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I am a former District Attorney from Texas. Marijuana should be legal and taxed so we can 1. Pay less taxes and 2 Use our resources to solve and prison ( or execute) violent offenders. Pot is an easy bust -so many in law enforcement may want to keep it illegal.
Colorado has done well with this Denver's economy is "jamming". A recent Denver Post Poll showed Colorado would do it all again.
Unfortunately the Governor has stacked this committee with people against legalization. He did this so those in favor would think he is open-minded .
I tried posting this in the comments of the Wyoming News but they wont accept them.
Yes, Colorado has an exceptional influx right now of various groups of people, resulting in:
1) lots of unemployed/unemployable folk who just want to live a "stoner" lifestyle. The numbers of folk needing public assistance programs ... public and private ... is skyrocketing in some areas.
2) the housing market is tight, especially low-to-medium price point rental housing. Hence a bubble right now in the high demand marketplace where housing costs have outstripped the incomes available to many folk.
3) there's places in Denver where the panhandlers are really out in force now, which is more than a minor nuisance.
4) While I've no doubt that there are more affluent, employable folk who like to indulge who are part of the migration to Colorado at this time over this issue, the results of the pressures on the natural resources and development are not, IMO, all a good thing.
Having lived in the Front Range from 1964 to 1999 (and still a frequent visitor with family in the area and a 30+ year ownership of a 2nd home in Vail), I've seen the remarkable changes of Colorado's growth, industries, extractive industries, tourism, useage/abuse of public resources ... and it's simply not what I moved to Colorado to enjoy and prosper.
I don't particularly wish to see the same patterns repeated here in Wyoming, thank you very much. If one of the incremental differences for such growth as Colorado is now experiencing is having MJ legalized here, then I'd be against such legalization in WY.
The folk that want MJ legally as part of their lifestyle can have it ... in those other beautiful states that have approved it.
PS: while there's some medical uses that appear to be beneficial in certain circumstances, widespread legal recreational use appears to have problems for a lot of folk. I've worked on too many job sites where folk under the influence weren't capable of safely performing their duties, and not only did they endanger themselves, but they put co-workers at risk. I'm not willing to get hurt just because somebody wants to have a happy buzz on for their day. And yes, that outlook applies to alcohol and other ability altering substances ... I want no part of them in my workplace nor in the places where it could possibly affect the quality/safety of products/services that I pay. I've had roofers fall off roofs, kitchen help improperly handle food to the point where people got sick (including me, more than a few times ... and once was at a very high dollar fancy restaurant in Denver where I got one of the worst cases of food poisoning I've ever had).
Additionally, I've had stoned folk get foolish with kitchen appliances and candles in my rental houses, and the resulting fires caused me a lot of losses in non-use of the house, repairs, and my time to repair the damages. Let me make that clear ... other's use of MJ for their recreation has cost me personally over $100,000 through the years. It's not worth it to me to go through that again via pubic approval of the abuse of the substance. I've no doubt that the tenants thought that they could "handle" being stoned like that, but for folk who aren't stoned (just like being sober and dealing with a drunk person), their perceptions of what they can do aren't made in good judgement much of the time. "functional stoned" can very frequently be very misleading; consider the source.
So, Mr WestGuest ... you wanna' indulge? Knock yourself out. Head to Colorado or Washington and enjoy. I'll respect your right to do so, you can get as messed up as you deem appropriate and it's none of my business unless you happen to be working in an area that could affect me. But please don't force those situations on the rest of us who choose not to indulge, OK?
The governor of Colorado has come out and said it was a mistake to legalize pot, and revenues to the state have been less than half of what was predicted. On the bright side, black market (read: street corner) dealers are making a fortune because they are selling the same thing as the stores - less the taxes - and the local narcotics squads no longer target them. These things make me think maybe Colorado's decision to legalize pot wasn't such a good idea.
As to Wyoming, why would this state approve another intoxicant when they spend so much time and effort telling us we drink (and drive) too much? I've never met a state that has such a hang up about alcohol - and a governor's bounty program for police officers to catch as many DUIs as possible. (It is what happens when your state's population is smaller than Baltimore's - the statistics are way skewed relative to all the other states.)
Into this environment we're going to add pot? Sorry, sir. Can't see it...
Colorado may not have received as much as some predicted but its still over $100 million ( it will never be as much as SOME predict.
Denver's Growth is more related to Pew and other surveys saying its the Number One choice of college graduates. Yes they may smoke pot but college grads are a good thing to have.
I don't know what the Governor said but the polls of all citizens said they would do it all over again,
Colorado may not have received as much as some predicted but its still over $100 million ( it will never be as much as SOME predict.
Denver's Growth is more related to Pew and other surveys saying its the Number One choice of college graduates. Yes they may smoke pot but college grads are a good thing to have.
I don't know what the Governor said but the polls of all citizens said they would do it all over again,
That's odd, because I do not know one person who would vote for legalizing marijuana in Colorado.
Not ER docs who are seeing an increase in visits from stoned people complaining of hyperemesis. Not small business owners who are annoyed by the increase in loitering, begging, and shoplifting. Not people who commute and know that more of the others on the road are likely driving impaired. Not employers in health care who have to look at every low performing employee with a jaundiced eye.
So, definitely not all citizens. And certainly not all who run businesses and make their livings there.
I do not want dope legalized here and will cheerfully fight it with the facts the other unfortunate and short sighted states and the medical and psychological communities provide.
