Pot tale of the week

All during this campaign, prohibitionists have held Colorado’s legal, regulated market up as a bad example, often with false statistics and information that doesn’t check out with Colorado officials.

Many of them claim that Colorado’s governor and Denver’s mayor oppose the marijuana market in their state. For instance, in a June 22 Reno Gazette-Journal essay and a July 12 letter to the editor of the Elko Free Press, Genoa prohibitionist Jim Hartman said, “Democrats like Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock” opposed regulated marijuana when it was on the ballot in Colorado.

That much was true but was incomplete. What he neglected to mention was that the views of both officials have evolved.

In May, Hickenlooper said if he could wave a magic wand and make regulated marijuana go away, “I don’t know if I would wave it. It’s beginning to look like it might work.”

And Mayor Hancock, while reserving final judgment on whether the original ballot measure was a good idea, last year told Inc. Magazine, “I am very proud of the industry that came to the table and went to work. The industry has investors and businessmen and women who are very legit. They’re putting their hard-earned money, many retirements and investments on the line for this industry.”