Posted on 11/02/2005 7:03:16 AM PST by Wolfie
Denver Pot Issue Passes By Thin Margin
Denver residents Tuesday voted to legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, but the state attorney general said the vote was irrelevant because state law will still be enforced.
The measure passed 54 percent to 46 percent.
"It just goes to show the voters of Denver are fed up with a law that prohibits adults from making a rational, safer choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol," said Mason Tvert, executive director of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, or SAFER.
The measure will change the city's ordinance to make it legal for adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana in the city.
Denver follows the city of Oakland, which last year voted to make marijuana possession its lowest enforcement priority and required the city to develop a plan for licensing and taxing the sale, use and cultivation of marijuana for private use. Voters in Telluride Tuesday defeated a similar measure.
Denver is "the second major city in less than a year to pass a vote which says that marijuana should be treated essentially like alcohol, taxed and regulated," said Bruce Mirken, the director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, one of the largest groups opposing jail time for the use of pot. "This has been characterized as a fringe issue, and clearly it's not."
Even though voters approved Initiative 100, Denver police still will bring charges under state law, which carries a fine of up to $100 and a mandatory $100 drug-offender surcharge for possession of small amounts of marijuana, said Attorney General John Suthers.
"I have found these efforts to be unconstructive," Suthers said.
"I understand the debate about legalization and whether our drug laws are constructive. But I wish we would have a full-out debate instead of these peripheral issues that accomplish just about nothing," he said.
Tvert said marijuana supporters will push for a statewide initiative that would allow for the licensing and regulation of the selling of marijuana.
"This is not just symbolic," he said. "This is a fact. This city voted to change a city ordinance. We expect the city officials to respect the will of the voters who elected them."
In Denver, backers of the initiative sparked controversy with their campaign.
Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown blasted as deceptive their campaign signs, which declared: "Make Denver SAFER, Vote Yes on I-100." Brown said he feared voters would believe the initiative would put more police on Denver streets.
Under fire from domestic-violence groups, SAFER also pulled a controversial billboard that showed a battered woman and her abuser with the slogan "Reduce family and community violence in Denver. Vote Yes on I-100."
Proponents of the initiative tried to draw Mayor John Hickenlooper into the fray by labeling him a hypocrite for selling alcohol in his brewpubs when he opposed their efforts to legalize marijuana.
During one rally, they unveiled a banner that read: "What is the difference between Mayor Hickenlooper and a marijuana dealer? The mayor has made his fortune selling a more harmful drug: alcohol."
Tuesday night, Hickenlooper said he was surprised by the vote.
"It doesn't supersede state law, so it's really symbolic of changing attitudes," the mayor said.
You are missing the point. Cities do not exist because people simply vote to create them. The vote to create the city and the authority to hold the people to it comes from the state. The state controls state laws for all people and what the cities may control. Cities are not anarchical entities that operate without state oversight. Cities are located within the state and are subject to state law.
ping
So then, you're in favor of the federal government being able to overrule state laws?
That's the next step in your logic - states aren't states until they're recognized as such by the Feds, after all.
If voters want marijuana legal at the local level, than the local LEOs should step aside. Let the State Police expend time and resources to thwart the will of the local voters.
Agreed.
"So then, you're in favor of the federal government being able to overrule state laws? "
Jeez, put down the pot pipe, will ya? How are cities subject to state law because they are located within the state and are created by the powers of the state related to federal powers trumping state powers when the states exist without the federal government and in fact create the federal government?
Did you TOTALLY miss out on government lessons in school???
We know how this goes. If he disagrees with the will of the voters, of course he wants the next level of gov't to override it.
A word about the commerce clause highlights how politicians and bureaucrats knowingly violate their oath to uphold the constitution. Several laws are based on misconstrued meaning of the commerce clause Most absurd are laws asserted to be based on the commerce clause that are acts that take place within a state's borders, never crossing state borderline.
Possession can never involve interstate commerce. Only the transportation of a possession can involve interstate commerce. ...And only when the object possessed crosses from one state to another.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the following in Lopez:
"Put simply, much if not all of Art. I, 8 (including portions of the Commerce Clause itself) would be surplusage if Congress had been given authority over matters that substantially affect interstate commerce. An interpretation of cl. 3 that makes the rest of 8 superfluous simply cannot be correct. Yet this Court's Commerce Clause jurisprudence has endorsed just such an interpretation: the power we have accorded Congress has swallowed Art. I, 8."
bump your post.
An excellent summary. Thank you. Thomas makes an excellent point. One wonders why fireworks don't receive the same scrutiny.
What I wonder is how the state attorney general will enforce the state law if the municipal PD no longer do it for him.
If it were not for the petro chemical and paper pulp industries this country could save billions per year in LEO and housing prisoners charged with pot crimes, not to mention freeing the courts of this nonsense and gaining additional revenue from taxing it.
Government officials -- congress -- amended the constitution so that the two senators of each state were elected by the people. A state with large metropolitan population such as NYC, LA, Chicago, Boston etc., would in effect elect the two senators. Leaving the rural population of the state not represented--disenfranchised.
The founders were wise and knew it was best to have the more numerous and more local Representatives appoint the two state Senators. That way the people in all areas of the state would be represented--not just the large population areas of a state.
Under fire from domestic-violence groups, SAFER also pulled a controversial billboard that showed a battered woman and her abuser with the slogan "Reduce family and community violence in Denver. Vote Yes on I-100."
Too bad they couldn't be honest about it, but considering who they are I'm not surprised.
Newbie warrior? Or retread from the last time you were booted?
What was your previous screen name?
Looking for a fight or just think more of yourself than anyone else does?
Gen 1: 11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good...
Gen 2: ...8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil...
...15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
I like brownies...
It's the same level of honesty as we've come to expect from your Drug Warrior buddies, starting with Harry Anslinger and 'Reefer Madness' in the 1930's and leading up to today's deceptive PSAs from the Drug Czar's office.
Not to mention the most recent PSAs, where the message is that it's OK for a parent to be a hypocrite. Gotta love that one ...
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