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December 08, 2010 07:09 PM UTC
101 Comments
Opponents of pot legalization will have to answer why it’s better for these folks to buy pot from drug cartels rather than the government.
Amendment 20 allows growers and dispensaries to have a lot of dope available for each patient – more than the stoners could smoke if they wanted to.
Excess ‘medical’ marijuana is being sold on Craigslist, on the market, to friends of card holders, and has been found in neighboring states.
You make the arguement that opponenets of legalization should answer something. Instead, since we haven’t legalized pot, nor the sale of it in this state, you should be asking the dispensaries and growers to answer why they’re able to break the law in the same vein as drug cartels.
First, I said this has taken a lot of pot out of the illicit market, meaning the market controlled by drug cartels. This is true.
If excess medical pot is being sold, at least it has come from licensed growers and is being sold by an informal network of entrepreneurs. This even further disrupts the drug cartel’s market. Trying to equate dispensaries and growers with the Mexican drug cartel is ridiculous. I don’t think Colorado dispensaries will take over our police and hijack citizens like what’s happening in Mexico. Get a grip.
I’m arguing that pot should be legalized, similar to alcohol. This would effectively put the dangerous drug cartels out of business.
Legalize pot, tax it about $50 an ounce, and earmark the money for higher education. And everyone making the obvious pun about “high” and “higher education” has to pay an extra $5 into the college fund!
“D’oh!” says Homer Simpson and Al Bundy.
The bastards!
Nobody is in prison for marijuana possession. It is a petty offense in Colorado with no prison or county jail sentence available.
Your other points are worthy of consideration but that cannard really should be put to rest. It gets repeated again and again with no basis in fact.
dealers still get locked up. And a lot of resources are still used to try to stop the drug trade.
if you have less than one ounce, and you go to court and pay your fine. If you have more than an ounce when you’re arrested, you can do time. If it’s between 1-8 ounces you can do up to 18 months. If it’s over 8 ounces, it’s a felony and you can go to prison for 1-3 years.
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Gro…
Bocomoderate is essentially right….
It’s about damn time, too! The decades of harsh marijuanna laws caused a lot of grief for a lot of families.
Psssss…ahhh. Have to go to work now.
I’ll keep trying
Maybe you meant Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, not Bill Ritter of Colorado, in terms of the politician who decriminalized marijuana:
http://articles.latimes.com/20…
Arnold, who famously smoked a joint in the documentary film “Pumping Iron,” recently told Jay Leno, “No one cares if you smoke a joint or not.” (He ought to know.)
http://www.trentonian.com/arti…
Also, former Republican Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico just admitted to using marijuana medicinally while he was in office:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chro…
That’s probably the most sweeping drug decrim bill to hit any state legislature in the nation — and it got passed.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_1…
You CAN go to prison for possession of over 8 oz (that’s a lot of pot), but that never happens. You can also go to prison for giving a false name to the cops, but just because you can doesn’t mean anyone does.
Awesome. I can hardly wait to share that with a couple of friends of mine that are sitting in jail right now for possession.
Possession and what else? Someone arrested for drunk driving, for example, and also charged with possession is not in jail for possession. They are in for drunk driving.
And someone arrested for possession, no matter what the amount, isn’t going to prison.
was unclear for you? Nothing else. Possession for over an ounce. Glad I could help clarify that for ya.
do you not understand? These people do not go to prison. Period. Ask your friendly neighborhood criminal defense lawyer. Please show me evidence otherwise.
Which, looping me back to my comment that started this whole thing, is why the argument about marijuana possession defendants clogging up the prison system is false.
Unless I’m reading MoTR incorrectly, she just told you that she knows people in jail NOW for possession of over an ounce. I doubt they’re awaiting trial, unable to raise bail. I’m going to guess that they’ve already been convicted, unless possession gets the same kind of bail rates as first degree murder.
Convicted on misdemeanor counts. 18 months jail time for possession of over one ounce.
But I can’t talk to dumbasses. I have zero tolerance for them these days so I just chose to skip replying to him.
