Today in history

December 10, 2012: It officially became legal for people in Colorado to possess an ounce of marijuana or up to 6 plants under state law.

Marijuana Legalized in Colorado with Hickenlooper Proclamation

He tweeted his declaration Monday and sent an executive order to reporters by email after the fact. That prevented a countdown to legalization as seen in Washington, where the law’s supporters gathered to smoke in public.

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42 Responses to Today in history

  1. darkcycle says:

    It may have preempted the party, but it will force Uncle’s hand.

    • kaptinemo says:

      “It may have preempted the party, but it will force Uncle’s hand.”

      Good. I sincerely hope so.

      I really do. For Uncle has stepped into that minefield I’m always blathering about. Any move they make, short of making no move at all, will be politically explosive…for both the Administration and all future Democratic Party endeavors. And they know it.

      As the vote tally proves, cannabis was more popular than President Choom. That was that generational shift speaking, loud and clear. The drug policy benighted oldsters, the party machine people, are dying off, and today’s voters are more issue oriented and less likely to vote a ‘straight ticket’…and the Dems know it. The Dems know that the days of their party are numbered if the Administration makes hostile moves against that ‘will of the people’…and the voters WILL retaliate.

      Because, in truth, they already have. The importance of this cannot be over-emphasized: What happened on Election Day was a rebuke, a refutation, a vote of no confidence in the DrugWar itself, on the part of those for whom it was supposedly fought.

      The younger voters who’ve had “Just Say No!” dinned in their ears literally their whole lives by people they knew were acting self-servingly in doing so…turned around and gave those people a long-delayed ear-ringing slap in the face. They have served notice that they are not only onto the racket but that they want it to end

      The signals were there all along. From the beginning the (truly progressive) ‘Internet people’ Obama referred to so condescendingly gently, diplomatically tried to get the point across at those online Town Meetings as to how important an issue this is. But President Choom thought he could shuck and jive and dissemble and dodge.

      And now? Now he and the Dems have gotten notice that the jig’s up, the game’s over…and it’s time to realize those younger voters are watching what happens next with very sharp eyes. Younger voters the Dems desperately need to survive, with their former ‘base’ on a conveyor belt to oblivion. Younger voters the Dems cannot afford to p*ss off. And there are more of them than Obama has DrugWar-profiting bankster buddies.

      • Duncan20903 says:

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        I really hate to be the one to say this but after all the votes were counted Mr. Obama got 1,321,259 and Amendment 64 got 1,291,771. I’m guessing absentee ballots?
        http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2012/results/colorado

        The apparent discrepancy in percentages is explained by the fact that not everyone who cast a ballot voted one way or the other on the Amendment 64 question.

      • What I am wondering is what the Republicans are going to make about all that PAC $$$ they got from the Alcohol Industry? They have a bigger minefield to cross than the Dems do.

      • Cliff says:

        It will be very interesting to find out how many Republicans will stand up and defend Colorado’s and Washington’s decision to legalize cannabis as a states’ rights issue.

        However, I expect them to keep the WOsD coffers full to overflowing with taxpayer lucre and unleash a new psy-ops campaign to make cannabis consumers appear even more evil, reckless and a greater danger to children and soccer moms everywhere.

    • Windy says:

      Interesting article on the conflict between the States and the fed gov:
      http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=3513
      Some highlights FTA:
      Anything the Constitution does not specifically empower the federal government to do remains the domain of the states and individuals.
      snip
      As Sheldon Richman notes, “Nullification should not be conflated with states’ rights. This issue is about the real rights of individuals, not the alleged rights of state governments.”
      snip
      Throughout American history, nullification served to combat human rights abuses more than to perpetuate injustice. Jefferson and Madison crafted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions to nullify John Adams’s Alien and Sedition Acts and defend free speech. Before the Civil War, the federal government backed the Slave Power, particularly with its Fugitive Slave Law. State governments fought back with personal liberty laws, standing between federal officials and runaway slaves. For more on the civil libertarian legacy of nullification, see William Watkins, Reclaiming the American Revolution: The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and Their Legacy (Palgrave Macmillan: 2004) and Tom Woods, Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century (Regnery: 2010).
      snip
      Meanwhile, the nationalization of civil liberties has fallen short. In the 20th century, liberal federal judges began defending Bill of Rights protections against state governments, but this trend reversed by the 1980s. For example, between 1982 and 1991, the Supreme Court “heard argument in 30 Fourth Amendment cases involving narcotics,” noted Justice Stevens in his dissent in California v. Acevedo (1990). “All save two involved a search or seizure without a warrant or with a defective warrant. And, in all except three, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the search or seizure.”

      On this trend, Michelle Alexander writes in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New Press, 2010), “Virtually all constitutionally protected civil liberties have been undermined by the drug war. The Court has been busy in recent years … upholding random searches and sweeps of public schools and students, permitting police to obtain search warrants based on an anonymous informant’ås tip, expanding the government’s wiretapping authority, legitimating the use of paid, unidentified informants by policy and prosecutors, approving the use of helicopter surveillance of homes without a warrant, and allowing the forfeiture of cash, homes, and other property based on unproven allegations of illegal drug activity” (p. 62). The states wage this drug war largely thanks to the federal government’s direction, financing, and arming, as Alexander explains.

  2. bigparty says:

    The big party will be in DC.

  3. Deep Dish says:

    On this day in history, in 1948, the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. How ironic! Colorado is now a signatory.

  4. SCOOBY says:

    YYYeeeeeeeehhhhoooooo………!!!!!!!!!!!

  5. Francis says:

    No countdown, eh? Man, he really outmaneuvered us there. I bet the stoners in CO were pissed when they discovered their freedom had been restored unexpectedly early. 🙂

  6. Klay says:

    I just got back from vacation in Colorado last week. Now can I come up with a reason to go back again this quickly?

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      I can’t imagine a better reason. Hell, we all ought to go to Colorado, sort of a DWR family re-union and see what kind of mischief that we can get into. Discreetly of course. I can’t even imagine how embarrassing to would be to end up serving a jail term for criminal mischief. We’d all end up sitting on the Group W bench indeed.

      I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. `Cause I wanted to
      Look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted
      To feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York,
      And I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all
      Kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things. And I walked in and sat down and they gave
      Me a piece of paper, said, “Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604.”

      And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I
      Wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
      Guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,
      KILL, KILL.” And I started jumpin up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL,” and
      He started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down
      Yelling, “KILL, KILL.” And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me,
      Sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”

  7. Tony Aroma says:

    No need to worry about protecting state and local employees administering the program. They are already explicitly protected under the Controlled Substances Act. OBVIOUSLY, otherwise local police would be subject to federal prosecution every time they were in possession of a controlled substance.

  8. allan says:

    hmmm… while it’s a Today In History moment, it’s a plus-one-month today thing…

    The use of the Berlin Wall as an analogy of the drug war is (I think) (or at least been accused of it) a couch fave, so just as a bit of inspiration, appreciation and recognition:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmRPP2WXX0U

  9. Chris says:

    With Colorado’s home grow provision, doesn’t this mean that it will be legal to grow a huge amount (6 plants at a time) and keep it at your house? I wonder how long it will take for some determined people to amass a legal lifetime supply.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      6 plants is a huge amount? Chris the major flaw in using that descriptor is that a plant of merrywanna is not a standardized unit of measure.

      BTW it’s 3 mature and 3 immature, not 6 plants. There is a significant difference between the two.

      • Chris says:

        Just like michigan’s law would allow for an unlimited amount of drying branches, this appears to allow you to store the results of as many grows as you want in a home. I did read that it is 3/3, but that’s not the point; you can store an unlimited amount regardless of the plant count.

