Pubdate: Thu, 20 Nov 2014
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2014 Boulder Weekly
Contact:  http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Leland Rucker

WEED GETS THE VOTES; POT SALES FALL; EDIBLES IN CONFUSION

It should be no surprise that the working group tasked with coming up 
with a recommendation to the legislature about how cannabis edibles 
should be marked ended after four sessions and no consensus.

The working group came about because of House Bill 1366, which 
directs the State Licensing Authority to develop recommendations for 
better ways to clearly mark edibles as cannabis products by 2016. 
Rep. Jonathan Singer, a member of the working group, put it 
succinctly: He wants to distinguish a marijuana edible just as he can 
a regular candy bar.

That doesn't sound difficult, but I attended the first of the four 
sessions - the last was Monday - and it was pretty obvious that the 
stakeholders, which included edibles makers and bakers, parenting 
groups, school, police and revenue officials, testing-center owners 
and advocacy groups, weren't going to be able to agree on much.

So instead of a recommendation, there will be a summary of the 
disagreements sent to the legislature to mull as it begins to 
complete regulations under 1366, and it will then be up to 
legislators and lobbyists to work out the details.

The state health department suggested a commission that would approve 
edibles before they go to market. This doesn't sound promising. Would 
the thousands of products already legally on the market be 
grandfathered in or face a recall process? Most importantly, who 
would have the authority to decide whether something "might be" 
attractive to a teenager? Members of SmartColorado? Edibles makers? 
Teenagers themselves? Would a commission have more luck than the 
working group in consensus-making? And would it trigger lawsuits 
since Amendment 64 allows edibles of all kinds?

Ultimately, this again shows that there is a limit to how much 
government can do to protect everyone from everything. The governor 
pissed away millions of dollars this year trying to scare kids away 
from marijuana. But since kids aren't getting cannabis from legal 
retail stores, how about spending some money aimed at parents and 
adults to remind them that it's up to them to keep their cannabis 
products, like alcohol or guns or poisons, away from their children?

Somehow, I don't see that happening when House Bill 1366 gets to the 
legislature next year and the lobbyists go to work. Look for some 
strange compromises next year.

It's probably not of major importance in the long scheme of things, 
but a couple of interesting facts about the midterm elections were 
that in states where it was on the ballot, more votes were cast for 
legalizing cannabis than for senators and representatives, and the 
state that got the highest percentage of votes didn't pass its initiative.

In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott got 2.8 million votes and Attorney 
General Pam Bondi received 3.2 million. Not bad numbers, but even 
though Amendment 2 failed to reach the 60 percent approval needed for 
passage, it received 3.4 million "yes" votes, which is 58 percent of 
the electorate and more than any elected official in that state.

In Alaska, 116,803 voters cast their ballots for Measure 2, more than 
for winning Rep. Don Young, Gov. Bill Walker or Sen. Dan Sullivan. 
Only Supreme Court Justice Craig Stowers got more votes (118,176) 
than marijuana. Democrats John Kitzhaber and Jeff Merkley won their 
races in Oregon, with 714,411 voting for Kitzhaber for governor and 
792,268 for Merkley as senator. But 822,078 Oregonians voted for 
legalization Measure 91.

"There's clearly a lesson to be learned here," Oregon Rep. Earl 
Blumenauer, who helped get the hemp attachment onto the latest 
federal Farm Bill and appeared with Rep. Jared Polis earlier this 
week with two bipartisan bills that would allow cannabis businesses 
access to banks and regular business deductions, told the Huffington 
Post. "And I sincerely hope that Democrats at the national level are 
paying attention as they start looking to the 2016 elections."

What the votes and rhetoric indicate is that Republicans, as well as 
members of Congress, are joining Democrats to find a way to end the 
war on cannabis. But until Congress sees fit to end its Schedule I 
classification, changes will have to continue on a state level.

That bandwagon is still rolling. In California, Proposition 19, which 
would have made it the first state to legalize cannabis, was defeated 
in 2010. There will most certainly be another one in 2016 that, if 
passed, would make the entire West Coast cannabis-friendly. Look for 
initiatives in at least Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, Hawaii (which 
already has twice as many signatures as it needs), Nevada and perhaps 
even in Missouri for the 2016 ballot.

The FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2013 shows that 693,482 Americans 
were arrested for cannabis in the first year of legalization in 
Colorado and Washington. That's a drop of 56,243 from the previous 
year, a 7.5 percent decline from the 749,825 arrests in 2012. Not all 
arrests are prosecuted or wind up with imprisonment, but that still 
means that more than a half million Americans are still being 
threatened and hassled for nothing more than cannabis possession.

But watching these numbers continue to decline, as they have now for 
four straight years, is encouraging. With Oregon and Alaska joining 
the legal states and many cities, counties and municipalities 
decriminalizing possession every month, hopefully those numbers will 
shrink even more sharply as the years pass.

You can hear Leland discuss his most recent column and Colorado 
cannabis issues each Thursday morning on KGNU. http:// 
news.kgnu.org/category/features/weedbetween-the-lines/
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom