If all goes according to plan, 21-and-older Coloradans can put the
election season behind them in style tomorrow night, by firing up a bowl of
their favorite flavor of currently-illegal-but-maybe-not-by-Nov.-7 Centennial
State chronic and get seriously Rocky Mountain high with no hassle at all from
the law. The only people with a badge that recreational pot smokers will have
to worry about are the stiffs from the DEA, but even the squarest, most
uptight fed would have to question the point of busting casual tokers. The only place to refer them
for punishment would be the U.S. Attorney. And while John Walsh has shown
himself to be just enough of a Reefer Madness half-wit that he might be tempted to notch as many federal felony possession charges onto his belt as possible, he
presumably has more pressing issues than requiring his agents to run around the state busting individual potheads.
That’s the hope at least. In truth, no one really knows what the feds will do if Colorado, Washington or Oregon (or some combination of the three) become the first state(s) to legalize pot. There’s no question what the measure’s supporters will do, however — blaze ‘em up.
There’s also no question that the passage of Amendment 64 will make its opponents go cross-eyed. For the past several months — and amplified over the past few weeks, as polls continue showing 64 heading toward victory (albeit with a slimmer margin as we get closer to Election Day) — the “this is your brain on drugs” crowd has been running the hysteria mill machinery round the clock. Practically every bogus charge every leveled at cannabis has been resuscitated, from its (false) potential to turn you into a drooling “pot addict” from your first toke because of some black-magic chemical effect it has on human physiology to its (false) ability to make you chase the dragon all the way up to deadly heroin. Horseshit, all. But the opponents have to try something, and lying about marijuana and its effects has worked well for them for the past 70-plus years, so you might as well stick to what you know.
And so much for those people. They’ll have more than their share of airtime in the coming weeks to either whine or gloat, depending on how things go tomorrow, and I prefer to spend my election night with a less atavistic crowd, the pro-64 people. They’ve rented a downtown nightclub that will be hip-to-shoulder with everyone who has shepherded this issue so far, every lawyer, activist, patient and pothead who knows that history won’t sustain the prohibition on marijuana for much longer.
Of course history is a fickle guide, having shown that popular measures like this have died on the vine (so to speak) at the 11th hour, usually thanks to some not so collegial inter-cannabis-culture friction, the sort of pissing contests that have arguably done more to delay the march toward legalization than any counteroffensive the anti-pot crowd could mount. In California in 2010, Proposition 19 died in large part because illegal growers in the Emerald Triangle voting against it, a self-serving maneuver to preserve the blackmarket price for the pot they grow. Here in Colorado, there’s a vocal fringe griping that A-64 doesn’t really “legalize” marijuana so much as turn its regulation and distribution over to government stooges. (They are also griping that the one ounce people over 21 are allowed to possess under the measure is too low.) For those reasons and more, I’m harboring a health “I’ll believe it when I see it” attitude.
If A-64 does pass, history becomes less useful, because we will be entering uncharted territory. And for me at least, there’s nothing more exhilarating than standing at the threshold when new terrain opens before you. It will be fun to watch it unfold in the company of those who put us on the course.
But more pragmatically, after an election season as contentious as the one we just went through, can you think of anywhere you'd rather be tomorrow night than in the company of several hundred pot smokers? I can't.
Follow me on Twitter @greg_campbell for live updates as the night progresses. It should be interesting.