Pubdate: Thu, 02 Apr 2015
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2015 Boulder Weekly
Contact:  http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Leland Rucker

'GAZETTE' CANNABIS PACKAGE SERVES UP PURPLE HAZE

The Gazette in Colorado Springs last week published a package about 
cannabis legalization in the state under the banner "Clearing the Haze."

The paper has been known for its excellent journalism and its 
reporters honored for their work, most recently a Pulitzer last year 
for a news series exposing how easily veterans can lose benefits for 
minor offenses after their discharge. A comprehensive series on the 
pros and cons of marijuana legalization is something Coloradans are 
always seeking.

But "Clearing the Haze" doesn't feature the work of David Philipps, 
whose journalism deservedly won the 2014 prize, or any other of the 
excellent news reporters on the staff. Rather, we get Reefer Madness 
repackaged in a contemporary browser wrapper. Harry Anslinger and 
Richard Nixon would be proud.

That's because it was written by two members of The Gazette's 
editorial staff, one of which is former Boulder Weekly editor Wayne 
Laugesen, as well as Christine Tatum, a reporter turned 
prohibitionist who uses her husband, Christian Thurstone, medical 
director of a youth substance-abuse-treatment clinic at CU-Denver, as 
a primary source. Though authorship isn't hidden, it isn't promoted, either.

Besides reflecting those sorts of bias, "Clearing the Haze" does no 
reporting, instead rehashing a lot of the things that actual 
reporters have uncovered in almost every other newspaper in the state 
and, using carefully cherry-picked data, casts legalization in the 
worst possible light. No pro-legalization people are quoted or mentioned.

Legalization hasn't been perfect, but one editorial's main take is 
that sales tax numbers didn't match the state's early projections. 
Well, duh. Anybody knows that "projections" are just guesses, or that 
in 2013 any "expert" could pull a number out of his ass and call it a 
projection. Marijuana has been a black-market commodity for so long 
that no one had a clue how much tax revenue was going to come in or 
how many users there might be. So there was no promised windfall, and 
the state "only" collected $76 million? Travesty.

Another blames the state for not having legislated away the black 
market, which has been flourishing for many decades, in the first 15 
months of legalization. Tell us something we don't already know.

But that's not the intent. "Addressing Driver Impairment Difficult" 
never gets around to addressing the headline. The difficulty with 
addressing driver impairment is that marijuana doesn't interact with 
the body like alcohol, so it can't be tested like alcohol. Today's 
examinations can detect exactly how many nanograms of THC there are 
in a milliliter of your blood, but they can't show impairment.

The Gazette blames legalization for that, even though thousands of 
people were driving stoned long before legalization. Another takes 
the state regulatory system to task for not having gotten everything 
right from the start, as if changing bad laws into better ones 
shouldn't need any revisions.

"Sunday's stories suggest the net gain from taxes and fees related to 
marijuana sales will not be known for a while, as costs are not known 
or tracked well," says one editorial, "and there are many other 
unknowns about pot's effects on public health and safety." Despite 
that caveat, the authors drone on for another 15 paragraphs 
speculating recklessly about health effects anyway.

In one harrowing editorial, a troubled teen in an addiction program 
calls cannabis a gateway drug that is being marketed to kids. But - 
and this is the really scary part - in his telling teen use is 
tolerated, often encouraged by adults and parents around him, some 
who use cannabis with their kids. He even says that extends to school 
teachers and police officers who look the other way at teens using it 
illegally.

The story, of course, leans heavily on what the writers refer to as 
addiction and pushes hard on the theory that legalization is just big 
business trying to hook teens much as tobacco companies did in the 
1950s-'60s. Quotes come from health officials and "addiction 
specialists," and Kevin Sabet, the most out spoken promoter of the 
Big Tobacco theory as head of the anti-legalization lobbying group 
Smart Approaches to Marijuana, is a source.

The story suggests that, were it not for marijuana, the kid would be 
fine. Perhaps that's true, and I'm not unaware of the influence that 
big business could have on the cannabis biz. But there is no evidence 
that today's owners and operators in Colorado are advertising to or 
selling cannabis to minors.

Apparently, if the teen is right, that's more than we can say about 
what a lot of parents, adults and authority figures are doing behind 
their own locked doors. But the point The Gazette misses is that the 
willingness of parents to tolerate and encourage teen use has nothing 
to do with whether it's legal or not, and blaming the state for the 
actions of irresponsible people undermines the editorial staff 's 
entire argument for continuing the Drug War.

And, of course, no mention is made of the more than 90 percent of 
people who use cannabis, many on a daily or weekly basis, some for 
medical reasons, some for fun, who go through their daily lives like 
anybody else, many of those who the so-called "specialists" would 
probably classify as "addicted."

It's disappointing and disturbing that so-called "journalists" could 
fall so low. I can only imagine what responsible reporters at The 
Gazette who could have offered an honest, perhaps award-winning look 
at legalization think about a charade like this.

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