Saturday, April 27, 2013

Lawmakers in Colorado Want to Repeal the Marijuana Law? Are They Nuts?

Three months ago I noted the travesty of local Colorado communities attempting to invoke local laws to skirt around Amendment 64 passed in November with nearly two thirds of the votes.

I observed that, one by one, communities across the state were trying to peck it to death with idiotic "NIMBY" laws. Never mind this violates a STATE constitutional amendment. In principle, ALL the communities were subverting the will of their own voters, and their "laws" emerged as derelict and UNLAWFUL! Douglas County and its associated burgs started this nonsense and then was joined by others. Then, 3 months ago we learned from a Denver Post piece ('Greenwood Village Ordnance to Test Pot Legalization law', Feb. 2, p. 1A) )that the Greenwood Village City Council - undoubtedly packed with Village idiots-  jumped on the 'Ban the MJ in Our Burg' Bandwagon.


According to the Post story:
“An ordinance passed last month in Greenwood Village is poised to become a test case for how far cities can go to keep marijuana out of their communities after legalization.  In early January, the Greenwood Village City Council voted to ban use, possession and transportation of marijuana on city property."

In other words, any citizen of the state of Colorado caught transporting even 1 oz of MJ on village property would be tossed into the hoosegow.

Now, we learn, from today's Denver Post, it's even worse.  Some insane state legislators want to repeal the state constitutional amendment in entirety. They want to actually do an end run to subvert the will of nearly 2 of 3 Colorado voters.  In effect, spitting on their franchise and telling them by their arrogant actions that citizens don't count in this state, no matter how sizeable a majority a laws passes.

Leading the charge, at least one of them- is Rep. Frank McNulty of Highland Park. But as usual there are traitorous Dem reps- pussies involved too. One Dem, House Speaker Mark Ferrandino of Denver was quoted in the Post saying the plan is: "worth the conversation".

Worth the conversation? Overturning the will of the voters? Are U nuts?

Another Dem, Sen. John Morse of Colorado Springs,  blurted: "I am absolutely supportive of the idea."

Oh really? SO you will now add your name to the already long list of Democ- rats we can't trust? Who spout gibberish about being "for the people" but end up doing otherwise!

What's this all about? It's simple really! When Amendment 64 was first proposed - even before CO voters passed it- every freakin' manjack in the legislature knew that many i's would need to be dotted and t's crossed before the bill would emerge this summer. A host of regulations, including to do with taxes, and whether MJ could be smoked in apartments, or shared at houses etc. came to the fore. All of a sudden something that seemed fairly simple became ever more complex and .....our lawmakers punked out...taking the easy route of restriction and now attempted repeal - instead of doing the heavy lifting.

This is pretty typical of political punks in each party, however, so we must not be surprised. Also that many of those in the league of repression and/or repeal are in the pockets of Big PhRmA or Alcohol and don't want to see those special pet interests competing with MJ for sales. Hence, a clever smokescreen had to be invented. That is along the lines of taxes.

So what have these swine come up with? A new ballot measure in November, to pay for marijuana implementation- via TAXES. Then, if the voters don't ALSO pass that measure, it will be repeal for Amendment 64. (So, look for a clever rider to take down 64 with any rejection of the higher state taxes ballot).  This execrable strategy comes on the heels of a supposed academic paper out of the Univ. of Colorado- that claims that MJ sales and taxes therefrom would never pay for the costs of operation and the state would lose. This is funny bullshit reasoning given our esteemed punk lawmakers have no problems passing fracking leases which essentially give away the store to outside frackers, oil companies - while health costs are sent sky high.

Meanwhile, as this repeal plan continues to be vetted and rewritten (to try to make it more appealing) pro-MJ forces are coming together to counteract it.

And no, this isn't  merely about smoking pot. As someone who never has and likely never will, it's not about me not getting my "daily toke".

No, it's about respecting the will of the voters.

If we can't even exercise the ideals of democracy at this small, state scale, we have no business calling ourselves such or even mouthing rhetoric about "liberty".  We're all simply cogs in a vast corporate machine in which money and lobby interests trump the voters' will. You can be poisoned and get cancer from fracked water unleashed in your groundwater, but you can't smoke a joint.

We are governed merely by a corporate dictatorship which decides the benefits it will allow (mostly to corporations, big business), and which it will hurl into the dumpster (those to be enjoyed by individual citizens).

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