But that’s not what you said:
There are indeed sentences available. Especially if it’s over 1 Oz. And yes, 8 Oz is a lot.
Even if happens very rarely its still a problem that its on the books. More so in that rare prosecution implies discrepancies in prosecution.
More problematic though is that because marijuana is still “illegal”, possession of such can lead to waiving other rights to search and eventual discovery of other things if police happen to see weed around.
Even if someone simply goes to court and pays a fine, that still ties up police and court resources. I, for one, would like to see those resources spent on more important things.
Finally, even if people don’t generally wind up in prison for weed in Colorado they still do in other states, so the argument has even more validity elsewhere.
my “Sam’s Club” purchasing program.
possession of more than a certain amount is a felony, seen as intent to sell. Sometimes they’ll catch a guy with a 100 kilos in his trunk but screw up the Miranda or something and thus plead it down to a lower possession charge. But the hypocrisy, and waste of law enforcement resources remains — if smoking pot is legal or at most a petty offense — why is it a felony to sell it? Twas the same in prohibition, it wasn’t illegal for citizens to possess alcohol, but it was illegal to sell it to them.
Hello?????????????????
where possession and use of of marijuana is legal for everyone, including tourists.
Interesting to note that each coffee shop that sells it must pay a licensing fee and buy from a local grower, which has raised millions of dollars in revenue for Holland.
Holland also has the lowest unemployment rate of any of the countries in the EU, hovering right at the norm of about 4.2%, while nearly every other EU nation has an unemployment rate at or above 9%.
You can purchase your pot in any coffee shop, smoke it at any shop licensed for such (even if you didn’t purchase it at same shop), you can take it home and smoke it in the privacy of your living room and there are set limits as to how much you can purchase per month.
I have a hard time understanding why we don’t do the same here.
Each dispensary pays a license fee.
Each dispensary is required to grow at least 60% of what they sell.
The rest of the pot they sell has to come from a Colorado-licensed grower.
Pot growers pay a license fee, too.
You can also get your pot from a care-giver, but they can only supply 5 patients. They cannot sell pot at a “profit” (can get reimbursed for their time, though).
Municipalities can regulate and license as they see fit.
we only allow it for medical patients. In the Netherlands, it is available to everyone.
“Medical patients” seems to cover a lot of ground here, esp. since the average “medical patient” is an 18-25 year old male with an unverifiable malady.
Actually, the average medical patient is a 40 yr old male with severe pain. I’ll admit that pain is a vague term, but can’t we call dispense with the 18-25 yr old rumor?
http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/h…
Some of the fun stats from CDPHE (as of May 31, 2010):
Statistics of the registry include:
92,915 new patient applications have been received to date since the registry began operating in June 2001. One two hundred twenty-five (225) applications have been denied, 68 cards have been revoked, 494 patients have died, and 3,228 cards have expired, bringing the total number of patients who currently possess valid Registry ID cards to 88,900.
Seventy-one percent of approved applicants are male.
The average age of all patients is 40. Currently twenty-four patients are minors (under the age of 18).
Fifty-eight percent of patients reside in the Denver-metro and area (Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas & Jefferson counties), with the remainder of patients found in counties throughout Colorado.
Patients on the Registry represent all the debilitating conditions covered under Amendment 20. Severe pain accounts for 94% of all reported conditions; muscle spasms account for the second-most reported condition at 25%. Note that percentages do not add up to 100 percent because some patients have more than one condition.
Very interesting.
But in the Netherlands, pot’s not “legal” due to international treaties. But it’s “tolerated” to the point where “coffeeshops” have been allowed to sell it to consumers.
The courts there have provided a tolerance policy specifically towards “soft drugs”. They keep the statues on the books mostly to remain in compliance with international treaties. Looks like Belgium is also leaning toward adopting the same policy.
Although people can’t legally buy and sell cannabis in Spain, its use is decriminalized and they can grow their own. Large personal crops in Spain.
