Colorado: Marijuana Amendment Will Be On Ballot

Denver -- Coloradans are to decide this fall whether to make it legal under state law for anyone age 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana. Secretary of State Gigi Dennis said Wednesday that backers of that initiative had turned in enough signatures to qualify for the Nov. 7 general election. The proposal will be Amendment 44 on the state ballot, Dennis said.

Under Colorado law, anyone in possession of an ounce or less of marijuana can be charged with a Class 2 petty offense, punishable by a fine of up to $100.

Legislative staffers preparing an analysis of the initiative report that during the 2005-06 state budget year, state courts convicted 3,700 adults for possession of such amounts of marijuana.

The legalization proposal is being pushed by SAFER, an organization that asserts that marijuana is a “Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation” than alcohol.

“The campaign will highlight the hypocrisy of laws that prohibit the use of marijuana while allowing and even encouraging the use of alcohol, an infinitely more harmful drug,” SAFER spokesman Mason Tvert said Wednesday.

If approved by voters, Amendment 44 would change state law to allow adults age 21 and older to possess or use small amounts of marijuana, according to the legislative staff analysis, as long as that use doesn’t occur in public. It still would be illegal for anyone younger than 21 to possess any amount of marijuana or for people 21 and older to possess amounts more than an ounce.

It also would still be illegal for individuals age 18 and older to transfer any amount of marijuana to anyone younger than 15.

State laws also would continue to ban: growing or selling marijuana; open and public display, use or consumption of marijuana; and driving under the influence of marijuana.

SAFER has noted that even if voters OK the initiative, home-rule cities and towns would still have the ability to ticket and prosecute marijuana users under local ordinances.

Last year, SAFER successfully campaigned for an ordinance change to make it legal for an adult to possess up to an ounce of marijuana in Denver, but the organization has complained that Denver continues to prosecute people under state law.

Tvert said in an interview that voter passage of a state legalization measure would “send a large message” to home-rule municipalities “about how the people of Colorado feel about this.”

Tvert said alcohol abuse “contributes to social problems like fighting, sexual assault, property damage and domestic violence. Marijuana use has never been linked to these types of issues.”

Tvert said he expects Amendment 44 to be opposed by members of the state’s law enforcement community, including Colorado Attorney General John Suthers.

Suthers spokeswoman Kristen Holtzman said Wednesday that “the attorney general’s position on this issue has not changed. He is adamantly against the legalization of marijuana.”

Foes of SAFER’s proposal have argued that marijuana use can lead someone to other illegal drugs and thus increase overall drug use and drug abuse in Colorado.

"Amendment 44 would change state law to allow adults age 21 and older to possess or use small amounts of marijuana ... as long as that use doesn’t occur in public."

OK. Got it. Small amounts of marijuana possessed and used at home would be legal. In public, still illegal.

"during the 2005-06 state budget year, state courts convicted 3,700 adults for possession of such amounts of marijuana."

AHA! The implication being that if Amendment 44 is passed, the state would not have to bother with these 3,700 court cases, thereby saving the state time and money on these Mickey Mouse possession cases.

But wait.

Did all these 3,700 cases involve possession AT HOME? I find that very hard to believe. This figure of 3,700 involves ALL possession cases under one ounce, at home or in public.

Question. How many of these 3,700 cases do you honestly believe involved an arrest and conviction for possession of a small amount at home? I'll wager good money it was less than 10. Probably less than 5.

Well whoop dee friggin' do. They're solving a "problem" that isn't a "problem". Not that we should expect honesty from a group like SAFER. Not the group that put up billboards in Denver saying that if the voters passed I-100, domestic violence would be reduced (never telling the voters that I-100 legalized marijuana, marijuana was less likely to induce violence than alcohol, wife beating alcoholics would switch from alcohol to marijuana, and voila!, domestic violence would therefore be reduced).

Probably couldn't fit all that on the billboard.

Alcohol is worse than marijuana, so we should legalize marijuana. I don't understand. Does that make alcohol any better?

I mean, what's your point? Are you saying alcoholics will switch to marijuana? Do you have any proof that they will? Any reports, studies, statistics, anything?

I'm just gonna take a WAG and say that we'd have the same number of people drinking alcohol PLUS we'd have a whole lot more people smoking marijuana than we have today. Now who do you think is closer to the truth?

"If prohibition didn't work with alcohol, what makes you think it will work with marijuana?"

So prohibition is not working with marijuana. Really.

You're essentially saying that if marijuana was made legal we'd see no increase in the amount of marijuana consumed and no increase in the number of users. You're asking me to believe that.

I don't. And I don't think you believe that either. Which means prohibition is working to reduce the consumption of marijuana.

And like our laws against murder, the drugs laws don't eliminate the activity completely. So saying that the drugs laws "don't work" because people still do drugs is misleading, yes?

"Be careful what you wish for...legalization will be followed by MASSIVE taxation, and the price will skyrocket, causing the same black market that exists today.

The difference will be that the price will undoubtedly rise (due to taxes), and the supply will continue to be mainly from illegal sources."

