DENVER (AP) -- Residents of the Mile High City have voted to legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults. Authorities, though, said state possession laws will be applied instead.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday, 54 percent, or 56,001 voters, cast ballots for the ordinance, while 46 percent, or 48,632 voters, voted against it.
Under the measure, residents over 21 years old could possess up to an ounce of marijuana.
"We educated voters about the facts that marijuana is less harmful to the user and society than alcohol," said Mason Tvert, campaign organizer for SAFER, or Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation. "To prohibit adults from making the rational, safer choice to use marijuana is bad public policy."
Bruce Mirken of the Washington-based Marijuana Policy Project said he hoped the approval will launch a national trend toward legalizing a drug whose enforcement he said causes more problems than it cures.
Seattle, Oakland, California, and a few college towns already have laws making possession the lowest law enforcement priority.
The Denver proposal seemed to draw at least as much attention for supporters' campaign tactics as it did for the question of legalizing the drug.
Tvert argued that legalizing marijuana would reduce consumption of alcohol, which he said leads to higher rates of car accidents, domestic and street violence and crime.
The group criticized Mayor John Hickenlooper for opposing the proposal, noting his ownership of a popular brewpub. It also said recent violent crimes -- including the shootings of four people last weekend -- as a reason to legalize marijuana to steer people away from alcohol use.
Those tactics angered local officials and some voters. Opponents also said it made no sense to prevent prosecution by Denver authorities while marijuana charges are most often filed under state and federal law.
The measure would not affect the medical marijuana law voters approved in 2000. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that medical marijuana laws in Colorado and nine other states would not protect licensed users from federal prosecution.
Also Tuesday, voters in the ski resort town of Telluride rejected a proposal to make possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by people 18 or older the town's lowest law enforcement priority. The measure was rejected on a vote of 308-332.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.
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I'm personally pro drugs, in the sense I don't think we should have so much drug control, it just creates a market where criminals make money (like prohibition did).
Especially Marijuana, the problem with legalizing it like this is the tainted pot.. A LOT of pot has angel dust/pcp, and cocaine sprinkled on it and or deliberatly or incidently from the person selling it having these other drugs by them.
So I don't know if that matters, cause if you had like maybe an ounce and they wanted to weigh it to make sure (say you got pulled over or something and it's sittng on the seat) there could be a decent amount of other substances in there.
Just a thought, for a technicality for you to get in trouble from having what you thought was just pot..
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With soft drugs, it's very much like prohibition. And just as stupid.
quote:Originally posted by MasterQuinn: I'm personally pro drugs, in the sense I don't think we should have so much drug control, it just creates a market where criminals make money (like prohibition did).
Especially Marijuana, the problem with legalizing it like this is the tainted pot.. A LOT of pot has angel dust/pcp, and cocaine sprinkled on it and or deliberatly or incidently from the person selling it having these other drugs by them.
So I don't know if that matters, cause if you had like maybe an ounce and they wanted to weigh it to make sure (say you got pulled over or something and it's sittng on the seat) there could be a decent amount of other substances in there.
Just a thought, for a technicality for you to get in trouble from having what you thought was just pot..
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The cost savings to taxpayers from prisoners who are doing LIFE IN JAIL for selling marijuana 3 times and getting caught (or just posessing it in large enough quantities) would be gigantic (and put taxpayers BACK into society.
The saved lives by not having people KILL because of the money they can make with these drugs. And the increased tax revenue (if they wanted to go that route) from just the sales of marijuana cigarettes alone would be huge.
They'd have more hemp to make paper, clothes, even fuel.
Oh, and the brownie market would explode.. Starbucks Brownie sales would go through the roof and I like brownies..
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When I was a boy, my grandfather taught me to locate good natural feeding places weeks before the opening of dove season. Only one thing that was better than a patch of sunflowers, he told me, and that's a patch of hemp.
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Oh is it time I mention (since I mentioned prisons) that MOST PRISIONS are owned by CORPORATIONS and they make a ton of money because YOU AND I the taxpayer pay for it.
Next time you wonder why we have such retarded laws and why prisons are overcrowded, you'll love to know most of the money they should get (ever hear it costs $40k a week to keep one prisoner behind bars and if you've ever been to a prison you know what's like (I know because I did computer work for a few local prisons)). Where's the money? It's in the corporation that owns the prisons pockets!
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