Skip to main content

New Mexico Governor Forms Working Group To Legalize Marijuana In 2020

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) was the only presidential candidate to bring up marijuana during Thursday’s Democratic debate—and reform advocates weren’t happy about it.

In his closing statement, Hickenlooper said that he’s a “small business owner who brought that same scrappy spirit to big Colorado, one of the most progressive states in America” and then rattled off a list of accomplishments he appeared to claim at least partial credit for.

That list included cannabis legalization.

“We were the first state to legalize marijuana and we transformed our justice system in the process,” he said.

“You don’t need big government to do big things,” he added. “I know that because I’m the one person up here who’s actually done the big, progressive things everyone else is talking about.”

[embedded content]

But as advocates quickly pointed out, the candidate seemed to be offering a revisionist history of his role in the state’s historic marijuana reform move. After all, he actively opposed Colorado’s 2012 legalization ballot measure, which voters went on to approved via referendum despite the governor’s objections.

Though his administration implemented the legal cannabis system effectively by most accounts, Hickenlooper acknowledged two years after the vote that he “opposed it from the very beginning” and that “it was reckless.”

“Hickenlooper deserves zero credit for legalization in Colorado and his attempts to claim otherwise are politically craven and amount to outright lies,” Erik Altieri, executive director of NORML, told Marijuana Moment. “The only ones who deserve credit are the citizens of Colorado who took the bold and sensible step towards legalization, despite the utter lack of leadership from their governor.”

Marijuana Moment reached out to Hickenlooper’s campaign for comment, but a representative did not respond by the time of publication.

Hours before the debate, the governor addressed his previous opposition to legalization during a Reddit AMA session.

Pressed on his record, Hickenlooper said “[n]o state had ever legalized marijuana before and I had concerns about how that would actually work in practice.”

“But when Coloradans made their preference clear, my team and I came together and created the first regulatory framework for legal marijuana,” he said. “It was a mammoth effort but the end result was much better than the old system. We’re no longer arresting tens of thousands of people—disproportionately people of color—over a joint.”

Users didn’t let him off easily.

“So… you were in favor of disproportionately arresting people of color over a joint, until the citizens of Colorado asked you to stop?” one person, whose comment has almost 10 times as many upvotes as Hickenlooper’s, wrote.

Elsewhere in the thread, Hickenlooper said that he now favors descheduling marijuana at the federal level, allowing the Food and Drug Administration to study cannabis, providing banking access to marijuana businesses and expunging the records of individuals with prior “low-level, non-violent” cannabis convictions.

But while he recognized his past opposition on Reddit, that same nuance did not make it into his final statement at the Democratic debate, frustrating reform advocates.

“It’s a little strange that Hickenlooper is seemingly taking credit for legalization in Colorado, and it’s upsetting that he tried to use it as a way to distinguish himself from the rest of the field,” Mason Tvert, who co-directed the Colorado legalization initiative, told Marijuana Moment. “As a mayor and then as governor, he repeatedly opposed efforts to roll back marijuana prohibition, including the state’s historic legalization initiative in 2012.”

“While he deserves credit for implementing that law and finally coming around on the issue, he has no business holding it over the heads of the other candidates who support legalization—especially since several of them never fought it like he did,” he said. “If Hickenlooper wants to use marijuana policy as a campaign issue, he should avoid misrepresenting what he did in the past and focus on what he would do in the future.”

This seems to be something of a theme among governors of legal cannabis states. Like Hickenlooper, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, has also appeared to claim credit for his state’s legalization vote—despite having opposed it before the voters of his state enacted it over his objections. He said in April that “we’ve legalized marijuana” in Washington, seemingly falsely counting himself among the voters who brought the change about.

Democratic Presidential Candidates Talk Drug War In First 2020 Debate

Photo courtesy of YouTube/NBC News.

Marijuana Moment is made possible with support from readers. If you rely on our cannabis advocacy journalism to stay informed, please consider a monthly Patreon pledge.

Original Article Source: https://www.marijuanamoment.net/new-mexico-governor-forms-working-group-to-legalize-marijuana-in-2020/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New York City Adds More Exceptions To Pre-Employment Marijuana Testing Ban

An ambitious campaign to decriminalize psychedelics in Washington, D.C., is one step closer to placing their measure on the November ballot with the formal submission of tens of thousands of voter signatures. Organizers have been scrambling for weeks to collect enough signatures from D.C. voters by Monday’s deadline amid historically difficult circumstances: a global pandemic, months of stay-at-home orders and protests over racism and police violence that filled the streets of the nation’s capital. But with the help of innovative signature-gathering techniques and allies flown in from across the country, advocates said they had successfully submitted upwards of 35,000 signatures—more than enough to qualify the initiative. If approved by voters, Initiative 81 would make enforcement of laws against plant- and fungus-based psychedelics among the “lowest law enforcement priorities” for the Metropolitan Police Department. It would not, however, legalize or reduce penalties for the subs
Post a Comment
Read more

Charlotte Figi The Girl Who Inspired A CBD Movement Has Died At Age 13

Charlotte had recently been hospitalized due to pneumonia, breathing problems and seizures. She was treated as a likely case of Covid-19, her mother, Paige Figi, said Wednesday, although she tested negative for the virus. “Charlotte is no longer suffering. She is seizure-free forever,” a family friend wrote on Paige Figi’s Facebook page, announcing Charlotte’s death. “Thank you so much for all of your love.” Charlotte became a symbol of the possibilities of CBD after CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta told her story in the documentary “Weed.” In the film, Charlotte was shown to be a playful child who was overcome by horrific seizures, which were quelled with Charlotte’s Web, a marijuana strain named in her honor. Charlotte had Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy which was not controlled by medication. The Stanley brothers, marijuana growers in Colorado, were crossbreeding a strain of marijuana high in CBD and low in THC, its psychoactive ingredient. After Charlo
Post a Comment
Read more

Virginia CBD Program Criticized As Multistate Medical Cannabis Operators Gain Edge

Seven companies are challenging a CBD licensing process in Virginia that resulted in multistate medical marijuana operators getting a majority of available licenses. The appeals called the process “wildly prejudicial.” Out of 51 applicants for five vertically integrated CBD and THC-A licenses, multistate operators received three, a situation that spurred the appeals, The Virginian-Pilot reported. Applicants filing the appeals complained the closed-meeting review process lacked fairness and transparency. One consultant to an applicant said the selections felt “predetermined.” The Virginia Board of Pharmacy reportedly sent information to the applicants in December explaining its selections, but some applicants weren’t satisfied. A board spokeswoman wrote in an email to the Pilot that the board “does not comment on pending litigation.” The five winning applicants , called “pharmaceutical processors,” have a year from winning the licenses to become operational. The multistate
Post a Comment
Read more