…where Drug tourism is a serious problem. Germans and Belgian stoners go to Holland to get high, and when they can’t afford to pay coffee shop prices, they engage in petty theft and robbery to get the cash they need.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08…
We CAN stop pretending that all 112K of these users all suffer from MS, PTSD or glaucoma. And I know that the demand is not so great that we need to build 14 pot stores within an 8-block radius of my Highlands home…
I didn’t see anything in that NYT article about the drug tourists directly causing crimes by committing petty thefts to pay for pot. Can you point me to the part I’m not seeing, or link to another article to back up that claim? The NYT article had a quote from a former mayor of one of the border towns, and he said the biggest problem isn’t so much the tourists as the black market that their presence creates (marijuana is basically legal, but not cocaine or heroin.)
Here’s what I did see in the NYT article, and it’s something that is a problem in Colorado as well:
I’ve never heard of stoners mugging people to buy pot, and I’m sure that many of the dispensaries are legitimate businesses, but IMO organized crime is probably financing some of the 14 stores near your house and many of the stores in the state. That is cause for concern.
The best way to deal with the problem, as you alluded to, is to stop pretending that this is medicine for all 116,000 people. For a large number of them, it is no different than picking up a 12 pack at their neighborhood liquor store.
I got me a prescription for my malt liquor.
“Struggling to reduce traffic jams and a high crime rate, the city is pushing to make its legalized use of recreational drugs a Dutch-only policy, banning sales to foreigners who cross the border to indulge.”
But you are right – the article doesn’t go into depth on the point. It’s a hot-button issue in NL right now, but linking to Dutch newspapers won’t help anyone.
I don’t like linking to RawStory.com but here:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/201…
It’s a problem on the Eastern and Southern Borders of the Netherlands. In the west (Haarlem, Amsterdam, Leiden etc) it’s not.
As for the quote about a “high crime rate”, again it seems like most of the crime is being perpetrated not by the actual tourists themselves to procure more weed, but rather by organized crime that leads to the gangland murders that have resulted in the response by the Dutch government.
Kleine criminaliteit in verband met het drugstoerisme is een probleem voor de Nederlandse grens steden voor meer dan 10 jaar. Er is andere kranten in Nederland, met inbegrip van de liberale degenen, die voor een hardhandig optreden bellen op de verkoop van hasj en dope aan toeristen.
http://www.trouw.nl/nieuws/ned…
This is an article on the subject from 2005…this isn’t a new problem. Dutch border downs have almost 3x higher crime rates than the rest of the country, and it can be directly tranced to Drug Tourism…
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/…
But I still think your links and blockquotes are proving my point. Although the crime is basically being generated by their presence, the drug tourists are not actually perpetrating the crimes. Perhaps it’s splitting hairs, but this is the first I’ve heard of someone saying that casual stoners are violent criminals.
And you’re cherry-picking the info you want to believe and ignoring what’s being said. There’s a bolded sentence in the 2005 article that says it plain as day!
EVERY EXPERT IN HOLLAND, from law enforcement, city officials and citizens, says crime is worse in the Dutch Border towns than in the rest of the country. The crime is not being committed by the Citizens of Heerlen, Maastricht and Arnhem….the perps are the drug tourists.
Just because a few Polsters spent a few days vacationing on the West side of Holland doesn’t make them experts on the Netherlands National Drug Policy and Law Enforcement. I have a Dutch wife, and Dutch family I visit at least once a year. I’ve spent more time in the streets of Heerlen and Maastricht (both in and out of uniform) than most of you have spent in Europe.
All of my family who live in Arnhem and Enschede have had to deal with the petty theft that’s been a problem for more than 10 years since the EU opened the Dutch borders.
Don’t tell me something doesn’t exist when I’ve seen it firsthand….
And your points are valid. And so are mine. I guess that’s the rub here. You’re bogged down in a different conversation than the rest of us seem to be having. So…have at it.
…my point is that it seems that everyone else on this posting thinks that legalizing pot will cure cancer, produce rainbows every afternoon and buy everyone a pony.
