Truth Bombs

Last election day, voters in Breckenridge, Colorado voted, by a substantial margin, to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. Seventy-two percent of the electorate in the sleepy mountain town, which is mostly famous for its ski resort, supported legislation that would remove penalties for those Breckenridge citizens caught with less than 1 ounce of marijuana or the paraphernalia required to smoke it.

This is exciting news for smokers and general fans of liberty alike, as these laws will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2010. Plans to open up a medical marijuana dispensary in the mountain town are also underway.

Before UCCS students go mounting bongs to their snowboards, however, they should consider what laws like these actually mean for Breckenridge townies and what effect their implementation will have on the people who voted for their passage.

To begin with, before election day, Breckenridge's weed laws were quite liberal, at least in comparison to nearby ski havens in Utah or Wyoming, where possession of even a small quantity of cannabis can often mean jail time or steep fines.

As it stands in Breckenridge, possession of less than 1 ounce of marijuana amounted to a small fine, up to but not exceeding 100 dollars. Breckenridge police wrote a total of ten tickets for marijuana possession last year, and only four total were written for paraphernalia.

Rick Holman, Breckenridge's Chief of Police, explicated law enforcement's response to the vote and assured the Vail Daily newspaper that trafficking, driving under the influence and public smoking will remain illegal, and that the decriminalization laws only apply to Coloradans who are 21 and up.

"It's never been something we spent a lot of time on," Holman added, "so I don't expect this to be a big change in how we do business," he told reporters, emphasizing that implementation of the laws would rely on the "discretion" of individual officers.

A similar measure passed in 2005 in Denver, and another appeared on Breckenridge ballots back in 2006. Called Amendment 44, the initiative contained ambiguous language regarding the age limits imposed by the amendment and was roundly defeated at the polls, by a margin of 60-40.

So what happened? Did 32 percent of the voting public develop a marijuana habit in the intervening years, thus influencing their vote? Or, perhaps, did Breckenridge voters see that Denver indeed had not been swallowed alive by hell simply because police were more lenient on weed smokers, and voted accordingly?

Colorado loves herself some marijuana, and the weed subculture that has emerged in towns like Boulder and Breckenridge is unavoidable. However, it seems that, by and large, the tide of public favor is following the stoners and increasingly often, non-smoking voters are beginning to vote according to their conscience and sense of logic rather than their personal preference for alcohol or utter sobriety While smoking (or eating) marijuana is certainly not as harmless as pro-marijuana advocates contend, I still don't think it's a crime for a well-informed adult to light up from time to time.

The future of the legalization debate lies in the hands of non-smokers. Stoners are often quite politically active, and activist organizations like NORML and SAFER have made palpable headway on a state-by-state basis.

The American Medical Association has reconsidered their classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 narcotic substance with "no medical value," and is currently investigating marijuana's possible medical applications.

Personally, I believe that the legal system should treat drug offenders as a public health issue rather than a legal issue, but in order to reverse America's long history of locking up non violent criminals for drug possession, it will take the support of those wise swaths of the population who've never smoked a joint to change.