The year started off with a bang for medi-pot advocates, who scored a victory last week when Rhode Island legislators successfully overturned a gubernatorial veto, making the state the 11th to legalize medi-mari for sick and dying patients. On Jan. 3, the state House voted 59-13 in favor of the Edward O. Hawkins and Thomas C. Slater Medical Marijuana Act, overriding a veto by Gov. Donald Carcieri, codifying legislation that allows seriously ill patients who have registered with the state to grow up to 12 pot plants or to buy up to 2.5 ozs. of pot at a time.
In other sativa-related news, members of the Denver grassroots group Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, or SAFER – the group that scored a victory in November when Denver voters passed its bid to legalize possession of up to an ounce of pot by adults – announced on Dec. 28 that they’re taking their efforts statewide and launching a bid to get the legalization measure on the statewide ballot this year. They’ll need nearly 68,000 valid voter signatures to land the Colorado Alcohol-Marijuana Equalization Initiative on the ballot, which doesn’t appear to daunt SAFER Campaign Director Mason Tvert, who told reporters he plans to gather 100,000 signatures for the measure. Predictably, Colorado officials don’t appear too pleased with Tvert’s plans – indeed, since passage of the Denver initiative, city officials have reportedly made good on their promise to ignore the voter initiative, and continue to bust adults for pot possession. Colorado Attorney General John Suthers told the Associated Press that he welcomes a “head-on, outright debate” on legalization. “[M]y personal opinion is it would be terrible public policy to legalize possession of any amount of marijuana,” he said. “The information that we now have is that marijuana is a dangerous drug.” Tired official lines notwithstanding, if Tvert’s push is successful, Colorado would become only the second state (after Alaska) to legalize pot possession by adults.
This article appears in January 13 • 2006.