[Pesqueeb]

Colorado Springs sued over "do-over vote" on recreational marijuana sales

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - A local veteran and medical marijuana store owner is suing the City of Colorado Springs over a ballot measure that could

krdo.com

Edit: this morning I actually had a council member (one Nancy Henjum who just inherited my hood in a district reorganizing) knock on my door asking for my vote in this April's upcoming election. I asked her why in the 20+ years I've been here that the city council time and time again seeks end runs around voter approved issues. She is one of the two council members who voted against putting this newest measure on the ballot. She indicated in a round about way that most of the city council seems to think it's voters are morons who need adult guidance. And when she puts it like that, it's hard to disagree.

 

[mandown]

Were the measures simply -
Pot should be legal?
Pot should be illegal?

…or were there other elements in how they differed like how tax revenue would be spent?

 

[Pesqueeb]

Were the measures simply -
Pot should be legal?
Pot should be illegal?

…or were there other elements in how they differed like how tax revenue would be spent?

Well like most things, it's a little complicated. Operating from memory here so some details might be slightly incorrect.

Amendment 20 legalized "medical" weed in 2000, and "medical" weed shops popped up everywhere. It wasn't until 2 years later that recreational sales passed with amendment 64. 64 allowed something that 20 didn't, in that 64 gave local government the ability to chose if it would allow recreational weed sales and a number of metro areas opted out. By far the largest was the city of Colorado Springs, because Jesus hates jazz clubs or something.

In the intervening years several attempts were made by local voters to force the city to allow recreational weed sales. At least one passed a couple years ago but was poorly worded and got railroaded by city council, who has made their opposition abundantly clear, will of the people be damned.

The two latest attempts were kind of sneaky. 300 was a city ballot measure that would allow recreational sales ONLY in currently existing MEDICAL weed shops if they had the ability to swap to, or additionally provide recreational sales provided that the two are treated and operated as separate, which is basically how it operates in the rest of the state. i.e, shops that provide both, have separate entrances, sales people, etc. The measure allowed for absolutely zero new stores to be opened. This measure passed overwhelmingly. 9 points if memory serves.

Measure 2D appeared on the ballot at the same time and on its face appeared to be a separate but more restrictive recreational sales measure. It would have allowed sales, but was infact a rezoning measure that would have killed almost every shop in town. It changed how far a shop has to be from schools, churches, day cares, etc. to a mile, which meant basically everywhere inside of city limits was no longer zoned for weed shops of ANY kind. It would have killed all but two shops as I recall. This measure barely failed. 50.something, and I'm personally convinced that this measure was purposely worded confusingly. Unless you actually read the language it seemed to be a legalization attempt.

Which brings us to now. City Council claims that voters were confused by the poor wording (again) and obviously voted the wrong way. Which might be true if you also think that trade wars are easy to win and that trump is a bigly stable genius. So city council is attempting to basically hold the vote all over again, during an off year election that they know skews right and that has much lower turnout. This is in the face of clear voter approval, and the fact that amendment 64 is worded in such a way that these decisions should only be on the ballot during even year elections. So not only is City council ignoring the will of voters, it's ignoring the state constitution.

 

[jimmydean]

There's a shop in town advertising $20 ounces. I'm sure its not top shelf, but it's a far cry from the brick packed Mexican seed weed I grew up with.

Oregon's marijuana glut leads to lowest prices ever, regulator says

Marijuana prices in Oregon have dropped to their lowest levels ever because of the oversupply resulting from the record-breaking 2024 harvest.

mjbizdaily.com