If it was really legalized, such that it could be produced on a grand scale like other agricultural products, the economy of scale what bring prices way down. Marijuana currently costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars a pound wholesale. It's grown and processed by hand on a relatively small scale scattered all over the place to avoid detection. Every year thousands of tons of it are destroyed by law enforcement in North America before the plants ever mature, and thousands of tons of finished product are seized in this country. Production, transport, and distribution costs are extremely high. Everything is done in such a fragmented small scale way, and the risks involved command such premium profits that the price to consumers ends up being artificially inflated many many times what it could actually be. Before taxes tobacco is only a few dollars a pound wholesale (a couple of years back I believe it was averaging $3 a pound), and marijuana can't be that much harder than tobacco to produce. I would not be surprised at all to see actual production costs drop to below ten dollars a pound on average if large scale commercial growing and processing were employed like we see with other agricultural products. Kick in all the regulatory costs, taxes and excises, insurance costs, etc., and it is still liable to be a good bit cheaper than it is today for end consumers.

You have to consider the fact that marijuana is already "taxed" to to a huge extent. I've handled thousands of pounds worth of "marijuana mule" cases over the years as a criminal defense attorney where people driving down the interstate have been caught with large loads of pot in their vehicles, and I've learned a little about the industry along the way. Mostly I'm just dealing with standard Mexican pot, the cheap stuff most prevalent on our streets. This stuff in large bulk purchases can be had for less than $50 a pound in Mexico. It would be a lot cheaper down there if it was legal. While they may be able to get away with larger grows than people get away with here, a big operation is only going to be a few acres worth grown in small plots scattered over a relatively large area. They'll bribe the locals, but they still have to try to be inconspicuous in their activities and still sometimes their crops are seized. These aren't big farms with plowed fields and tractors and all sorts of fancy modern technology. They tend to be little plots scattered in the woods that workers have to hike to and do all the work by hand. And while labor is cheap in Mexico, those working the pot fields tend to get paid a lot better than those employed on farms growing legal crops.

This $50 a pound stuff ends up costs $600 to $800 a pound where I live, and maybe $1,500 or more by the time it makes it to the Northeast. It changes hands so many times before it makes it's final destination and everybody wants a cut along the way. It costs a lot to smuggle it in this country in the first place. It costs a lot to store it in safe houses in Arizona and other Western states awaiting transport to other parts of the country. When it is transported it is sometimes transported in ton or more loads hidden in tractor trailer loads of of legal products, but most often it is probably being transported in personal vehicles in two or three hundred pound trunk loads. These drivers don't make a lot of money, but they are likely to get a couple of grand plus expenses for transporting a two or three hundred pound load. They're often making as much or more what a truck driver hauling a huge ninety thousand pound load of legal product might make for hauling his load. And the drivers aren't the only ones getting paid. Their handlers get paid. Those that recruit them get paid, and in many cases there is a clean vehicle traveling with the vehicle carrying the load to run interference and so that the higher ups will know if a car gets popped. They want to know right away because odds are the cops are going to try to push these drivers into making controlled deliveries where law enforcement will be following along to bust the people at the other end.

Anyway, the expense of transporting marijuana is so high and so many loads get seized along the way by the time a load of Mexican pot makes it to the Northeast the wholesale per pound price of the product is probably going to be at least be triple what it was from the time it left the safe houses in western states. That product had already increased in price several times what it cost the farmer in Mexico to grow it by the time it hit the safe house in Tucson, Arizona, or wherever, and after it reaches it final destination it's probably going to change hands a couple more times before it reaches the end consumer and be even more expensive then. When they legalize it and start growing it on a massive scale with modern methods and selling it at licensed retail facilities the production and distribution costs will drop through the floor compared to where they are today. Taxes on it will have to be several times the wholesale value of the product to keep prices at or near current levels.

The Counties of San Diego and San Bernardino disagree. They are refusing to implement Proposition 215 since it violates the Supremacy Clause and filed a lawsuit earlier this year to that effect. It states (in part):

"Contrary to federal law and an international treaty, California has enacted laws declaring that certain persons have a right to use marijuana for medical purposes and has authorized those individuals to use, possess, distribute and cultivate marijuana without criminal sanction."

"The County brings this lawsuit because it believes California's medical marijuana laws are preempted under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution (Article VI) because they conflict with a federal statute (the Controlled Substances Act) and an international treaty (the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs). Thus, the Country believes that it should not be required to implement California's preempted and therefore void medical marijuana laws."

Perhaps you can point out the differences to me between the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in Brown v. Board of Ed. and Gonzales v. Raich and why the states had to comply with one (under threat with armed federal troops) but not the other.

Golly. Thanks for the economics lesson.

Of course, that doesn't explain why oil, which was $12/bbl in 1998, now costs $80/bbl. Same well, same oil, same everything. Did the pumps suddenly get more expensive to operate?

That doesn't explain why diamonds are so expensive. They're just rocks. Artwork -- oil and canvas.

Who's to say that marijuana will be treated like tobacco and not like oil or diamonds? You're assuming that because marijuana CAN be treated like tobacco it WILL be treated like tobacco.

Why would the government (the people) even want marijuana to be cheap? What, we want to encourage consumption? Not enough teen use?

Where marijuana has been "legalized", prices are actually higher than the black market. Medical marijuana in the U.S. and Canada, and recreational marijuana in the Netherlands cost more than getting it illegally in the inner city.

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