Crime Does Not Pay. In Fact It Costs Taxpayers Dearly. While incarcerating the bad guys keeps them off the streets so they can't do more crime, the cost of housing them is tremendous, and the bill keeps rising. What's driving much of the crime is the use of illegal drugs, for users need to steal to pay for their habit. Now the state's prison population is growing, and new and expanded prisons are being called for. Ari Zavaras, executive director of the Department of Corrections, addressed that need to the Legislature's Capital Development Committee, which prioritizes state construction needs other than highways. [continues 199 words]
James Masters quotes Abraham Lincoln - "Revolutions do not go backwards" - when speaking about the progress of the medical marijuana movement from inside the PVMC, otherwise known as Poudre Valley Medical Cannabis. The space is, in fact, Northern Colorado's first medical marijuana dispensary, and since opening its doors in October, James and his wife, Lisa, have sought to emancipate sufferers of cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma by using cannabis to cope with and alleviate their illnesses. [continues 844 words]
Aspen Skiing Co. has changed its drug testing policy for employees who are injured on the job, who damage company equipment in an accident, or who are in a situation where a guest has been injured. Employees in those and other circumstances are no longer automatically required to take a mandatory drug test to determine if there are threshold levels of marijuana, cocaine, opium or barbiturates in their bloodstream. Instead, employees will only be tested if their supervisor, a supervisor or manager at a higher level, and someone from the human resources department all determine that a drug test is reasonable. [continues 704 words]
No doubt without intending to, a U.S. Justice Department report on the ambitious federal marijuana plant eradication program, documents that the campaign has not only failed to make much of a dent in the marijuana marketplace, it has had the perverse effect of driving producers to indoor sites, notably to suburban homes. In other words, if one of your neighbors has converted the place to an indoor marijuana plantation, guarded by somewhat unsavory-looking characters who look as if they might be packing heat and attracting a number of disreputable-looking hangers-on, you can thank the state and federal governments. It's your tax dollars at work; except that the drug war isn't working. [continues 199 words]
A Fort Collins couple and their lawyer plan to visit the Larimer County sheriff's office Wednesday in hopes of recovering 39 marijuana plants seized by narcotics officers during a raid at their home in August 2006. A Larimer County District Court Judge ruled Monday that authorities must return the plants and growing equipment taken from James and Lisa Masters. Their lawyer described them as medical marijuana providers for themselves and about 8 to 10 other people. Brian Vincente, lawyer for the couple, hopes authorities have taken care of the plants as provided by the state's medical marijuana law, which was approved by voters in 2000. [continues 361 words]
State Should Closely Monitor Those Who Assist Medical Pot Patients Denver District Judge Larry Naves made the right call when he recently ordered the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to stop enforcing a regulation that limited patients' ability to obtain medical marijuana. Naves overturned a 2004 health department policy that said any caregiver listed with the state's medical marijuana registry can provide pot to no more than five patients. We don't know if five is the right number - nor did the judge offer any guidance - but the department set that limit in secret with no public comment, and violated the state's laws that govern how regulations are developed. [continues 414 words]
(Re: "The people want pot," In Case You Missed It, Nov. 15.) No truer words are spoken when you say, "The people want pot," and Washington politics as usual is the reason why marijuana is the backbone of the drug war and medical marijuana is under siege. Drug issues are so easily jumbled in our drug policy, and we have so little meaningful debate. Myths about the world's No. 1 illicit drug trump science. Law enforcement claims "we do not make the laws," yet each time, as if on-cue, they are available to espouse many myths as drug experts in the witness process where government considers laws. The drug war is a sacred cow no one will talk about honestly. It is only when marijuana and harm-reduction issues result in congressmen losing elections will things change. It is for our children we should have a regulated marijuana market and keep it out in the open. Peter Christopher Hurdle Mills, N.C. [end]
Props to the Boulder Weekly! In the column In Case You Missed It, the headline summed up the whole pot debate in four words: the people want pot. What is difficult to understand about that? Why do police feel they need to puff and bluster with the old "we are following state law" or "the federal law" when in places like Denver the people have spoken? This country exists for and by "the people." There may be 3 branches of government but those 3 branches grow from a main trunk -- us, we, the people. "They" answer to "us." [continues 74 words]
A federal commission should make changes to crack-sentencing laws retroactive, freeing many who were jailed in the 1980s. Disproportionately harsh federal prison sentences for crack cocaine offenders is an injustice that has been smoldering for two decades. The U.S. Sentencing Commission, a presidentially appointed body that sets federal court policies and practices, recently changed those crack penalties so they are in keeping with punishments for other drugs. But the commission still is contemplating whether to make those changes retroactive so that 19,500 prisoners serving unfairly long sentences can petition to be released. Of them, 115 were sentenced in Colorado. [continues 476 words]
It sounds too good to be true. A patient walks into his doctor's office and admits he's been drinking too much or tells the doctor he wants to quit smoking. The doctor writes a prescription. The patient drinks less or throws away the cigarettes. Such a scenario is not likely in the near future, if ever, but researchers are beginning to tease out the brain chemistry of addiction -- or at least find drugs that allow them to tinker with the neurochemical machinery of substance abuse. [continues 957 words]
