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Rocky Mountain High Some have dubbed Denver the Amsterdam of the west, with the already 235 dispensaries in the metro area. Denver City councilman Charlie Brown has called it the “wild wild west.” Well there is smoke but it’s not from the guns, and the Federal government is not planning to come down on the industry. In Medicino County, CA Newsweek claimed that medical marijuana trade accounts for two thirds of the economy. Newsweek also claims that over 1000 shops have popped up in the L.A. area, dubbed the “green rush”, and some say it’s all about to end there, allegedly. The difference is very simple, while California ’s dispensaries are protected by a state proposition 215, voted by 56% of the population in California in 1996, which allows for medical marijuana dispensaries but calls for them to be non-profits that plan for safe and affordable distribution, in Colorado it is not a proposition but a state amendment. Amendment 20 was established in 2000 and grafted into the state constitution making it extremely difficult for anyone of the opposition to just do away with. As of November 2009 there were over 15,000 state registered medical marijuana users and only 29 have been denied since 2000. While Representative Charlie Brown says it’s the wild wild west. It’s hard to tell who the outlaws are and who are the victims. In 1972 President Richard Nixon, who stepped up the drug war against cannabis, set up a presidential committee of medical experts to study marijuana. “The recommendation of the commission for our first report, is that we do not feel that private use or possession in one’s own home should be attached to criminal-ization,” stated Raymond P. Shaffer head of the National Committee on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, much to the dismay of Nixon. Since ’72 the government has spent billions fighting a so called war and incarcerating thousands of people

for cannabis. Murderers and rapists get out of prison sooner than someone who sold marijuana. While advertisements for alcohol, tobacco, and prescription drugs have bombarded the public during the same time, causing millions of deaths, cannabis is still treated as a narcotic drug by enforcers. “The only side affect of marijuana is that the D.E.A. might come bring their guns on you,” boasted one supporter. In 2009, President Barrack Obama declared that the federal government would not be seeking charges against medical marijuana users and their patients, yet the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) didn’t get the message. Marijuana supporter Rob Cory claims the D.E.A. has gone rogue due to the recent raids on growers in Colorado Springs and Highlands ranch. Jeff Sweetin the agent heading the D.E.A. in Colorado says told the Denver post a few months back, “The time is coming when we go into a dispensary, we find out what their profit is, we seize the building and we arrest everybody. They’re violating federal law.” To date not one dispensary has been shut down by the D.E.A. yet they claim to be within the law. In the case of the Highland Ranch Grower it seems his mouth was too much for the D.E.A. to handle. Chris Barkowitz bragged to 9news about how much pot he was growing, and swiftly the D.E.A. raided. Sweetin told the Westword of the raid, ““When you turn on 9News, and you have a guy talking about how much pot he grows, how are you not going to go after that guy?” Seems Barkowitz should have had enough patients to supply to justify the 150 plants they found in his residence. While much debate over the medical Marijuana trade is still rumbling in Colorado, make no mistake, the dispensaries and users have legs to stand on in this state, and until voted out by 60% of the state population it will remain High on the agenda for legislators, users, growers, and media alike.

Word Play By: Antonio Valenzuela