There are significant problems with crime attached to the legal sale of pot, regardless of where it’s at. Pot dispensaries are already being robbed at gunpoint or burglarized at night. If you make Colorado or California a state with completely legal pot, then those states are going to have the same crime and traffic problems that the Netherlands has been dealing with for 10 years.
The only way to make it work would be to legalize it in all 50 states.
It’s every girl’s dream, you know. 🙂
I do think it needs to be legalized nationwide but that isn’t happening right now. In an odd way, I equate this with gay marriage–it may be up to the individual states to take the initiative and make it legal because if we wait for the feds to get to it, it will never happen.
and to reiterate my earlier point:
It may not be perfect but it’s a hell of a lot smarter and better than what we’re doing here.
I never pretended that I believed 100,000 users truly have medical needs and I’m not real sure most folks do. I’d say a good portion of those that have registered probably qualify and meet the requirements. Whether or not their need is legit or not is between them, the physician and their conscience because I really don’t give a fuck.
But the Dutch have also elected more right wing (and far right) politicians over the last few years. Analogous to our going from the Carter to the Reagan administration in terms of drugs, I imagine.
As the article also indicates, European legal drug policy is being headed up by a Frenchman from the most repressive nation in Europe when it comes to drugs: France.
Despite that, the article indicates that most Dutch still support the soft drugs policy.
you’re exactly right, Canines.
The Dutch have had enough of drug related violence and are cracking down…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
while I was there, particularly about restricting tourists being able to purchase pot. The other biggie was shutting down coffee houses that are within 200 yards (???–not sure if that’s the correct distance) of schools. There’s the most famous coffee shot in Holland and it’s located in Amsterdam. Been in business for over 30 some years and it’s located near a school. The Amsterdam mayor was talking about making an exception for it.
There are also a couple of cities that are completely dismantling all coffee shops, no exceptions. So it seems the Dutch, pragmatic as ever, are dealing with the situation, case by case and city by city.
Talk to any Dutchman and they think their system is working pretty damn well and at most, needs to be tweaked, which it probably does as do most policies dealing with this large of an issue.
And they’ve had time to test and refine their system.
Dispensaries and their ilk flooded this state in/around 2008 and became a big problem/issue the following year.
If the federal government would just declassify the damn drug, even down to a Schedule II drug, we wouldn’t need the complex regulation we have. I’m afraid CO is going to finally get to a point where product is tracked, quality is monitored and fraud is limited, then it will be declassified and all our efforts will be in vain.
This is all one big ginormous pain in the ass so that stoners have better access to their weed and patients, who had few access problems prior to monied dispensaries entering the fray, but are the true beneficiaries of Amend 20, get pushed aside with talk of legalization.
This is all new to us so it’s bound to be fraught with hiccups along the way. It’s going to take time to iron those out and make sure this works.
I do take issue with being labeled a stoner. I rarely drink, smoke pot maybe once a month, if I’m even inclined to do it that much.
I see far more problems in our society with those that can’t control their drinking yet it’s legal and I want it to be legal. As I also want marijuana to be legalized for a variety of reasons, including the reduction of crime from it being sold illegally.
Anything that makes you high, whether it’s alcohol, prescription drugs, illegal drugs or cigarettes has the potential to be abused by a portion of users if they cannot moderate their use.
We already tax alcohol and cigarettes, so tax marijuana, use the revenue to feed a stagnant economy and move on.
Not sure if you thought I called you a stoner, didn’t mean to infer that at all.
I really enjoyed the conversation with you yesterday. Thanks much for that.
the town I stayed in, Haarlem, has about 150,000 population, including outlying suburbs and has a total of 19 coffee shops, which seems an extremely reasonable amount for that size of a city.
Under Amendment 20, for 8 years, there wasn’t a complaint, a motion, a word filed with CDPHE about access issues, as far as I know.
This became a ‘problem’ in Colorado when the BOHS was heavily lobbied by dispensary interests, many from out of state, and they caved to the pressure.
Add in doctors who wrote hundreds and thousands of fraudulent recommendations at $75-$100 a pop.
Add in greater access for young people to smoke pot with higher THC than they’ve ever seen.
