Passage of marijuana law in Denver
Congratulations to Denver voters for absolutely stubbing their collective toes on this one. The marijuana initiative passed. Where do I possibly begin? In the first instance, the rationale of this “law” begs credulity. According to Mason Tvert, head of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, marijuana is not as bad as alcohol, so it should be legal. Ha! That’s brilliant. Why not legalize petty larceny because it’s not as bad as grand larceny? Is a stoned driver safer than a drunk one?
But that’s just the small stuff. The big picture here is the message the initiative and the vote sent to kids. My 13- and 12-year-old boys finished the DARE program in school in sixth grade. Both of them benefitted from the program. My youngest even won an award for writing an essay on the evils of drug, cigarette and alcohol use and abuse. What should I tell them now? That marijuana “isn’t that bad” so it’s legal now? Should I undermine the entire message of DARE (which our tax dollars fund) and give the SAFER sophistry about how it’s better to get stoned than drunk? I think I just fell down the rabbit hole.
Michael Kranitz, Lone Tree
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I couldn’t agree more with Attorney General John Suthers when he 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.”
We need that “full-out debate” because marijuana is truly safe to legalize. Decades of misinformation have done a number on us all, and it’s time we look for ways to correct our shameful laws – laws that do nothing but force decent citizens to enrich the crooked justice system. Good for Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation for bringing this matter to the nation’s attention. The sooner we get to the truth about marijuana, the better.
Melanie Marshall, Leavenworth, Kan.
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I was amused at The Post’s headline announcing that the Denver marijuana legalization initiative passed by a “thin margin,” despite the fact that it passed by a significantly larger margin than Referendum C did.
Marijuana has never killed anyone, yet we fill our prisons with those who use it. Alcohol kills tens of thousands of Americans every year, but remains legal. A majority of the voters in Denver understand that this is an insane double standard.
There are many studies that demonstrate that alcohol is linked to domestic violence, while marijuana is not. SAFER’s campaign was honest and brought important facts to the public. Thank you, SAFER, for struggling against the decades-long misinformation campaign that our government has waged against marijuana.
Devin Nordberg, Boulder
Referendum D
Re: “Funding highways after Ref.
D’s defeat,” Nov. 3 editorial.
I’ve heard and read many comments
on the defeat of Referendum
D, and it seems like the prevailing
opinion is that voters rejected the
idea of borrowing to pay for roads.
It’s not that simple, because Referendum
D was not that simple.
Transportation was a large portion
of the borrowing, but some of that
debt was earmarked for education
buildings and for pension obligations.
It’s very likely some voters
disliked the idea of borrowing to
make a pension payment. Those advocating
passage of C and D focused
on the transportation needs
when they mentioned D at all,
which implies that perhaps the argument
for the other spending
wasn’t as persuasive.
Colorado voters should have been
given the chance to vote on each of
the spending areas of ReferendumD
individually. Given the sorry condition
of the transportation infrastructure
and the narrow margin of defeat,
it’s likely CDOT would today
be moving ahead with its original
plans if the politicians hadn’t made
it an all-or-nothing deal.
The Post’s editorial cautions
statehouse officials to take care in
transportation financing because
voters rejected borrowing. It’s not
clear to me that they did.
Jim Reiss, Littleton
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Re: “Pot issue passes by thin margin,” Nov. 2 news story.
