Videos: Part two of marijuana activists' Amendment 64 debate and more

Some provisions of Amendment 64 have no force of law (the reference to DUID) or are symbolic (the proposed licensure of retail sales, obtaining revenue for the State by means of an excise and sales tax, and the commercial cultivation of hemp) -- these are the provisions about which opponents obsess most, but they have not mounted much in the way of coherent arguments against even these.  The core provisions of the Amendment are its legalization of the personal use of cannabis:

"(3) Personal use of marijuana.

NOTWITHSTANDING ANY OTHER PROVISION OF LAW, THE FOLLOWING ACTS ARE NOT UNLAWFUL AND SHALL NOT BE AN OFFENSE UNDER COLORADO LAW OR THE LAW OF ANY LOCALITY WITHIN COLORADO OR BE A BASIS FOR SEIZURE OR FORFEITURE OF ASSETS UNDER COLORADO LAW FOR PERSONS TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER:

(a) POSSESSING, USING, DISPLAYING, PURCHASING, OR TRANSPORTING MARIJUANA ACCESSORIES OR ONE OUNCE OR LESS OF MARIJUANA

(b) POSSESSING, GROWING, PROCESSING, OR TRANSPORTING NO MORE THAN SIX MARIJUANA PLANTS, WITH THREE OR FEWER BEING MATURE, FLOWERING PLANTS, AND POSSESSION OF THE MARIJUANA PRODUCED BY THE PLANTS ON THE PREMISES WHERE THE PLANTS WERE GROWN, PROVIDED THAT THE GROWING TAKES PLACE IN AN ENCLOSED, LOCKED SPACE, IS NOT CONDUCTED OPENLY OR PUBLICLY, AND IS NOT MADE AVAILABLE FOR SALE.

(c) TRANSFER OF ONE OUNCE OR LESS OF MARIJUANA WITHOUT REMUNERATION TO A PERSON WHO IS TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER.

(d) CONSUMPTION OF MARIJUANA, PROVIDED THAT NOTHING IN THIS SECTION SHALL PERMIT CONSUMPTION THAT IS CONDUCTED OPENLY AND PUBLICLY OR IN A MANNER THAT ENDANGERS OTHERS.

(e) ASSISTING ANOTHER PERSON WHO IS TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE OR OLDER IN ANY OF THE ACTS DESCRIBED IN PARAGRAPHS (a) THROUGH (d) OF THIS SUBSECTION."

You lack enough context to understand the issue now, much less to try to project into the future.  I have posted something like this dozens of times, but for your benefit I will try yet again.  There will be no retail cannabis sales to non-patients as a result of passage of Amendment 64, at least not unitl drastic changes in Federal law occur at some indefinite point in the future which would be of far greater import than the Amendment.  The advent of medical cannabis in California (twelve years before the Obama campaign promised not to waste Federal resources persecuting those using medical cannabis legally under state law) did challenge Federal prohibitionists' resources; storefront dispensaries were popping up without regulation or notice.  The situation with regard to State licensure of general retail sales is entirely different; the GA is not going to spend money on a direct challenge to Federal authority, especially when the Feds would know exactly who was proposing to sell cannabis and where they proposed to do it well in advance due to the nature of the process of licensure, which would require e.g. local public approval and the public issuance of a State license.  No one wants to invest a substantial sum in a business only to have it confiscated and/or be arrested on the first day of business, and although the GA has shown a willingness to buck the Feds, it is not going to make a substantial outlay just to engage in brinksmanship with the Feds which could only fail.

 @orson Also false -- very few patients support Prohibition out of fear for their own medicine.  You make not a single reference to any provision of the Amendment, which confirms the impression that you have never read it and have no idea what you are talking about.  While there can be no doubt that not every patient in Colorado needs cannabis to survive, no useful purpose is served by trying to divide patients into those deserving and those not.  The lesson of the past twelve years is that cannabis is an essential medicine for some, that the sky has not fallen in because others use it, and that we can proceed to recognize every adult's right to choose to use cannabis. 

Cannabis is only one of many drugs which are subject to irrational strictures and predjudices.  We need to vest responsibility for control over one's body with individuals.  The recognition that cannabis is both a safe euphoriant and medicine has by now extended far beyond those who use cannabis, so there is no reason why the rationalization of our drug laws should not start with cannabis.  While the opposition is adamantine, this is supposed to be a democratic society, and we are capable of revisiting the lifetime of bad policy decisions on drugs, junking the Controlled Substances Act, and starting over.

Vote Yes on Amendment 64, then repeal the CSA!

 @orson  What is the basis for your delusion that "A64 sells out patients and caregivers"?  Amendment 64 has nothing to do with patients or caregivers!  Have you bothered to read the text yet?  Legalizing all adults' cultivation of six cannabis plants will dilute the remaining harassment and over-vigorous enforcement of all the prohibitionist statutes which remain on the books against patients and caregivers when millions of Coloradans are growing their own cannabis legally -- what don't you get?

Amendment 64 is in the obvious interest of every caregiver and patient in Colorado; Vote Yes on Amendment 64!

 @orson No -- many patients agree with me that their right to use cannabis is best protected by recognizing every adult's right to use cannabis.  The history of medical cannabis in Colorado bears this out abundantly.  The declaration of the People that cannabis is medicine did not change the prejudice against it in Colorado's medical establishment (which apparenly is scientifically incurious in a medicine most cannot recommend and which big pharma does not promote).  The infringements on patients and caregivers' rights under Article XVIII, Section 14 demonstrate the hostility of the political establishment to cannabis, medical or otherwise.

People involved in pain management should support ending the criminalization of narcotics -- there is no inconsistency in my postion, but in society's entire system of regulating drugs in general.  End the War on Americans and make our country "the land of the free", instead of the Land of Prisons.

 @orson That is pure libel; I fought against passage of both HB10-1284 and HB11-1043 by demonstrating, testifying before the committees of the General Assembly that considered the bills, by writing, and by speaking against the scheme to invest the agency that regulates alcohol, tobacco, and gambling with responsibility for regulating medical cannabis.

Amendment 64 has absolutely no effect on the provisions of Article XVIII, Section 14 regarding the medical cannabis program.  You are alluding to the Amendment's proposed system of regulation of the retail sale of cannabis to non-patients, which is not going to happen, at least not for the forseeable future, and which would have no direct effect on patients or caregivers if it did -- there is the small matter of amending Federal law to make cannabis no longer contraband first.  Amendment 64 is far from perfect or adequate, but anyone who uses cannabis who cannot understand that declaring the personal use and cultivation of cannabis legal, even on a limited basis, is a step forward in the fight against Prohibition is either deranged, or foolish enough to be taken in by the flakey rhetoric used against the Amendment by a handful of putative activists for cannabis.

Amendment 64's defects are not what we should be talking about, as none begin to rise to a level that they compromise the value of its legalization of the personal use of cannabis.   Unlike Proposition 19 in California or Initiative 502 in Washington, Amendment 64 creates no new laws or penalties; there is some attempted pandering to the prohibitionists in it, but it has no force of law and represents no new threat.  The election is a month away, and people who oppose our right to cannabis are planning again to vote against any legalization of cannabis.  People who use cannabis who join them are an embarrassment to the movement to end Prohibition, not alternative future leadership for it.