Despite WestGuests' advocacy, it appears that there is a lot of "buyers remorse" in Colorado about having legalized recreational MJ.
Far from "all citizens" saying that "they would do it all over again", there's a lot of activity and trends away from that line of thought. Multiple polls are showing a trend for less support over time.
Westword published the following on 9/23/14, which documented other responses ... and WW has a track record of being an advocate for the legalization:
Quote: (emphasis mine added)
"The latest poll to address this issue comes from Suffolk University. The results are synopsized like so:
Colorado voters may be having second thoughts about the legalization of marijuana. A slight majority of voters (50.2 percent) say they do not agree with the decision to legalize recreational marijuana in that state -- a decision made by voters in 2012 -- while 46 percent continue to support the decision. Nearly 49 percent do not approve of how the state is managing legalized pot, compared to 42 percent who approve.
Approximately four seconds after these results were made public, the folks from Project SAM , a group that opposes cannabis legalization, weighed in .
"We have always believed that when voters were given the facts about marijuana, the marijuana industry, and the failings of commercialization, they would oppose legalization," Colorado SAM chairman Bob Doyle said in a statement. "It is unfortunate Colorado has been the lab rat of the marijuana industry, but we're confident legalization will only be temporary as opposition to legalization grows and our education of people across the state increases."
Added Kevin Sabet, Project SAM's president: "The theory of legalization looks a lot prettier than the policy in practice. Revenue numbers are low, the underground market is thriving, and health issues are mounting. And, it appears, the public is paying attention."
Problem is, other surveys contradict the Suffolk findings. A Quinnipiac University poll from July put support of legalization at 54-43 percent -- although QU notes that these figures were down from February, when the pro-legalization percentage measured at 58-39.
A Marist poll from this month is very much in line with the Quinnipiac data. An excerpt:
A majority of Colorado residents, 55 percent, is for Colorado's new marijuana law which allows the legalization of small amounts of the drug purchased from regulated businesses. Among these Coloradans, 27 percent actively support the law, and 28 percent favor the legislation but do not actively do so. In contrast, 41 percent oppose the law. This includes 8 percent who are actively trying to overturn the legislation."
I've written on C-D pages in the past about the problems with open consumption of MJ ...
1) concert venues. I used to live fairly close to Red Rocks and attended a lot of concerts through the years. But the MJ cloud was overwhelming at several and I didn't find it something that enhanced the concert for me. Far from it, I was getting a buzz from the folks around me and I still needed to be functional to drive home. I doubt they were, but they headed for their cars in the parking lot just as the rest of us. Even though I had comp'ed tickets to many performances, I gave them away rather than go through that again.
2) trips to Colorado mountain communities. I had a particularly less than pleasurable day trip to Telluride, part of a fly-in to that town for lunch and exploring. We got there and the MJ stench was prevalent at most of the restaurants where we might have had a meal. We watched numerous folk smoking out behind the restaurants, and it was comical to see them standing by the open back doors where the stuff wafted into the restaurant. Doubtless, everybody thought it was "cool" and part of the culture and cachet of the town ... but it's just not consistent with maintaining my cognitive skills for mountain flying.
PS: there's a lot of very underemployed "college grads" in the Denver labor marketplace these days who can't make rent payments without roommates.
PPS: numerous "problems" with the legalization showed up almost immediately. Denver Post, for example, on 11/11/2013 reported in an article about these issues:
"Jeff Grady, a Grand Junction school resource officer who has spent 25 years working in schools, tells a story about sitting in his car at a park near Grand Junction High School one day watching groups of kids through binoculars because they come to the park to smoke on lunch breaks.
"Kids are smoking before school and during lunch breaks. They come into school reeking of pot," he said. "They are being much more brazen."
He said school officials call him and he talks to the kids, but it is a little more difficult now to cite them if they aren't caught in the act. They can say that they were around an adult medical marijuana user and weren't smoking themselves, Grady said.
The best quantifiable evidence the state has yet to indicate that marijuana is a significantly growing problem in schools comes from the 2012-13 report that documents why 720 students were expelled from public schools across Colorado.
For the first time, marijuana was separated from other drugs when school officials were asked to identify the reason for students' expulsions. Marijuana came in first. It was listed as being a reason for 32 percent of expulsions."
Colorado's legalization has made the use/abuse of MJ by youngsters all the more prevalent. It was tempting enough when it was illicit for all, and it's still not legal for the under 21-crowd ... but it's now positioned entirely differently. Many more recent articles by law enforcement, school officials, and others dealing with this problem are readily found on the 'net. A far cry from the benign outlook from the legalization advocates.
IMO, we don't need to add more drug problems to our schools in Wyoming, which is what appears to have happened in Colorado.
I'm ripp'in mad ( maybe nuts) but angry that so little is said about the impact of marijuana on users including lung cancer, bronchitis, alveolar debris, sexual disfunction., remodeling of neurons in the brain, bad breath, annoying aroma, having problems winning spelling bees driving down the wrong side of the highway....giggling albeit snickering.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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WY has better ways to 'earn' revenue that taxing 'people' weed!
It is not good for your Long-term economy / well-being of residents. As an employer I shudder at the 'rights' of my workforce to be stoned at lunchtime. Driving (same) Risky to state security. I trust WY can make a smart decision. (Impossible in CO, CA, OR WA... due to voter demographics (2 counties can control vote of entire state).
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I have to Echo the responses not wanting to have marijuana in Wyoming. Too many issues already brought up.
