In the election of 2012, Colorado voters and experts from around the world had a thorough conversation about marijuana. Amendment 64 took a major step towards ending one of the least effective governmental policies in history: Marijuana Prohibition. In overwhelmingly approving Amendment 64, Colorado voters decided to chart a course towards freedom, and against a government big and powerful enough to break into a person’s home to rip a joint out of his hand. Colorado voters stood in the shoes of the vast majority of Americans who wisely rejected Alcohol Prohibition generations earlier.
But this time around, the Prohibitionists did not gracefully accept defeat and move on. For the November 2016 ballot, proposed Amendment 139 may infect Colorado’s crowded ballot to limit recreational marijuana to 16.0% potency of tetrahydrocannabinol (“THC”), the active ingredient. The true purpose of the proposed constitutional amendment 139 is cunningly disguised in lengthy fine print requiring packaging warning labels, an uncontroversial concept that mirrors already-existing regulations.
139’s authors cynically calculated that the potency limit would virtually eliminate Colorado’s recreational marijuana industry, throw thousands of good people out of work, and functionally eliminate hundreds of productive, licensed and regulated businesses. It will be nearly impossible for an entire industry to reverse course and re-breed genetics of plants to under 16.0% THC.
It won’t work.
And after the 16.0% plant is finally developed years later, consumers will reject the weak product and go back to the unregulated black market, while the rest of America and the World bypasses Colorado’s formerly nation-leading industry.
Consider 139’s source. 139’s proponents are politicians and lobbyists who opposed Amendment 64 four years ago, and constantly conspire to undermine Colorado voters’ will in the corridors of the legislature, in courtrooms, and in the media. Carrie Nation has been resurrected. But even the vigilante Prohibitionist Carrie Nation was at least honest in her views, walking into early pre-Prohibition 20 Century saloons, wagging her finger at the customers and proprietors, then chopping open casks of liquor with a hatchet. But 139’s proponents have paid their professional pollsters to tell them that Colorado has freedom-loving people, so in order to undermine Amendment 64 to the Colorado Constitution, 139 must use more nefarious and disguised means.
Amendment 64 is officially titled the “Alcohol-Marijuana Equalization Initiative” and was successfully sold to voters as such. Imagine if Colorado’s alcohol industry; consisting of bars, restaurants, taverns, saloons, clubs, cabarets, stadiums, concert or entertainment venues, liquor stores, manufacturers, weddings, parties, receptions, and even your own personal liquor cabinet, were all legally-limited to only alcohol with 16.0% potency. This would make illegal all spirits and hard liquor inside of this State. No more legal vodka, whiskey, bourbon, tequila, gin, and so forth. It would make only beer and wine legal in Colorado.
That is insane.
Also unachievable, as policy. Of course, such a Prohibition would not eliminate the existence of spirits within the boundaries of our state. Not in the least. Millions of Coloradans, and our tourist guests, would still obtain more-potent liquor, we would simply pay more for it, and do so illegally, untaxed and unregulated. This is the enduring lesson of Prohibition. There are some things the State cannot stop. The appetite of humans for marijuana, and for liquor, are among them. And the State’s attempt to stop normal human appetites creates a host of negative and dangerous collateral consequences. Mafia anyone?
Colorado voters have already considered both sides of the Marijuana Prohibition argument, and rejected the notion that the State can effectively socially engineer free peoples’ preferences as to a cannabis plant that grows naturally on God’s Earth. Instead, Colorado voters showed courage in charting a better course. Other U.S. states and other nations have followed Colorado, and Colorado’s marijuana industry can now rightfully claim partial credit for fostering Colorado’s nationally-leading economy, creating jobs, feeding families, paying taxes, and bringing the cannabis plant back into the sunshine.
Interestingly, the proponents of 139, though clever and calculating, may be cannabinoid-deficient themselves inasmuch as they have not assessed the larger consequences of the proposal, should it gain enough signatures to appear on Colorado’s general election ballot in 2016. Nothing exists in a vacuum, and a butterfly flapping in Durango affects Denver’s climate. This year, Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders called for the end to federal Marijuana Prohibition, with the approval of his youthful and energetic supporters. Bernie won Colorado handily, but he is probably out of the Presidential race this year.
If Colorado’s disaffected Sanders supporters lacked a reason to vote this year, a Prohibitionist Amendment 139 will provide that. "Berners" will inhale deeply, “Feel the Bern,” vote NO on 139, and in the process will vote for their other preferred candidates on the ballot. Prohibition will once again be defeated, but other Republican dominoes will also fall. History repeats.
Robert J. Corry, Jr. is a lawyer and Chairman of “Consumers Against Social Engineering,” an Issue Committee opposing Amendment 139.