July 2014

Marilyn, Ed and I were in Denver last week for our national prosecutor coordinator and traffic-safety conference. I was looking forward to seeing the effects the legalization of marijuana has had in Colorado. Interesting is probably the least effective adjective I could use. The traffic/safety resource prosecutors were encouraged to visit the recreational marijuana shops, and a convenient address list of all the locations was provided. Talk to Ed for details, but it is stunning the endless ways in which marijuana is packaged and sold for recreational use. In many of the stores, I saw novelty moustaches; moustache stickers, moustache candy, moustache storage containers, you name it. It wasn’t until I walked over and actually took a closer look at the items that I realized that what I was seeing was not, in fact, a moustache, but a “stache” for your weed. The Colorado prosecutors hate the legalization. It has increased their work load, it has made the prosecution of DUI’s more difficult, and they don’t have enough DRE’s trained and on the road. There are issues of who can legally grow and cultivate marijuana, and the list goes on and on. What was stunning to me, though, was that there is movement in their legislature to grant across the board expungements for those with convictions of misdemeanor marijuana charges prior to the date marijuana was legalized. Also, there is talk of wanting to decriminalize certain aspects of driving while having marijuana in your system. They still want to crack down on those driving while under the influence of alcohol but not so much on those with pot in their systems. The Colorado DA’s are just waiting for the first case where someone is killed by someone driving under the influence of marijuana. Even then, they don’t think it will make much of a difference with their legislature. I can’t see the day when marijuana will be legal in Utah, but that’s what my counterpart said just a few years ago.

 Best, Bob