The Governor’s Race: the Cannabis Stance in Politics

n November 4, Colorado
voters will choose between one candidate for Governor who has said it was
“reckless” to legalize cannabis in the state and another who has suggested
voters should repeal the measure that led to the first legal sales of
recreational cannabis in modern history. Not exactly great choices for the cannabis-minded
voter.

Amendment 64 passed in 2012
by a 10 percent margin, despite the opposition of most of the state’s political
establishment, including Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper, who made his
name as a beer brewer. Still, the governor implemented the will of the voters,
and Colorado’s cannabis regulation has become a model that advocates in other
states hope to follow. The state is on track to collect $40 million in taxes
from heavily-regulated stores, and the spike in crime that some feared would
happen has not occurred.

But in a recent political
debate, Hickenlooper called legalization “reckless.” The backlash from the cannabis
industry, which had largely supported his re-election, was immediate, and the
governor quickly backtracked and issued a statement calling legalization
“risky” instead.

“I think all of us thought
that was too much and overstating things. It seems that he agreed that was an
overstatement,” said Mike Elliott with the Marijuana Industry Group.

At a debate a few days
later, Hickenlooper’s opponent, Republican Bob Beauprez, talked about the
concerns of a prominent Colorado physician about the effects of cannabis on
young adults’ brains and the doctor’s wish “to see if the citizens think that
this is maybe a step that we’ve gone too far.” Beauprez was asked if he agreed
with that viewpoint. “I think we’re at that point where the consequences that
we’ve already discovered from this may be far greater than the liberty that the
citizens thought they were embracing,” Beauprez responded.

For Elliott and others in
the cannabis industry, that is far more disconcerting than calling legalization
“reckless.”

 “The governor’s statements are frustrating but
Mr. Beauprez’s statements are scary,” said Elliott.

“To repeal it, to go back
to what? To go back to a system where it’s the drug cartels and the criminal
gangs who are selling marijuana? There’s an illusion here that marijuana is
somehow new to our community, a grand illusion that our policy was working. It
was a complete failure.”

Denver-based Dixie Elixirs
& Edibles, which makes cannabis-infused products, helped organize a
fundraiser for Hickenlooper. Chief marketing officer Joe Hodas, while he was
“disheartened” by the governor’s comments, still supports him.

“Under his leadership as governor
we managed to not only legalize marijuana but roll out what appears to be the
most successful implementation in the world,” said Hodas.

“In his role as governor he
could have made things much more challenging and/or less effective than they
are and he chose to embrace the will of the voters and focus on implementing it
in the best way possible.”

Neither Elliott nor Hodas
will embrace independent candidate Mike Dunafon, an outspoken cannabis
supporter, for fear it will siphon votes from Hickenlooper and put Beauprez in
office.

“People can vote with
(Dunafon) in principle but I think we’re focused on who has a realistic chance
of winning and who is going to help make this program work. For a lot of people
that’s the governor,” said Elliott.

But should Beauprez win, is
repeal of legalization even realistic? With more than 100 recreational stores
in Colorado already and more opening every day, can the genie be put back in
the bottle?

To repeal a constitutional
amendment would require a massive signature campaign, and Denver pollster Floyd
Ciruli said he doesn’t see any such movement in Colorado.

“I thought we had kind of
settled here and we were just going to kind of live with it and regulate it,”
he said. “My sense is to completely reverse this would be very difficult,
primarily because it passed, I think, because of the sense of voters that that
the alternative was unsatisfactory, the status quo.”

Ciruli doesn’t see cannabis
as a major issue in the campaign, but the race has shown that older
Coloradoans, from those in power to the 50+ age group that mostly opposed
legalization, remain unconvinced about the merits of legalization.

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“I don’t think there’s any
current political movement to repeal it. But a substantial amount of the
political establishment is still very anxious about it, even though they’re
probably reconciled to it at the moment.”