with special guest speaker Rob Kampia of the Marijuana Policy Project

 Monday, November 16, 6-8pm

Gilmore Art Center @ Mile High Framing

2119 Curtis St., Denver, 80205 (map)

This event is FREE and open to the public!

(The following was originally posted HERE on the Huffington Post) 

The ski town of Breckenridge, Colorado, is the latest municipality to remove all penalties for private adult marijuana possession and possession of marijuana paraphernalia. As the Summit Daily reported:

Breckenridge residents voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana and paraphernalia Tuesday under town law. In early returns, some 72 percent of voters approved the measure.

The vote means that, effective Jan. 1, people 21 and up in Breckenridge will be able to legally possess one ounce or less of the drug.

This is a noteworthy event in and of itself, but one has to wonder whether legal marijuana could be just what Colorado's slumping ski industry needs. Ski resorts are offering everything from large discounts to specialty cheeseburgers to attract people to their towns. Perhaps offering skiers and snowboarders a hassle-free environment in which they can relax and recreate with marijuana could do the trick.

As the organizers of the measure pointed out in their press release, the measure could also give extreme sports enthusiasts a safer alternative to alcohol when it comes to post-ride partying.

"This votes demonstrates that Breckenridge citizens overwhelmingly believe that adults should not be punished for making the safer choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol," said Sean McAllister, Breckenridge attorney and chair of Sensible Breckenridge.

After all, when's the last time you heard about a bar brawl breaking out because people got a little too stoned? Or a man becoming abusive with his wife because he had been out smoking pot? Chances are not very often, according to virtually every objective study ever done on marijuana and alcohol. Whereas alcohol has been found to contribute to aggressive and violent behavior, a link has never been established when it comes to marijuana.

It's too early to tell how the city's law enforcement officials will handle marijuana in light of the vote, but it's safe to say there is plenty of support behind letting marijuana consumers alone. As the presser mentioned:

The campaign, which had no formal opposition, received a chorus of local support including endorsements from Breckenridge Town Councilman Jeffrey Bergeron, Former Colorado State Representative and Breckenridge resident, Gary Lindstrom, and the Summit Daily News.

One week ago today, Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske (aka the Drug Czar) issued a statement declaring the issue of marijuana legalization a "non-starter" not even worthy of discussion in the Obama Administration.

The Drug Czar's statement also highlighted the extraordinary social and health care costs associated with widespread alcohol use, suggesting that similar problems would occur if marijuana were to be regulated and treated like alcohol.  Yet every objective study on marijuana has concluded that it is far less harmful than alcohol both for the user and for society.

In response to the Drug Czar's statement, SAFER has launched an on-line petition calling on the drug czar to either start basing our nation's drug policies on reason and evidence instead of mythology and ideology, or start explaining why he'd prefer adults use alcohol instead of a far safer substance -- marijuana. 

Please visit http://tinyurl.com/yj32wxb or click on the button to the right to sign the petition today. Then forward word of it to anyone who might be interested in siging on before we present it to the drug czar.

Along with launching the petition, SAFER has issued... 

An Open Letter to the Drug Czar 

On the afternoon of Friday, October 23, at a time when government bureaucrats make announcements they hope will not be picked up by the media, you issued a statement boldly declaring:

Marijuana legalization, for any purpose, remains a non-starter in the Obama Administration. It is not something that the President and I discuss; it isn't even on the agenda.

As the individual most directly responsible for marijuana policy in this country, this seems utterly irresponsible.  Worse, your decision does not appear to be based on reason or evidence.

Let's begin with one glaringly obvious omission in your statement. You failed to cite a single societal or health-related harm caused by the use of marijuana. Not one! Instead, you offered up some weak guilt-by-association scare tactics.

To test the idea of legalizing and taxing marijuana, we only need to look at already legal drugs -- alcohol and tobacco. We know that the taxes collected on these substances pale in comparison to the social and health care costs related to their widespread use.

Apparently, you believe that marijuana users should be punished and perhaps even jailed because alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical drugs are so harmful to users and society.

Sorry, Mr. Kerlikowske, but that just doesn't cut it. If you are going to remain closed-minded in your approach to marijuana, you are going to need to step it up. Unfortunately, you know as well as we do that you don't have a whole lot going for you, which explains your flaccid, evidence-free statement.

Sadly, we have come to expect this kind of nonsensical garbage from our nation's drug czars. (After all, you have Kevin Sabet, a Bush Administration holdover and former speechwriter for his drug czar,

John Walters, feeding you the same old lines.) But what makes your position on marijuana legalization even more shameful is your background as a law enforcement officer on the streets.

You know -- and maybe at some point during your tenure you will have the guts to admit -- that alcohol is really the drug in our society that causes the greatest amount of harm. This isn't an attempt to demonize alcohol, mind you; it's simply based on alcohol's close association with serious health problems and violent crime, as documented by scientific research and government statistics. The use of marijuana, on the other hand, does not have serious health consequences and is not associated with violent behavior.

Again, you know this from your time on the streets. If you've forgotten, just recall the alcohol-fueled Seattle Mardi Gras riot that occurred on your watch. Or ask you're predecessor, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who called alcohol"the most dangerous drug in America today," during a 1999 ONDCP press conference.

So just why is it that you want to punish people who use marijuana, when you know the likely result is that many of these people will simply turn to using alcohol instead? Ya know, because it's "legal."

We don't want to hear that alcohol does not fall under the mission of ONDCP. You, sir, raised the subject by asserting -- contrary to everything known about the two substances -- that we should look at our experience with alcohol if we want to get a sense of the potential social and health care costs associated with more widespread marijuana use. Moreover, given that the two substances are so popular in our society, you simply cannot discuss the prohibition of marijuana without considering its impact on alcohol usage rates.