Tens of thousands of revelers raised joints, pipes and vaporizer devices to the sky Sunday at a central Denver park in a defiant toast to the April 20 pot holiday, a once-underground celebration that stepped into the mainstream in the first state in the nation to legalize recreational marijuana.
The 4:20 p.m. smoke-out in the shadow of the Colorado capitol was the capstone of an Easter weekend dedicated to cannabis in states across the country. Although it is still against the law to publicly smoke marijuana in Colorado, police reported only 130 citations or arrests over the course of the two-day event, 92 for marijuana consumption.
Well that's cool. Ninety-two pot citations with tens of thousands of smokers. That's less than one percent who so much as get charged when they make a point of publicly getting zapped. (Not that anything is likely to happen with these charges except that they'll be quietly dismissed in the bye-and-bye).
Is there a problem with telling the voters there will be strong "safeguards," then blowing (pun intended) right past them? Well, no, not if you're a druggie, or the PR outfit that does their campaign.
Intelligent minds differ about the need for a war on drugs and laws against pot. Yet, few on either side thought state government would promote marijuana use with a slick, multimillion-dollar marketing campaign.
I'll close with two observations. The first is obvious: We got lied to. The disadvantages of legalized pot are more than we were told they would be, and the advantages are less. The "safeguards" were heard so much about haven't been enforced and aren't going to be. The idea that this was wary permission, not glitzy promotion, was a fabrication. What does this tell you about the people who were pushing them to begin with? What does it tell you about what your attitude should be when you hear similar "what-me-worry" assurances from like-minded groups -- for example, those (largely motivated, they say, by the fate of "low level" drug defendants) who promise that when we start the mass jailbreak they want through "smarter sentencing," we'll get no more crime?It began Monday, just a year after Colorado launched the world's first wide-scale, store-front, take-out sales of a drug that's illegal in most of the world. The initial $5.7 million to fund the ads will come from pot taxes that were supposed to be used for drug education. If these ads are educational, so was Joe Camel.
State officials said the first series of print, radio and TV ads target tourists. They announced plans to direct future ads at pregnant mothers, teens, parents and Hispanics. All media reports emphasize the ads are not intended to discourage marijuana use.
"This is not an aversion campaign," said Larry Wolk, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, speaking at a press conference Monday.
You heard it right.
Tax money will buy a recreational-drug marketing campaign -- aimed at children, women and minorities -- that's "not about aversion."
The Associated Press, after a press conference announcing the campaign, reported the ads will tell people "just to use it safely." Meanwhile, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests the drug cannot be used safely.
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Understanding how anti-vice and pro-vice campaigns work, state officials have chosen the latter. The following passage from a March article in Time magazine may provide an explanation:
"The Colorado Legislative Council, the nonpartisan research arm of the state legislature, has weighed in with its own estimate of how much legalizing retail marijuana will be worth: about $57 million in extra tax revenue. That's less than half of what Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper's office estimated last month, and nearly $10 million less than voters were told they should expect each fiscal year before legalizing the substance in 2012."
What do you want me or other bloggers to say about the assassinations in New York and Paris, Bill, especially given that government officials have seemingly imposed an "on the ground" death penalty for the horrific folks who have committed the horrific crimes?
Posts like this one confirm my view that you are Bill, a classic big government conservative. You think it "beyond odd" that so many folks are concerned about arguably the most ineffective and costly form of government control/spending in recent decades?
What I find odd, Bill, is how you dispute that a true commitment to conservative principles of personal freedom, small/efficient government, states rights and free markets should make one seriously concerned about pot prohibition (especially at the federal level). What it really shows, of course, is that you are not ultimately seriously committed to personal freedom, small/efficient government, states rights and free markets, but rather are principally committed to bemoaning (and justify more government based on) the dark soul of criminality.
Doug --
You ask, "What do you want me or other bloggers to say about the assassinations in New York and Paris...?"
I would like you to say that you unequivocally support the right of the jury to impose the death penalty for (1) premeditated murder of a policeman, (2) multiple murder, and (3) murder resulting from acts of terrorism.
Will you do that?
Bill, I resist unequivocal support of anything, but I certainly favor giving sentences broad discretion to sentence and I favor sentencing authority to generally include alternatives to imprisonment. I also like your list of the types of crimes that should generally be the basis for the death penalty. Are you suggesting these are the only crimes for which the death penalty should be unequivocally available?
Doug,
"I resist unequivocal support of anything..."
You had me fooled. I would have bet a princely sum that you unequivocally supported the SSA. Indeed, I can't think of anything even arguably equivocal about it.
"I favor sentencing authority to generally include alternatives to imprisonment."
The phrase "alternatives to imprisonment" virtually always refers to probation, home confinement, restitution and the like. So when you say you "generally" favor alternatives to imprisonment, does that mean that, for some kinds of murder, you specifically favor giving the jury the option of imposing the death penalty?
"Are you suggesting these are the only crimes for which the death penalty should be unequivocally available?"
No. I used them because the New York and Paris episodes include them. They are by no means an exhaustive list. Murder by torture, felony murder, child murder, contract murder, and murder of a judge, juror, witness or prosecutor would also make my non-exhaustive list of crimes for which the jury should be able to consider the DP. As would aggravated rape, see, e.g., the dissent in Kennedy v. Louisiana.
I think the SSA is inferior to the JSVA and it is also flawed for its continued reliance on drug quantities. Thus, my support of the SSA is equivocal in many respects.
I tend to think the death penalty is another imperfect govt program, but I am open to permitting its employment. I am not an abolitionist, as I think you know.
Meanwhile, I continue to struggle with why you do not see opposition to federal pot prohibition as an expression of modern conservative values.
OK, you unequivocally support decreasing the prison population. I think I'm safe in saying that is one example of your unequivocal support for something.
I would add that you sure seem unequivocally to support an expansion of executive branch review and positive action on clemency requests.
Mainstream conservatives support, ultimately, a virtuous society. Freedom is a hugely important part of that, but not the only part. A sober, i.e., non-impaired citizenry is also a part. The Framers placed criminal limits on alcohol consumption and all but the most fruitcake libertarians would this day continue criminal limits on drug consumption (e.g., no kids, no addicts). It's not a question of black v. white; it's a question of (as you often say) nuance. Specifically, it's a question of HOW illegal drugs are going to be, under what conditions, and with what penalties.