Yeah us.
116,000.
We rule.
Well now that’s none of your business now is it Car31? The relationship between a doctor and their patients is private and only between them.
Besides, your probably not a doctor so why should anyone listen to your opinions about what doctors should or should not be able to do for their patients? So butt out, stop your whining, and worry about yourself and your own family for a change.
It’s about time to stop the immature and highly expensive war on nature from all the ignorant lawmakers and law enforcement who think they know what’s best for other people.
For those of you interested, there is a worldwide movement on Facebook started here in Colorado about ending the war on nature and prohibition of naturally occurring plants. We have reposted a link to this great thread for others around the world to see how Colorado, USA is handling this issue – Facebook link noted below:
You Can’t Outlaw Nature FB Page
Doctors can prescribe whatever they want and nobody can question the validity of those prescriptions because of doctor-patient confidentiality? What about all of the doctors who are charged with breaking the law for giving prescription pain medication to junkies? How are the two hypothetical scenarios different?
I see your argument but it defies common sense to have non-experts (aka the public. law enforcement, lawmakers, etc) making decisions on how highly trained medical experts should go about their jobs.
And I’ll reiterate this very salient point:
“the relationship between a licensed physician and their patients is private and no one else’s business”
period. end of story.
It’s none of your business, so butt out. I believe the Supreme Court has ruled on this matter more than once.
By the way…most doctors are afraid of writing marijuana prescriptions for fear of losing their ability to practice medicine and/or lose their status within the medicare, medicaid, VA, etc government subsidized medical systems…I bet you didn’t know that before you wildly insinuated doctors are out there rampantly abusing their ability to write prescriptions…
But what I was saying was that doctor-patient confidentiality does not mean that they are above the laws or regulations that exist to protect both physicians and their patients from abusing narcotics.
The farce of a system that we have set up–a system that in your opinion is fine, and there’s nothing wrong with that, you’re entitled to your opinion, I just happen to disagree–is, in my estimation, a backdoor marijuana legalization that creates a far murkier legal situation than simply legalizing it properly would.
In any case, marijuana is medicine in this state, and as such, doctors must follow the law in the way they prescribe it. Under current Federal law, it’s no different from Vicodin, or morphine. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, but you have to operate within the laws that exist. If one or many medical professionals decide they want to game the system for their own financial benefit (mind you, I’m not saying that’s what has been happening necessarily) then they should be punished.
with everything you said except “farce of a system that we have set up” because honestly, it’s never been perfect but it works usually for the best of patients. Why?
Because if a doctor decides that MMJ is a proper prescription and that doctor is in good standing with his peers, then why is it anyone else’s business???
If the doctors you accuse of being a farce to medical ethics & legal standards, then show me the dead, dick, or dying patients complaining of maltreatment!
Really? Really?!
Let’s start — start, at least — with this article that says that three years after implementation of the medical marijuana program by the state, patients still didn’t know where to find marijuana:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews…
I oversimplified the issue pre-2008. Point well taken.
Another piece in the article you cited was that from 2000 – 2003, there were 320 patients on the registry. I would hazard a guess that these individuals had debilitating illnesses and benefited from the medicinal properties of marijuana. Now, the number is more than 100,000 patients and the vast majority of those are not suffering from a debilitating condition.
You and I agree on more than you think concerning patient access.
The industry and the credibility, however, are seriously compromised when legitimate patients, deserving of the drug, are vastly outnumbered by those who just want to buy good weed.
Over the next year or two, the numbers will be reduced and the focus will return to legitimate patients, and the number of dispensaries will diminish as the number of patients decrease.
It was pissing on my leg and telling me that it’s raining — to borrow your language, of course.
I was wrong in saying there wasn’t an access issue prior to 2008 or 2009.
What I don’t like is what happened in Colorado after.
Jules: Okay now, tell me about the hash bars.
Vincent: So what you want to know?
Jules: Well, hash is legal there, right?
Vincent: Yeah, it’s legal, but it ain’t a hundred percent legal. I mean, you can’t walk into a restaurant, roll a joint, and start puffin’ away. They want you to smoke in your home or certain designated places.
