President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
May 16, 2011 08:39 PM UTC
50 Comments
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Gay marriage, maybe, but by the time the concept of civil unions existed, it was far from taboo. Remember, it only lost 47-53 in the 2006 vote — hardly an overwhelming rejection.
The supporters swing young, progressive, and lower-income, in other words, likely to neglect to vote. (Insert predictable “I was going to go vote, but then I got high” joke here.) This will take a heckuva GOTV campaign to pass.
However, we’ve had essentially legal-but-inconvenient weed in Colorado since Amendment 8 passed, and the sky hasn’t fallen. Other businesses may appreciate that they’d be less ripe for the taxing with a brand new (er, newly legal… er, newly expanded) industry that WANTS to be taxed. It could be pitched to conservatives as another place the meddling government doesn’t belong–i.e., the nanny state shouldn’t be choosing between alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana for you.
Seems to me that it has a chance, but not if the same people who’ve been doing MMJ advocacy for the last few years are the only people in charge of messaging and GOTV. They need to hire people who can actually stay organized and on the same page throughout an election cycle.
whether it passes or not, but the increased Dem/Hippie-that-will-vote-for-Obama turnout will be much appreciated.
Because the Dem/Hippie-that-will-vote-for-Obama turnout will be decreased.
ie: I was going to vote, but I got legally high instead. Think of the great voter suppression efforts we could do with a few big bags of weed and a nintendo system.
🙂
By getting a whole bunch of stoned people at a political rally. You could literally get them to chant anything…
MOO SHOO PORK!
MOO SHOO PORK!
George Washington (read: his slaves) grew hemp on his farm. Some people believe he used marijuana to help his chronic tooth aches. He also supposedly preferred his hemp pipe over alcohol and loved how it smelled.
Thomas Jefferson (read: his slaves) also grew hemp. He drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper. And he supposedly hated smoking tobacco. “Some of my finest hours have been spent on the back of my veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as the eye can see.” is something Jefferson supposedly said in 1781, according to the Internet. One source even said that Washington and Jefferson exchanged smoking blends as personal gifts.
James Madison
Another early President (read: slaves) to grow hemp. We realize that hemp was grown for other purposes, besides smoking It’s just seems like you would smoke it if you had a bunch of it growing in your back yard. He also allegedly credited hemp to giving him the insight to create a new and democratic nation. Sound like bullshit? Yeah.
James Monroe
Monroe began smoking weed as an Ambassador to France and continued smoking it until he was 73. Or so the story goes.
Andrew Jackson
Jackson was a military man who supposedly smoked with his troops.
Franklin Pierce
He is the last guy named by this Dr. Burke who (along with Taylor and Jackson) smoked with their military troops. Pierce also allegedly wrote to his family that marijuana was “about the only good thing” about the war.
Abraham Lincoln
“Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica.” – Abraham Lincoln (from a letter written by Lincoln during his presidency to the head of the Hohner Harmonica Company in Germany). That quote was listed on HuffPo, but commenters noticed they couldn’t find it anywhere reputable.
John F. Kennedy
Kennedy allegedly used medicinal marijuana for his back pain and planned on legalizing it in his second term.
Bill Clinton
“When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’ t like it. I didn’t inhale and never tried it again.” “And I never touched, that woman, Monica Lewinski” Whatever Bill, you play the sax, that’s all we need to know! – Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Bush has hinted at/admitted to smoking marijuana and using cocaine. “I wouldn’t answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I don’t want some little kid doing what I tried.” That’s what was recorded saying in the late Nineties.
Barack Obama
President Cool Guy has admitted to smoking weed. “When I was a kid, I inhaled. That was the point.”
John Kerry, U.S. Senator and 2004 Democratic nominee for president.
John Edwards, multi-millionaire, former U.S. Senator, and 2004 Democratic nominee for vice president.
Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, 2008 Republican nominee for vice president
British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith,
Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, and and Chancellor Alistair Darling.