      • claygooding says:

        I have an 18 passenger school bus parked and up on jacks waiting for a six plant system like you describe,planting two clones every month on a 6 month completion cycle and starting 2 clones every 2 months. After the first crop is harvested you will be harvesting every 2 months. I am harvesting on a 4 month schedule now because my cabinet is less than half the height of the bus and 2 plants that size won’t produce enough bud,,but 2 months added vegetation would.

        • Chris says:

          There’s no size limit on these six plants is there? Go big!

        • claygooding says:

          Chris,it has to be indoors and therefore limited by cabinet ceiling height now and available height in the bus,,which is 6 ft 2 in,,,that is why I only produce appx 3 ozs bud per month right now but when I move grow into the bus I will harvest appx 3/4 lb every two months,enough to smoke only buds with plenty of trim to make cannabutter with.

  10. Duncan20903 says:

    .
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    A newly released scientific study demonstrates that food is the gateway drug to merrywanna. Keep your kid off drugs and don’t let him get addicted to food! It really is true. This is compelling evidence supporting the assertion that you just can’t predict what will come out of a prohibitionist’s mouth.

    Youth who overeat more likely to take up drugs

    (Reuters Health) – Kids and teens who reported overeating, including binge eating, were more likely to start using marijuana and other drugs in a new study based on surveys of close to 17,000 youth.

    Binge eating – defined by loss of control during overeating – was also tied to a higher chance of depression and becoming overweight or obese, researchers found.

    “Physicians and parents should be aware that both overeating and binge eating are quite common in adolescents, and these problems put them at risk for other problems, such as drug use,” said Kendrin Sonneville, the study’s lead author from Boston Children’s Hospital.
    /snip/

    Will they keep moving back in time until they realize that sexual intercourse is the true gateway to a very serious life long addiction to heroin/meth/crack? No one can deny that every single drug addict had parents who had participated in at least one act of sexual intercourse.

    • strayan says:

      Schools are a hotbed of over-fed children. The only rational response is to prohibit all types of food on school grounds.

      BRING IN THE DOGS!

      …and the blood sugar tests. Any increase in blood sugar will result in immediate expulsion!

  11. claygooding says:

    Just prohibit schooling and all our children will become Rhode scholars if our government enforces it.

  12. Matthew Meyer says:

    OT:

    U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack spoke to hundreds at Weaverville’s [Trinity County, CA] Veteran’s Memorial Hall on Monday night, telling the crowd that most of the country has lost sight of the opportunity and impact of farming.

    Lotsa Tea Party and Agenda 21 stuff (he didn’t know what they were talking about), but this being the Emerald Triangle, the topic of cannabis came up, too.

    And this is what the Ag Secretary told the crowd:

    Vilsack also talked about the need to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil supplies, modify the federal environmental review process and find more uses for marijuana.

    “This is a product that has agricultural opportunities,” he said of marijuana.

    So the Secretary of Agriculture thinks we should find more uses for pot, huh? I wonder what his boss thinks of that…

    • darkcycle says:

      He told Shasta County THAT? Every person in that room had a better grasp of exactly what sort of Agricultural Opportunities Cannabis presents than the Secretary.

  13. claygooding says:

    So where will all that ‘legal’ pot come from? Sale of pot stymied

    http://tinyurl.com/aohjv9f

    Washington and Colorado say you can legally smoke marijuana for fun now, but here’s the catch: You can’t legally buy it.

    Voters in those states passed initiatives last month to legalize recreational use of marijuana. As of last Thursday, it’s legal under Washington law for anyone 21 and over to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana, 16 ounces of “solid marijuana-infused product” (in other words, a pound of pot brownies) or 72 ounces of “marijuana-infused liquid.”

    Prohibs available for dissection!

    • kaptinemo says:

      I don’t even have to try. They’ve already been sliced, diced and stir-fried in hemp oil by the time I got there.

      More proofs of evolution: the quick mammal cannabists run mental rings around the ponderous, walnut-brained dinosaurs of prohibition…who can’t sink into History’s tar pit fast enough to suit me!

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