Good news: Amendment 64 passes
Posted by Richard on November 6, 2012
Amidst the bad news for libertarians in Colorado tonight (Obama victory, Democrats retake state house) there was one big piece of good news. Amendment 64, a constitutional amendment legalizing marijuana and regulating it like alcohol, passed with 53% of the vote.
Unfortunately for those of us who could use a “pickup” in the wake of the depressing election results, state criminal penalties for pot possession won’t go away for a couple of months (of course, the federal penalties remain, and the Obama administration has enforced them more aggressively than the Bush administration did). And the first recreational-use pot stores won’t appear until 2014 (for some reason, the existing medicinal marijuana stores won’t be allowed to sell pot for non-medicinal use, which makes no sense to me).
Still, it’s an historic step forward. Now there will be a huge Tenth Amendment issue to be resolved. The Obama administration is already saying that the federal law classifying marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug supersedes state law (but it’s not just a state statute, remember, it’s now a part of the state constitution). I expect lots of legal battles to come. This would be a good time to support the Tenth Amendment Center.
» Will wonders never cease? Good bipartisanship! Combs Spouts Off said
[…] passage of Amendment 64 is bringing the unlikeliest people together in support of the Tenth Amendment and is adding a […]