Colorado governor, once opposed, is softening his stance on legal pot
In the four years since Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana, Gov. John Hickenlooper — who originally opposed the referendum — hasn’t seen the negative effects he feared. Now, he says, he’s “getting close” to supporting it.
“You know, at first, I opposed it,” Hickenlooper said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “And most elected officials did. But our voters passed it 55-45. It’s in our Constitution. [And] I took a solemn oath to support our Constitution.”
Since then, Hickenlooper, the former Denver mayor and brewery owner, has softened his stance on weed.
“It’s become one of the great social experiments of our time,” Hickenlooper said, noting that more than 60 percent of American people live in a state where either medical or recreational marijuana is legal.
As recently as January 2015, Hickenlooper said he wished he could have “waved a magic wand” and reversed the legalization.
“This was a bad idea,” he told CNBC at the time.
CO Gov. Hickenlooper says that there was not a spike in teenage marijuana use in the state after sales on the black market were eliminated. pic.twitter.com/WPaOC9kv03
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) February 26, 2017
“But if it were put on a ballot today, would you now support it?” NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Sunday.
“Well, I’m getting close,” Hickenlooper replied. “I mean, I don’t think I’m quite there yet, but we have made a lot of progress. We didn’t see a spike in teenage use. If anything, it’s come down in the last year. And we’re getting anecdotal reports of less drug dealers. I mean, if you get rid of that black market — you’ve got tax revenues to deal with, the addictions and some of the unintended consequences of legalized marijuana — [but] maybe this system is better than what was admittedly a pretty bad system to begin with.”
Under President Barack Obama, the Department of Justice left the enforcement of federal marijuana laws up to the states, leaving room for places like Colorado, Washington and Oregon to experiment with cannabis regulation. In an interview with the New Yorker published in early 2014, Obama famously said he views marijuana as a “bad habit” and “a vice” but no more dangerous than alcohol.
“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life,” Obama said. “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”
Now, states like Colorado are closely watching what signals the Trump administration will send on legal weed.
Questions after #StateOfTheState as to new tone in DC…answer…CO is changing our DC relationship status to "It's complicated." #GiddyUp
— John Hickenlooper (@hickforco) January 12, 2017
Hickenlooper said that before Attorney General Jeff Sessions was confirmed, Sessions had assured Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner that enforcement of federal marijuana law was not going to be a priority of the Trump administration.
According to a Quinnipiac poll released Thursday, 71 percent of Americans said they would oppose a federal crackdown on legal marijuana.
But late last week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer suggested the administration may press for “greater enforcement” of federal pot laws.
“There’s a big difference between (medical marijuana) and recreational marijuana, and I think when you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people,” Spicer said Thursday. “There is still a federal law that we need to abide by in terms of recreational marijuana and other drugs of that nature.”
Spicer referred a reporter who asked about increased enforcement around recreational marijuana to the Department of Justice. But, he added: “I do believe that you’ll see greater enforcement of it.”
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