October 27, 2014
Monday PM

There has been a lot in our local press regarding ballot measure #2, but the tone of the letters has been quite one-sided. I suppose this makes sense given the currently illegal status of marijuana. There are a lot of people who, given the nature of their employment or position in the community, don't feel safe going on the record. This is a shame because it limits honest debate and allows the prohibitionists to play REALLY fast and loose with the facts. Well...I've never urinated on command for anyone but my doctor and I'd like to point out some of the liberties the "No on 2" folks have been taking.

The first real doozie I noticed was in a letter from Kaylie Klaysmat of AACOP back in September. To back up her claims regarding the black market in Colorado she does some stellar research and quotes...herself. Huh? Talk about chutzpah! I sure wish I had thought of that back in college.

A few weeks later it was the Daily News' turn (Sorry, I don't have a link). Renee Schofield had an opinion piece in which she basically claims that it is impossible to test roadside for marijuana. Hogwash! It's called a saliva test. It's cheap(@$5), easily administered, and it tests for active thc. Here is a link.

For those who are unfamiliar... urine tests check for metabolites while blood or saliva tests check for active thc. In other words--if you want to check actual marijuana impairment(which is the goal, right?) you need to do it with saliva or blood. If you want to find out if someone smoked pot three weeks ago, while watching a football game on tv while on their day off from work, then you would use the urine test that Mrs. Schofield, TSS, and many of you readers are so familiar with. If safety is really what matters as opposed to the bottom line, then the obvious choice is a test for impairment. The bottom lines that will improve are those of the productive businesses that pay for the testing.

Speaking of money... the next big whopper I noticed in the press was from Jo McGuire of Gov. Hickenlooper's office, who(coincidentally?) Mrs. Schofield introduced before her talk. Jo McGuire asserts that "Colorado is unlikely to meet that projection" of $40m in marijuana tax. I was pretty sure I had read something different. Here's a link to that story, with figures from the CO Department of revenue.

As of the end of August Colorado had taken in over $45m in marijuana tax. Apparently Jo McGuire doesn't let facts and figures get in the way of her narrative, even when the facts and figures come straight from the Department of Revenue in her employer's administration. When I was a child we called it lying, which was bad.

The last whopper I'd like to point out came in an unexpected place. It was in Lisa Murkowski's opinion piece. I've generally admired her habit of staying away from the hysterical rhetoric that is so common in politics these days, but when she tries to portray the NIDA, the NIH, and Dr. Volkow as "neutral on State level policy initiatives" my bullpucky meter went off. From the NIH web site: "None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for any activity that promotes the legalization of any drug or other substance included in schedule I of the schedules of controlled substances established under section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act except for normal and recognized executive-congressional communications". Congress has also placed restrictions on any research regarding gun control, human embryo research, abortion, and clean needle exchanges, among others. This is not to say that there are no scientists doing good research at the NIH, but the scope of their resea
rch is severely constrained by the limits that POLITICIANS, as opposed to scientists, have foisted upon the Institute. Remember--the official line at Dr. Volkow's NIDA is that marijuana is MORE dangerous than cocaine, amphetamines, and morphine. Not AS dangerous...more dangerous.(To see what kind of research the NIH is forbidden by law to conduct, Google 'Charlottes Web epilepsy'. It's heartbreaking) This is the kind of upside down logic that takes root when politicians drive science instead of vise versa. This "politics over science" mentality is why teens of my generation were taught that if we ever tried pot our brains would fry like an egg and we would inevitably land on skid row addicted to heroin and living in a cardboard box. Thirty years and three pot smoking Presidents later, I've come to believe I was lied to.

From the tone of this letter, there's probably a lot of folks who think I'm an advocate of ballot measure #2. I'm not. I just hate dishonest debate. I personally believe that the government could muck up a morning constitutional. I prefer decriminalization. Leave consenting adults to do as they wish in their homes. The quaint notions of personal responsibility, personal freedom, and privacy still resonate with me. Twenty-six summers ago when I showed up here to slime fish there seemed to be more of that. Pot and alcohol were viewed similarly, as adult activities for off time only. With decriminalization you have more responsible adults growing a little which shrinks the market for importation, which generally is criminal in nature and more prone to sell to our youngsters.

Ah... the youngsters. The final trump card of the Prohibitionists. What is best for them? There is a biennial survey of High schoolers in Colorado. It is called the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey. Here is a link to a story about it.

It turns out that kids aren't stupid. They're certainly capable of stupidity... any insurance adjuster can tell you that, but they're not stupid. They didn't follow the script. They wrote their own.

So how about something we can all agree on? Talk to your kids, your grand-children, your nieces and nephews, the neighbor kid. Be involved. Pay attention. While you are at it, ask them: Ask them IF they were looking, which would be harder to get their hands on--a bottle of booze or a baggie of pot? Then ask yourself why that is...and go vote.

Chris Snyder
Ketchikan, Alaska

Received October 24, 2014 - Published October 27, 2014

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