Both candidates for HD 2 support legalizing marijuana

Although many issues separate the Democrat and Republican candidates running for State House District 2, the contenders agree on one thing Ń marijuana should be legal for adults.

Having Rep. Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, and Doc Miller, his Republican opponent in the upcoming election, both publicly support the decriminalization of marijuana has some activists giddy about the changes in public opinion towards the drug.

“I think it’s a good sign that marijuana reform is becoming a widely accepted position,” said Mason Tvert of Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), a group that points out the ways they perceive marijuana to be less harmful than alcohol. “We see Democrats and Republicans not only both voicing public support for reforming marijuana laws, but in some sense often vying to see who can support them more.”

Ferrandino, a member of the Joint Budget Committee, said legalizing marijuana would help the state’s pocketbook, which is facing an additional $75 million shortfall next budget year and a potential $1 billion shortfall the following year. 9News reported this week that the city of Denver collected more than $1 million in sales tax revenue from medical marijuana from December-April.

“If you legalize it and you tax it, you’re going to increase the amount of revenue to the state,” Ferrandino said. Miller, a lawyer challenging Ferrandino for his House District 2 seat, added that legalizing marijuana would result in fewer people in jail, less money spent by the state, and allow him as an attorney to  “stop fishing them out one at a time.”

“My solution to the drug war is to do like we did with prohibition when we realized that didn’t work and legalize marijuana,” he said.

A regulated environment

Although he supports the legalization of marijuana, Ferrandino said the industry would have to be regulated in order to avoid a “wild, wild West” type of environment. He believes the biggest hurdle to legalization is making sure that police officers could definitively tell whether someone was driving under the influence of marijuana.

Denver Police officers are trained to recognize when someone is driving and under the influence of drugs. Officers can also call over a “Drug Recognition Expert” police officer to conduct tests and further identify the signs of someone driving under the influence of drugs.

However, police officers don’t have a device like a Breathalyzer that can determine on scene whether someone is definitively on drugs. DPD Spokesman Sonny Jackson said that the police department isn’t made up of scientists or inventors who could invent such a device, so they must rely on their training.

Jeremy Rosenthal, an attorney who specializes in DUI cases, said it’s very tough for cops and the state to prove in court that a person was driving under the influence of drugs because there is no near-foolproof test like a Breathalyzer.

“They usually only win those cases when the cop actually sees the person smoking,” he said.

Rosenthal added that he has seen more clients who are charged with driving under the influence of drugs since the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries. Because the Denver Police Department doesn’t have a separate ticket for driving under the influence of marijuana, it’s impossible to say how many people have been arrested or cited for it, Jackson said.

Public support

Ferrandino believes the path to marijuana legalization must go through the voters. Tvert, who originally considered putting an initiative on this year’s ballot asking voters to legalize marijuana, will likely wait until 2012 to bring the measure forward because of funding issues.

However, recent polling shows that nearly half of Coloradans support the legalization of marijuana, and as U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., said earlier this year, having multiple lawmakers publicly talk about legalizing marijuana would have been unheard of only 10 years ago.

“The time for debate and discussion has definitely come,” said Ferrandino.