Just remember most of us are not norml by society's standards anyways LOL

Hyman, thank you for your questions and for demonstrating so ably exactly what I am talking about. You're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good (or, perhaps, the not-so-bad or less-awful-than-now.)

It doesn't matter a bit what I think of alcohol vs. marijuana or what you think of alcohol vs. marijuana, but what 50%+1 voters think of marijuana, period.

You and I both know marijuana is far safer than alcohol. If you and I were crafting a regulation with the wave of a magic wand and we were to make that regulation commensurate with alcohol and tobacco regulations based on relative safety, then the legal age for pot would be 16 and it would be available in grocery stores in bulk with no purchase limits.

The "burden of proof" you describe would be appropriate if our drug laws were drawn up with any respect to science. But we're talking about getting irrational human beings who've been brainwashed about cannabis being a "dangerous drug" for nearly a century to vote to make what they believe to be evil accepted and legal. They are not going to flip from "we must lock up people who grow the wacky weed lest they become heroin junkies!" to "let's treat it less strictly than alcohol" in one fell swoop.

So there are two options:

1) Keep educating the public until they are as wise as us on cannabis and support treating cannabis the way it should be treated. Until then, everybody but patients get tickets, arrested, and go to jail... and the patients continue to be treated as second class citizens.

2) Pass what the public can handle right now and keep most cannabis consumers and producers, the non-commercial personal users and growers, out of jail cells. With cannabis legalized, even in this hyper-limited way, we finally start fighting this battle as non-criminals. As such, more of us can support further reforms. Also, if what we believe about cannabis is true, the public begins to see that cannabis is much safer than alcohol and those reforms become easier.

Unless you can think of a third way, I propose we keep people out of jail as soon as possible.

Orlando, why do you assume "grassroots activists" were left out of Amendment 30's drafting? Is SAFER not a local Colorado grassroots organization? Are the activists from Mile High NORML who will be supporting and working to pass this measure not grassroots activists?

Having reported on numerous similar situations in other states, let me tell you how this works. ANYBODY can propose an initiative. So, Mason Tvert & Brian Vicente, both Coloradoans, worked with fellow local activists and national backers to craft A30. Other people are free to do just the same (and say they will, sometime in 2012, because why rush it when you need to collect probably a half million signatures?) just like this lady's A40. But what happens is the former have money, influence, connections, experience and a successful track record, and the latter do not.

So the former (let's call them "National," even though most of the legwork is being done by locals) do some polling, analyze public sentiment, review previous initiatives, learn from mistakes, assess the current situations, write drafts of legislation, run it by attorneys who tear it apart clause by clause, re-write and work out what they believe to be the language that best balances the absolute freedom for cannabis we'd all like versus what will pass with 50%+1 of the vote from the public, a sizable portion of which still believe marijuana is a demon gateway drug straight to heroin and causes their kids to become long-haired dirty stinky slacker losers who do bong hits in the SUV and drive down I-25.

The latter (let's call them "Locals") then get pissed off because National has already written, vetted and proposed their language, gotten it approved by the State, and begun collecting signatures before Locals have even stopped arguing among themselves about the basic concepts they wish to put on the ballot. Then they scream about "not being consulted," even though National has heard many times from many different Locals in many different states most of the exact same proposals the Locals are floating. But since National didn't knock on the door of Mr. or Ms. Self-Appointed Arbiter of Who, When, & How Initiatives Are Filed and directly ask him or her whether or not they should consider his plan to make all weed legal for all people all the time in any amount anywhere for any reason with no taxes, regulations, licenses, or restrictions, and all the pot prisoners set free immediately with their records expunged, Locals don't believe they were "consulted."

Rather than come to the realization that the Stones were right (we can't always get what we want), the Locals will then begin attacking the National because they are proposing an initiative far more conservative than the True Cannabis Freedom they would like to see eventually fail with 30% of the vote. Locals are pissed, because, by God, they are the ones who've been to the Longmont City Council meetings and the Colorado legislative hearings, and who are these National guys, just swooping in and proposing amendments, like Colorado's Amendment 20 and every other marijuana law reform initiative that has passed (only 2010's California Prop 19 was funded by someone/some group NOT Soros/Lewis/National Group... and it failed)?

If National actually did "consult" Locals the way Locals dream of, what would happen? Locals would propose their water-pipe dream True Cannabis Freedom clauses, National would laugh them out of the room, and Locals would then go ahead and attack National anyway, not for failing to "consult" this time, but for not adopting the Local's True Cannabis Freedom. Locals would never accept that "consult" means "ask for advice," not "receive marching orders," and if their proposals were heard and not accepted, the last thing they'd do is accept that and move on, working to support the measure they'd been "consulted" on. Or to make a long comment short (too late): Locals want National to give them all the money, media, labor, and expertise to pass the initiative they want and then get the hell out of the way.

The Locals, now dissed and "marginalized" in their minds (they were already disrespected and marginal to begin with), will attack not just National, but the legalization proposal they've put before the voters. "It's not true legalization!" they'll say. "Carpetbaggers!" they'll scream. "Trying to corner the marijuana market!" they'll predict. Then they'll actively lobby and fight AGAINST the National proposal, because, gosh, the conservative proposal of legalizing one ounce away from the home, six plants and all the harvests in the home, and all industrial hemp just isn't worth supporting, and all the people who'd be arrested for those amounts should continue to get arrested until Locals can pass True Cannabis Freedom.

Another twist in this is that Locals in many cases are the grassroots activists who've been shepherding the current MEDICAL marijuana law and have, at numerous occasions, told National to stay out of the medical marijuana pool, lest they poison it with "legalizer" rhetoric. But now that National, with its legalization focus, comes in to attempt a legalization measure, suddenly the medical Locals are the experts to be consulted.

Note that this isn't all "Locals." Most of them are reasonable and work with National orgs to pass the best legalization proposal that has a chance of passing. No, these "Locals" usually form their own org with an important-sounding name and title and may even be local news media contacts (thinking it's because they're important, not because local news loves to parade a batshit crazy True Marijuana Believer in front of the camera to discredit the movement) and feel that the reasons their org doesn't have money, influence, connections, experience and a successful track record have nothing to do with them and everything to do with the evil machinations of the National. You can usually identify the True Marijuana Believer type of Local. They're the ones shouting at legislators, disrupting public meetings, leading rallies against National orgs, proposing sit-ins to disrupt National conferences, suggesting dead kids on bicycles are to blame for getting themselves hit by cars, and seriously believing a majority of voters will support ideas like 12 pounds, 99 plants, $10/ounce tax limit, total amnesty for pot prisoners and regulations that treat cannabis less strictly than alcohol. They often put "Rev." before their names.

Hey Ganjasaurus,

Maybe you're in upstate NY and cops up there actually follow rule of law, but in NYC if they slap you with cuffs and bring you in for the night for even dirty paraphernalia. This happened to my cousin. Have you heard anybody tell personally that a cop has found them with marijuana and actually let them go? It doesn't matter the amount, in NYC if you are found with weed you are going in. Many cases do get thrown out of court, but you are spending the night. They do not follow the law and they do not care. Suing the city for wrongful imprisonment is too costly, complicated, lengthy and painstaking for 99% of these people.

The point about Amendment 40 is progress by the PEOPLE. Why the hell were the grassroots activists in CO left out of the Initiative 30 decision making? What is being hidden from the public? Where the hell is all that money COMING FROM? Can we say "compromised" anybody? Something is fishy and doesn't pass the smell test.

Why Support the Colorado Relief for Possession of Cannabis Act of 2012