Policy Overturned That Set a 5-Patient Limit Per Provider Access to medical marijuana will be easier as a result of a ruling by a Denver judge. District Judge Larry Naves last week overturned a state health department policy that restricted providers of medical marijuana to five patients. The ruling endorses a settlement reached between the health department and attorneys for AIDS patient Damien LaGoy, who sued after his caregiver request was denied in May based on the five-patient rule. [continues 295 words]
Access to medical marijuana will be easier under a ruling by a Denver judge. Denver District Judge Larry Naves last week overturned a state health department policy that restricted providers of medical marijuana to five patients. Damien LaGoy, who uses marijuana to control nausea from AIDS wasting-syndrome and hepatitis C, sued the health department after his caregiver request was denied by the health department in May based on the five patient rule. The policy was adopted by the health department in a closed meeting in 2004. Naves overturned the policy, saying it violated the Colorado open meetings act and the administrative procedures act. "I feel safer already," LaGoy said. "Now I can get my medicine from a safe and responsible caregiver instead of taking my chances on the streets. [end]
Loveland resident Jeremy Chad Myers walked from a district courtroom Thursday with tears in his eyes and said he feels "as innocent as ever." Myers considers himself vindicated because 8th Judicial District prosecutors dropped all drug charges against him for what three reports show is a false accusation he was cooking and using methamphetamine in his home at the old sugar factory in Loveland. Colorado Bureau of Investigation tests on substances seized by the Larimer County Drug Task Force seized after a no-knock raid in September all came back "no controlled substances;" no amphetamine, no ephedrine, for which initial on-site screens tested positive. [continues 572 words]
In 2005, prompted by the pro-ganja SAFER organization, Denver potheads rejoiced as the city voted to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. The new measure allowed for Mile High residents over the age of 21 to legally possess under an ounce of weed. However, residents began to notice that marijuana busts weren't really subsiding after the new pot-friendly era began. Even though some people took their possession tickets to court and won, The Man was still seeking out hungry, glossy-eyed citizens, whose major crimes consisted of spilling bong water and cranking Dark Side of the Moon, and charging them under state and federal laws. So what's a stoner to do? [continues 111 words]
Dear Editor, As a Christian it's definitely time to stop caging responsible adult humans for using the relatively safe God-given plant cannabis (Denver Did It - Could Telluride Legalize Marijuana? Nov. 7, 2007) and one reason that doesn't get mentioned is because it is Biblically correct. Christ God Our Father, The Ecologician, indicates He created all the seed-bearing plants, saying they are all good, on literally the very first page. The only Biblical restriction placed on cannabis is that it is to be accepted with thankfulness (see 1 Timothy 4:1-5). What kind of people support persecuting, prohibiting and exterminating what God says is good? Truthfully, Stan White Dillon, Colo. [end]
Telluride, Colo. - As more and more families struggle with the impacts of methamphetamine addiction, finding even the simplest of support systems is a challenge. Just ask Richard Harding, an Olathe resident well-known for his interest in local politics and community service. Harding and his wife have joined a support group called "Kinship Families," designed to help those whose loved ones have become entangled in the web of meth addiction. Kinship Families is sponsored by the Mental Health Center in Montrose. [continues 729 words]
Hayley Jaqua has a big problem. Jaqua is a 25-year-old full-time student at Metropolitan State College of Denver and an anthropology major who also works part time at a trendy restaurant on the 16th Street Mall. In September, Jaqua was ticketed for possessing a small amount of marijuana. I've spoken to Jaqua only once, so I dare not vouch for the incorruptibility of her soul. But from what I can tell, we have a pleasant and bright person here - a woman whose only brush with the law before this incident was an improperly licensed dog in 2003. [continues 638 words]
Sometimes, I wonder if I've gone down the wrong path in life. Sure, I'm happily married, my family is in good health, I have a career that both fulfills and challenges me and, despite the strike by the Writers Guild of America, I've discovered an entire season of a complex and sexy, new HBO drama series on Comcast's On Demand service. Yet, notwithstanding the richness of my life, I still have moments when I kind of wish I were into drugs. [continues 792 words]
Telluride, Colo. - The city of Denver passed another marijuana law Tuesday. The city that already legalized pot told the city's cops to make marijuana possession their "lowest law-enforcement priority." Sound familiar? It should. In 2005, a similar measure narrowly failed in Telluride, 332-308. But the success of anti-prohibition laws in Denver, Seattle, Oakland and other cities has encouraged one local activist to consider giving it another shot here. "It's worked great in a lot of cities," says Ernest Eich, who supported and promoted the 2005 initiative. "Is Telluride really less progressive than Denver?" [continues 597 words]
DENVER - A Prohibition Party campaign song says, "I'd rather be right than president." By that score, Earl Dodge was right six times. Dodge, an activist in the Prohibition Party since 1952, ran for president in every campaign since 1984. He died Wednesday, the same week his family received campaign buttons for his seventh bid for the White House in 2008. He was 74. Dodge lived in the Denver suburb of Lakewood. He collapsed and died at Denver International Airport at the start of a business trip, said his daughter, Faith Nelson. The cause of death had not been determined. [continues 326 words]
Inside Colorado