New York Governor David Paterson.
Former Vice President, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Oscar winner Al Gore.
Former Sen. Bill Bradley, who smoked while playing professional basketball.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas,
former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich,
former New York Governor George Pataki.
Billionaire and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Don’t point to John Edwards to support ANY argument.
He’s a scumbag. Whatever he does or did is a good way to make me take the opposite position.
Wade Norris still has a man crush on him.
Now there was a beautiful bromance, crushed by reality…and the National Enquirer.
about Wade Norris?
But I have this “man” thing: you’re only as good as how you treat your wife.
That makes Edwards a loser.
You’re only as good as you treat your mistress. Lest we forget him buying off someone to pretend to be his baby’s daddy anytime soon.
So I’ll have to defer to you on that subject. But Edwards didn’t exactly seem to be a stand-up guy.
I’ve outed enough to last me a lifetime, thank you very much.
GOP/redneck/I got drunk and passed out instead of voting crowd? “Hey, why isn’t that hot chick Palin on the ballot?”
The general public will need the perceived protection of a DUI THC law before they will vote for legalization. This was a major factor in defeating legalization in California last year.
Potheads shot themselves in the foot by not agreeing to this.
We have shown that regular MMJ users could have over 13 nanongrams when they are not medicated in their blood. So, if you got into an accident, whether it was your fault of not, you could face serious time.
MJ stays in your fat cells can be detected for over a month in some people.
The 5ng/ml limit would have punished unimpaired patients who use cannabis daily, but if a weekend only (recreational) toker waited 3 hours to drive it is likely he would be under 5ng/ml. Thank you potheads (and SAFER and NORML)for not throwing the patients overboard.
I’m much safer driving next to someone who has smoked some pot compared to the asshole talking on his cell phone.
The pot smoker might drive a little slower. The cell phone driver will weave around lanes and then smack into the back of a stopped car. (The latter just happened to a family friend in Texas.)
I’m all for safe roads. But before we go all self-righteous moralizing against pot smokers, let’s see some real scientific studies determining who should and should not be driving, including seniors, cell phone users, texters, pot smokers, etc.
Do you have a citation?
At some point the DEA, still on its windmill-tilting mission to win the War on Drugs, will decide that Colorado is being a drug scofflaw and will come in to enforce policy without the help of the locals. You know it’s going to happen; the Feds aren’t even holding to the supposed stand down on medical marijuana, and once they see a state completely out of compliance with Federal regs they’ll ramp back up to full force and then some.
How many arrest have you seen in Colorado from the Feds? They have a few issues.
First is the amount of money and jobs created in one year for the entire state, with no increase in crime. At least according to police reports.
Second way too many high profile people own dispensaries in Colorado, including a Hickenlooper staff member.
Third, is the President ready to be labeled a liar in an election year?
The Fed are saber rattling. They are trying to put the horses back in the barn, and can’t. Funding from America’s best known millianires is making this a difficult horse to break.
Stand by, should interesting.
a cynical candiadte, like Norton or Buck, having learned from 2010, might endorse said ballot measure and beat outsomeone else with more reasonable views overall. Voters would have to learn that they could 1) vote for pot and, 2) still vote for someone who opposed legalization because if it passes whoever wins will enforce the law.
in 2006, the house of young republicans across the street had a yard full of election signs and I was amused at the time to see a Marilyn Musgrave sign nestled next to an amendment 44 banner.
Legalization is pretty ideologically neutral in some demographics, so a conservative endorsing it could potentially clean up… assuming they have the social conservative bona fides otherwise to keep their older base on board. It’s surprising that Colorado hasn’t fielded more Ron Paul libertarian types in the marquee statewide races.
The MJM lobby was always professional, their clients were not. Dispensaries, growers and other industry types developed a political savvy over the last year. Much of this came from working with the State on implementing regulations for the MJM industry. Left to their own devices, not sure it would have happened (developing the savvy, that is).