Jules: Those are hash bars?
Vincent: Breaks down like this, okay: it’s legal to buy it, it’s legal to own it, and if you’re the proprietor of a hash bar, it’s legal to sell it. It’s illegal to carry it, but that doesn’t really matter ’cause get a load of this, all right – if you get stopped by the cops in Amsterdam, it’s illegal for them to search you. I mean, that’s a right the cops in Amsterdam don’t have.
Jules: [laughing] Oh, man! I’m going, that’s all there is to it. I’m fucking going.
Vincent: Yeah baby, you’d dig it the most. But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
Jules: What?
Vincent: It’s the little differences. I mean, they got the same shit over there that we got here, but it’s just – it’s just there it’s a little different.
Jules: Example?
Vincent: All right. Well, you can walk into a movie theater in Amsterdam and buy a beer. And I don’t mean just like in no paper cup, I’m talking about a glass of beer. A
Or your parent’s permission.
Word has it a lot more kids are showing up stoned at Boulder High than there used to be. But I’m sure that doesn’t affect the quality of their education, right?
I’m all for legalizing AND regulating pot. I just think the current system is a complete sham.
You don’t have to be 21 but you do need parental permission to be eligible.
Or at least they did when I was in school. And none of them were 21.
Well I grew up here in Colorado and went to high school in the early 90’s and can tell you many school kids my age at one time or another came to school drunk or stoned.
NEWSFLASH: because they are teenagers.
Doing immature things like coming to school drunk or stoned is what teenagers sometimes do. Most of these kids will grow up just fine in spite of their youthful indiscretions.
Geez, some of you try to come across like you grew up walking on water or something…
So first off, you don’t know anything about me, so maybe you shouldn’t make too many assumptions.
2nd, I’ve got 2 kids in middle school. I’m not at all delusional about the fact that they’ll try pot, and alcohol, and whatever else is getting passed around. But we’ve all seen people get consumed by their drug use. Others are merely handicapped. I don’t want that to happen to my kids. It’s an increasingly competitive world. I want them to be prepared.
This would be great for Colorado if it were done in the right way, and the “fees” were called what they really are…taxes. As you pointed out in the post, the cost of issuing the applications is well below the 10.5 mill collected, and will be used for the general fund.
But in Colorado, Fees are not supposed to be used to fund general purposes. See Bloom v. City of Fort Collins. Instead, fees are supposed to be used to discharge the costs of a particular government service. But the Sup Ct. in Barber v Ritter said that fees collected can be used for general fund purposes, as long as they don’t declare that they are going to be used for general fund purposes beforehand. In other words, as long as the legislature lies to us about the use of the fees when they are collected, they can be used for any purpose later, even if that is a purpose that is identical to a tax.
I have two major problems with this:
(1) This is disrespecting the rule of law. We are encouraging the legislature to be dishonest in the reasons behind the collection of fees. While I fully respect the difficulties that face the folks under the dome, and do not question that they have the best intentions, I do not think that this is a healthy form of governance.
(2) Over the Past 15 years, the Colorado Supreme Court has written some, shall we say…”creative” decisions in order to save the state of Colorado from going to shambles because of TABOR. Again, I respect them for trying to do what they believe is right for the state of Colorado, but I think that they are doing more harm than good. Why do I think this? Because the citizens of this state have never REALLY had to face up to the realities of TABOR. We have faced tough cuts, but they would have been much worse were it not for decisions like Barber v. Ritter. I still don’t think the average person on the street understands just how horrible TABOR is. These Sup Ct decisions have retarded the building of the political capital needed in order to repeal TABOR by insulating us from its truly idiotic results. We should just bite the bullet,and show the people of Colorado that we cannot realistically run a government under TABOR (throw Gallagher and Amendment 23 into that pot as well).
The law, sir, is an ass. Which is why it is “disrespected.”
Aggie: “We have faced tough cuts, but they would have been much worse were it not for decisions like Barber v. Ritter. I still don’t think the average person on the street understands just how horrible TABOR is.”
