Borderland Beat
Seattle Times:
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Two articles from Washington and Colorado, voters approved the pot initiative making pot legal for recreational use over the age of 21. I long held the belief that this would pass in Washington but frankly am surprised it passed this go around in Colorado. Oregon and California will be next to legalize marijuana. With some of the best mota grown on the west coast, and cartels illegally growing it in public forest land it will be interesting to see if or how it effects Mexican mota trafficking in that region.....Paz, Chivis
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| Celebrating in Colorado though a bit premature as the law is not in effect as yet |
Washington enthusiastically leapt into history Tuesday, becoming the first state, with Colorado, to reject federal drug-control policy and legalize recreational marijuana use.
Initiative 502 was winning 55 to 45 percent, with support from more than half of Washington's counties, rural and urban.
The vote puts Washington and Colorado to the left of the Netherlands on marijuana law, and makes them the nexus of a new social experiment with uncertain consequences. National and international media watched as vote counts rolled into I-502's election-night party in Seattle amid jubilant cheers.
"I'm going to go ahead and give my victory speech right now. After this I can go sit down and stop shaking," said Alison Holcomb, I-502's campaign manager and primary architect.
"Today the state of Washington looked at 75 years of national marijuana prohibition and said it is time for a new approach," she said.
As of Dec. 6, it will no longer be illegal for adults 21 and over to possess an ounce of marijuana. A new "drugged driving" law for marijuana impairment also kicks in then.
Tuesday's vote also begins a yearlong process for the state Liquor Control Board to set rules for heavily taxed and regulated sales at state-licensed marijuana stores, which are estimated to raise $1.9 billion in new revenue over five years.
Many legal experts expect the U.S. Justice Department, which remained silent during presidential-year politics, to push back and perhaps sue to block I-502 based on federal supremacy.
But Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes said Seattle's U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan told him Tuesday the federal government "has no plans, except to talk."
Initiative 502 ran a disciplined campaign with a tightly focused message, criticizing what it called the failed "war on drugs" without endorsing marijuana use itself.
A study, released late in the campaign, found more than 67,000 arrests for low-level marijuana possession in the past five years in Washington, with African Americans and Latinos arrested at widely disproportionate rates.
I-502 spent heavily, raising more than $6 million, including more than $2 million from Peter B. Lewis of Ohio, chairman of Progressive Insurance.
A broad group of mainstream leaders — including former top federal law-enforcement officials, the King County sheriff, the entire Seattle City Council, public-health experts, African-American leaders and the state labor council — backed the measure. John McKay, U.S. attorney in Seattle under the George W. Bush administration, became a public face of the campaign.
The initiative faced surprisingly little organized opposition. The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs and a state drug-treatment-prevention group were opposed, but did not raise money to counter I-502's $2.8 million TV-ad spending in October.
At debates, police and treatment providers predicted I-502 would lead to marijuana use, especially among teenagers. "It is a grave social injustice to trade the right of a minority to get 'high' for the right of youth to grow up drug free," said Derek Franklin, president of the drug-treatment group.
The loudest opposition came from some in the medical-marijuana industry, who said they feared being ensnared by I-502's DUI law, which does not exempt patients.
The DUI law also sets a zero-tolerance level for marijuana for drivers under 21, significantly stiffening current law.
Initiative 502 does not change the medical-marijuana law, leading to allegations that opposition from the industry was self-serving.
Tuesday's result was quickly hailed by activists such as Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He called I-502 "the single most important thing in the marijuana legalization movement in the last 75 years," and predicted it will become a template for other states to confront the federal ban on marijuana.
"That's exactly what happened at the end of alcohol prohibition. I think that's exactly what's going to happen here," Stroup said.
CBS Denver:
The statewide amendment to legalize marijuana use for adults in Colorado has passed.
Amendment 64 supporters were ecstatic at their gathering in Denver Tuesday night when news came down.
“Marijuana prohibition has failed in Colorado and it has failed in all sorts of other places,” Amendment 64 advocacy director Betty Aldworth told CBS4. “I’m so proud and so honored to have worked with this team of people and to live in a state where people recognize marijuana prohibition is a failure and we can do better.
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| Colorado |
The amendment allows adults over 21 to possess as much as an ounce of pot. It also allows people to grow as many as six pot plants in secure, private areas.
Supporters believe legalization will generate tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue for Colorado.
The approval of the amendment puts Colorado in defiance of federal drug law.
“It’s still against federal law,” Gov. John Hickenlooper told CBS News anchor Scott Pelley about an hour later. “I’m not sure we can make it as legal as the voters would like us to do. But clearly the will of the voters spoke.”
Hickenlooper, who opposed the measure, said it’s “not immediately apparent” how the amendment will hold up against the national law.
Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office released a statement after the measure’s passage, saying the “Department of Justice’s enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged.”
“In enacting the Controlled Substances Act, Congress determined that marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance. We are reviewing the ballot initiative and have no additional comment at this time,” Dorschner said.
State voters rejected recreational pot in 2006, but Aldworth said this measure comes at a time when voters have a different mindset, thanks in part to the burgeoning medical marijuana industry in several areas of the state.
“Amendment 64 is quite different from Amendment 44 in 2006 in that it envisions the regulated model for marijuana sales whereas Amendment 44 only decriminalized for adult use,” she said. “What we know is that Colorado voters have accepted the idea that we can regulate marijuana like alcohol successfully and we can make a safer, healthier and more just Colorado by doing so.”
The measure had the backing of the NAACP, the ACLU and the state public defender’s office, but most major state leaders came out in opposition.
Roger Sherman, the No on 64 campaign director, released a statement just after 9 p.m. on Election Day conceding the race:
“We knew all along this was an uphill battle against a well-funded national movement. We appreciate the efforts of Governor John Hickenlooper, former Governors Bill Owens and Bill Ritter, Attorney General John Suthers, Mayors Michael Hancock and Steve Hogan and countless other sheriffs, county commissioners, district attorneys and local elected officials who joined with the business community and citizens of Colorado to oppose this ill-conceived amendment.
“We can only hope that our concerns and fears about amending the Constitution to make Colorado the first state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana do not come true.”
The states of Oregon and Washington also had pot legalization amendments on the ballot, and at least one of those states — Washington — also approved their measure.
Colorado is already one of 17 states that allow marijuana use by people with certain medical conditions.
