Amidst the bad news for libertarians in Colorado tonight (Obama victory, Democrats retake state house) there was one big piece of good news. Amendment 64, a constitutional amendment legalizing marijuana and regulating it like alcohol, passed with 53% of the vote.
Unfortunately for those of us who could use a “pickup” in the wake of the depressing election results, state criminal penalties for pot possession won’t go away for a couple of months (of course, the federal penalties remain, and the Obama administration has enforced them more aggressively than the Bush administration did). And the first recreational-use pot stores won’t appear until 2014 (for some reason, the existing medicinal marijuana stores won’t be allowed to sell pot for non-medicinal use, which makes no sense to me).
Still, it’s an historic step forward. Now there will be a huge Tenth Amendment issue to be resolved. The Obama administration is already saying that the federal law classifying marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug supersedes state law (but it’s not just a state statute, remember, it’s now a part of the state constitution). I expect lots of legal battles to come. This would be a good time to support the Tenth Amendment Center.