The problem with legalization is the terms are defined by the industry/advocates. Assuming that it would be a Constitutional amendment, because if you’re going this route, why not? Having seen the drafts of previous amendments floated by the Colorado advocates, the language would cause exponentially more confusion and difficulty in regulation than already exists.
Advocates could argue that legalization should include no regulation, but that is unreasonable and unrealistic. Public health and safety need to be protected.
What I fear is a poorly written proposal that will require state and local governments to start over from square one.
Also, wouldn’t legalizing marijuana harm the dispensaries in Colorado? Yes, the legitimate patients would still get quality product from dispensaries, but all the others wouldn’t have to pay top dollar anymore to get the stuff from the dispensaries.
The activist, lead by CTI is one group.
However, the group to bet on getting it done would be a group of well known lawyers, progressive millionaires, business leaders, polsters, campaign consultants and well funded organizations like Drug Policy Alliance, Sensible Colorado and others.
We have learned a lot over the last couple of years. And the fight will be intersting.
Did know that last ear over 50,000 people were arrested in NYC for USING MJ? Guess how many are Black and Brown.
It is time for these laws to fall. And it has very little to do with what all of you believe about stoners.
When advocates write ballot initiatives there are always unintended consequences as a result. I applaud the passion of those willing to draft a voter approved legalization of marijuana, but fear the results because of the process.
Colorado legalizing marijuana is like Thoreau not paying his taxes as a war protest. It would be a powerful statement made on principle, but ultimately, unless the feds decriminalize the drug, Colorado’s position is full of bluster signifying little.
The times are a changin’.
http://vimeo.com/elcielodecana…
Not sure if I think that full legalization via the 2012 ballot is a good attempt, but this points to why we need a more rationale approach.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
Smell pot and bust the door down?
With only Gingsburg dissenting…
“The Drug War Exception to the Constitution.”
it will be in the garb of the War on Drugs. Government is never more dangerous than when it decides to protect us from ourselves.
Where are the ‘Constitutionalits’ demanding Roberts’ (figurative) head? Or praising Justice Gingsburg?
one of the overriding questions remains, WHERE WAS THE OPPOSITION?
Qui tacet consentit
and earmark the money for higher education. It’s the right thing to do. Legal growing and processing would bring the price down, even with a $50 an ounce tax on it. At some point, we need to get reasonable.
Frankly, I think marijuana, used to excess, leads to a condition known as poop for brains. But so do a lot of things used to excess. At least, pot is less damaging than booze. Regulate it and you can keep it out of the hands of minors, raise money for education, and defund criminal smugglers.
I have voted for all legalization efforts and applaud this one.
Like beer–it should be taxed when sold commercially, but people should also be able to brew their own, so to speak.
It is utterly insane to grant new police powers that will result in more people in prison for offense that certainly do not warrant such.
And being high every day doesn’t mean that you are not functional. Just like having a glass of wine or beer everyday doesn’t make you a drunk.
But even though being high may not mean you’re “not functional” it does mean you’re functioning at less than 100 percent capacity, unless your job is as a Twinkie Taster. A beer or wine at dinner (1 or 2 day) is one thing. The evidence, especially with Red wine, is that it actually makes you healthier. But more than one or two drinks a day and people fall off a cliff. There are apparently no three drink a day folks, just one or two moderate drinkers and kill a quart a gin a day alkies.
If you blow a little weed at dinner you’re probably ok. If you routinely use it during the day, you’re not ok, you’re kidding yourself. Even if you think you’re doing ok, you are an A plus potential turning in B-plus work.
I support legalizing pot for many practical reasons. That doesn’t mean I think the stuff is good for you. And it’s stupid to say booze is worth. Cutting off your thumb (booze) is worse than cutting off your pinkie (marijuana.) But why mutilate yourself at all.
In the end, it comes down to Bill Cosby’s devastating reply to a man who insisted cocaine “enhances my personality.”
“But what if you’re an asshole?” Cosby replied.