be videotaped during dispensary visits. An advocate for the amendment managed to so antagonize amendment sponsor Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, that Sonnenberg pitched the amendment in the trash…
“Apparently one of the lobbyists was making a backroom deal to get rid of one of the cameras (required in dispensaries). We were asking for transparency and they didn’t want to include us. So Rep. Sonnenberg turned around and ripped up [the amendment] in front of us, with really, not what I would say was appropriate candor for a state house official,” Lopez said.
…Lopez said he was videotaping the House meeting in the interest of transparency.
Lopez said that after Sonnenberg went into chambers, lobbyist Kara Miller came outside and started screaming at him. “She was saying that I F’d it up,” Lopez said.
Sonnenberg said that’s not the whole story. He said Lopez actually spit at Miller after she went to smooth things over with him. Sonnenberg also said Lopez was then escorted out of the Capitol.
What we’ve heard about this incident would appear to back up the account of Rep. Jerry Sonnenberg above. Now, Rep. Sonnenberg may or may not have been unduly testy with the marijuana activist videotaping him (which isn’t a crime, of course), but the bottom line is, if a legislator is in the process of trying to get your amendment passed, do not gratuitously antagonize a person who is, at that moment, your very best friend.
This wouldn’t be the first time that overzealous activists, or medical marijuana activists in particular, have made counterproductive idiots of themselves, and shot their own agenda squarely in the foot out of sheer pointless belligerence–needlessly alienating would-be supporters.
But we really do suggest that they work on this if they desire, you know, successful outcomes.
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Properly “cultivated” Sonnenberg would have supported them on privacy and probably on the clone issue as well.
would have had more sense than to go out of their way to tick off Sonnenberg. Why not just wear a sign that says I’m high and it’s impairing my judgement. Way to win support.
…based on the town council meetings I’ve attended.
I’d like to see him try making home videos after vaping a few bowls of mondo ganj.
should get extra points for degree of difficulty rather than being disqualified. It’s hardly a performance enhancer.
The skeptics and scoffers said — as skeptics and scoffers always say – that it “didn’t make sense,” and that “it just can’t be done.” But the fearless minds on the boards of the IOC and AIOWF looked at the possibilities, and undeterred asked, “Why not hold our next Winter games in Jamaica?” That’s the short version of how we got here tonight — on this chilled and blustery 82-degree February evening here on the edge of Jamaica’s Montego Bay.
Hi, I’m Lester Holt, and I’m delighted to join you folks sitting at home here on this evening full of expectation along with the lovely and talented Ms. Tina Fey, star of NBC’s blockbuster hit 30-Rock (“Hi there everyone”), and four-time 1980 Olympic individual gold medalist, Dr. Eric Heiden (“Thanks Lester, it was actually five”) — where later tonight at the Bob Marley Half-pipe Arena we are hoping to witness the never-before-seen. For what was once completely unthinkable even one or two years ago we may get to see happen tonight . . . a momentous occasion that, if it does occur, will change the way we view this sport forever — the first ever-attempted half-pipe program by an American boarder involving the nearly perfect, yet unimaginable, cannabis-degree-of-difficulty of 4.20. You may be high at home right now, but you heard me correctly folks, I said — four-point-two-zero.
But, before this happens tonight, we would like to take you on our continuing cultural series — this time a little tour of beautiful Kingston, the capital of this marvelous Caribbean nation — to sample some of the local fare with our very own Hannah Storm who is standing by along with Rainn Wilson, — but, you probably know him as that wacky Dwight Schrute guy from the NBC hit series, The Office. So, if you’re ready, Hannah what do you have in store for us tonight? . . . Hannah?”
For example, Chris Romer’s piss-poor attitude after he acted like an MMJ advocate briefly when it was advantageous to him.
Lopez probably was behaving badly, and I don’t doubt for a minute that most of the MMJ folks are their own worst enemies, with the exception of the people from ADAPT and CCDC (both organizations with advocacy experience for disability issues in general). But they could be excused for having a sincere interest in greater transparency. When the legislators start acting secretive, they’re usually cutting a deal to hand down another “fuck you” to the MMJ industry and their patients.
For the record, though I’ve said this here before: I think weed is disgusting and I’ll never touch it myself, nor have I ever. But after seeing what MMJ did to relieve a family member’s cancer pain in the last months of his life, when pharmaceutical painkillers had made him too ill to function and make final memories with his family, I will always support increased access to MMJ for anyone who feels it could help them. Marijuana is smelly and I can’t stand stoners, but good Lord does it ever do wonders for people with certain terminal illnesses.
is: I’ll take a pothead over a drunk, a tweaker and people I’ve known who’re hooked on prescription meds any day.
And so will any cop.
Stoners are mellow.
Pot is definitely the safest and mellowest intoxicant around. I’m a teetotaler myself. People have a right to their choices, but I don’t like to be around intoxicated people in any form–and don’t even get me started on drunk drivers.
be careful of making sweeping generalizations about people who are “addicted” to prescription pain meds. They can be life savers also. I wouldn’t be able to function without them, wouldn’t be able to be in school, and wouldn’t have a second chance at life.
When I am sitting in class and it feels like there is something attempting to drill itself out of my skull it’s not like I can just light up a joint. If my choice is between missing class and taking a percocet….the percocet wins every time.
Just sayin’.
will know how important and how big a step sitting in a classroom is for me. Go prescription drugs!
I was on constant painkillers for about 8 months while going through my cancer treatment. I can’t imagine how awful it would have been without it.
With that said, re-entering the real world was a bitch. All the normal aches & pains you have in life seem gigantic when you haven’t felt them for 8 months.
I’m fortunate to have very rarely suffered from anything that requires treatment with anything stronger than an ibuprofen (and you have to drag me kicking and screaming toward ibuprofen, too) but much respec’ for those who take steps to treat a condition that impairs their functioning.
It’s intoxication I have a problem with. Taking prescription drugs to focus or cope with pain is the opposite. It makes one more lucid to treat a genuine health condition, not less so. I used to work with the disability community and I’ve met some truly badass, wonderful people who carried a small pharmacy with them everywhere they went. Props to them, and to you. No props for the bored young adults of my generation who think Ritalin and Adderall are for fun times, as opposed to for people who need them to function. No props for people who abuse alcohol.
when someone is trying to do you a favor, you don’t get in their face.
Whether you’re for or against MMJ has nothing to do with the stupidity of this action.
I’m just saying that it’s prudent to recall that their suspicion is rooted at least in part in a history of these backroom deals screwing them over, and while I don’t really disagree with the way they were taught a lesson in dealing with legislators, the legislators can take a lesson from this, too. CO Dems used to have a reputation for being more transparent and trustworthy than the average politician. (Of course, that was partly because they at the time had no power to be untrustworthy with!)
I have yet to take a call where the caller tells me, “My husband just smoked a bowl and is beating me up!”. Still waiting for it though.
he was just following the Defense Denver coalition building handbook
…oh wait…
there’s the Betty Ford Center Alcohol Addiction ad. Cute.
I’m getting ads for the very battery I bought yesterday for my laptop.
Is the universe trying to tell me something? Honest I only have glass of wine in the evening, maybe two on a night out. As for pot, etc. that was all over decades ago.
anything you’ve googled over the last couple of days?
I mainly google political stuff.