So let’s let the place where we live go to shit for ten or twenty years with an eye toward “building political capital.” Yeah, that’s what we should do. Now pass the bong, Aggie.
The law means nothing? It shouldn’t be followed? Not really sure what you are arguing here. Is this even an argument? Or are you just pointing out that why the law is being disrespected…cause I already did that.
And I doubt it would take anywhere near ten years for people to realize TABOR must be repealed. I would say its closer to two. The path we are on is a slower death, but a death none the less.
Some things, like Higher Education, cannot and will not, survive this slow strangling.
The rule of law is designed to keep our society running in a predictable and functional manner. But it is only the means toward the end of a healthy society.
That is beside the point, though. The Court ruled along very tight lines in Barber v Ritter; two of the three plaintiffs had their cases mooted by subsequent actions of the Legislature; the remaining facts at issue did not support the claim that the transfers resulted in increased fees to replace the drained funds’ revenues, and found (rightly, based on the plain interpretation of Amdt. 1) that fees already collected were already calculated into the various limits imposed and that transferring them did not alter that inclusion.
Had the Legislature not acted (in one case to dissolve a fund, and in another to repay a fund), then the case might have gone differently…
I rigorously dispute this statement:
Not to start an old debate, but I am in the class of people who do not think that judges should toss the law aside in order to reach a beneficial outcome. This is a hotly debated area of legal philosophy, and is certainly up for grabs.
My main problem with Barber was the way that it distinguished itself with the Pour over clause in Bloom. Saying whether something is a tax or a fee is determined at the point it is collected, regardless of how it is later used is simply ridiculous. It encourages legislators to be dishonest.
What place law holds in society could easily form the basis for a set of political parties, absent the conservative/liberal axis we have now. And it would be just as resolvable, too…
I don’t really have trouble with their distinction from the pour-over clause in Bloom; the funds in question were never intended to be General Fund revenues and had been historically applied to the causes they were meant to fund. That the Republicans, desperate to hide the budget shortfalls caused by TABOR, took money from those funds was as legal as the creation of the funds in the first place, and correctable by the same action: replacement of Legislators via the voting booth, which it appears the voters took advantage of in 2004 and 2006.
It’s called the Springs, sounds lovely so far, parks going to hell, reduced police repsonse, …..
Although I won’t debate the nuances of the fee vs. tax debate, what we have in Colorado is a slow, painful decline of our standard of living.
I think two years would be adequate for Coloradans to wake up and smell the coffee when services they enjoy are no longer available statewide.
Instead, our state is now relying on corporate money (severance taxes), federal handouts, and drug money to keep floating.
Amendments 58 and 59 went down in flames in a Democratic wave year in 2008. In the current political climate, how are we supposed to show people that increased taxes are going to save them? Any anti-TABOR ballot intiative(s) would be Democratic campaign poison/Republican campaign dream scenario.
Voters aren’t biting because these the Sup Ct has artificially insulated them from the full impacts of TABOR.
I think that they only way that TABOR will be defeated is if people see what enforcement of the provisions would actually mean.
It’s possible.
I think the bigger problem is that a lot of voters think we’re spending too much as it is. They think we can cut our way to prosperity–an argument most people know is completely crazy because we’ve cut our budget the bone as it is. That’s the biggest problem facing an anti-TABOR initiative.
I also think it’s a bit drastic to force the consequences of what you’re saying on the state purely so that it would kill TABOR. Our economy is stressed enough as it is, a true practice of TABOR would hurt people almost more than a repeal would help them.
I just don’t know how else to show “the man on the street” what a crazy mess we are in.
When you have numbers over 100,000 I think we might have strayed beyond the voter’s intent on what constituted medical need.
That said, in as far as for some this is medically necessary, I am not a big fan of putting fees on cancer patients.
If this is recreation, that is one thing, and we should vote on that.
If this is grandma’s glaucoma, Colorado doesn’t tax medicine and should not start.
Why does the # of MMJ patients scare you? All of these people risked their privacy and potential law enforcement interference in their lives, but chose to schedule a visit to licensed physician, discussed their medical histories and medical needs, paid a TON of money to that doctor and the state of Colorado and received a doctors approval for them to use medical marijuana.
My question to you is “How is this any of your business?”
The last I checked, people’s personal private medical histories are between their doctor and themselves (ie; NOT YOU or anyone else)
Do you suddenly know more about medical training than a licensed doctor?
PS, my lifelong friend Joe lives in Littleton. He lost his eyes and eyesight to glaucoma a few years ago (now has fake glass eyes).
He is in constant pain and uses doctor prescribed medical marijuana as a pain reliever and stress reducer. He had to go to three doctors before he found one willing to write the prescription (contrary to belief, many doctors are afraid of writing scripts for MMJ)
My friend Joe also battles chronic depression (you would too if you lost your eyesight and eyeballs as a young man in the prime of your life).
Sadly, my friend is forced to go to medical marijuana centers outside of Littleton for his medicine because the City of Littleton has shut down all dispensaries.
True story.
Hooray! 116,000! That’s people of all ages, many/most of whom were already using cannabis, out of the black market. Those of you who like good wine or well-crafted beer could always go to your favorite beverage outlet and get help from the sales clerk. Think of the the poor cannabis-lover, fated to accept whatever the dealer has today. I’ve smoked cannabis since college. (a long time) Until visiting a dispensary, I didn’t know a sativa from an indica.
Those of you who are pissed off about the medical canard – I voted for 20 because I knew it would open the door to legalization. I knew a constitutional amendment would be hard to undo. I’m okay with people lying about pain in order to get a license. People use cannabis. Read Carl Sagan about it, and please get over yourself.
Too bad more people don’t think like you do.
Let’s see…
That sounds like a good part of the Constitution to ignore.
Look – there’s another one. Let’s ingnore that too. Too complicated anyway.
Hee hee, let’s ignore that too since it would interefere with some transitioning going on currently. Don’t want to rock the boat.
I’m happy you’re more informed about your drug of choice. Your views on Amendment 20 represent just that, your view.
Since Amend 20 didn’t legalize marijuana and, per the language of the Amendment, was meant for debilitating conditions, 116,000 pot users isn’t exactly something for us to be proud of.
Words matter, especially when they’re in the state constitution.
Like I said, that’s 116k current cannabis users out of the black market, out of the closet. Glad you love the law so much. I like people a little more.
They can be a real buzz kill sometimes…
Not that I like laws better than people, it’s that I respect the law.
Less respect for your fellow humans than for the law – you go on with your bad self.
Listen – you and I may disagree on something, but don’t assume you know shit about me.
I raised a point that the those who have medical marijuana cards and don’t have debilitating illnesses are more concerned with buying good dope than with respecting the law.
Sounds like you voted for Amend 20 so you could buy pot. I voted for Amend 20 so that really sick people could get medicine.
If we disagree, fine – but don’t start with the characterizations of me when you don’t know what you’re talking about.
“Sounds like you voted for Amend ”
“don’t start with the characterizations…”
I read your posts. I don’t believe you like people that much. You do like the law and your own opinions. Read any Carl Sagan yet? Cannabis does wonderful things to reduce anger. Try it. Mellow feels better.
You could be right, could be right. I don’t tolerate much in others and have high expectations of those I do. May be a fault of mine, to be sure. I am definitely not a touchy feely kind of guy.
Pot reduces anger as well as motivation, intimacy, libido and cognitive functioning. I don’t begrudge those who smoke at all. I smoked for many years until I felt I could do more without it.
Why don’t we just leave it with who we are – two people arguing about nothing and we’ll call it good.
People like you scare me. No human being should ever be persecuted by lawmakers and law enforcement for using a plant that is naturally occurring in nature. On top of that, where do you get off telling other people what they can or can’t do with their lives? Just because there’s a law doesn’t make that law just (refer to old fashioned laws on segregation for just one for instance)
Something tells me your not originally from Colorado.