Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper didn\u2019t have the best night at the first presidential debate for Democratic candidates last night, but things got worse after he used his final moments on camera to take credit for Colorado legalizing marijuana.<\/p>\n
In the middle of his closing statement, as he recounted what he accomplished as governor of Colorado, he said, \u201cWe were the first state to legalize marijuana and we transformed our justice system in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, while it is very true that Colorado was the first state to open for legal adult-use cannabis sales during Hickenlooper\u2019s tenure, it is far from true that Hickenlooper was a leader for the cause.<\/p>\n
When Colorado legalized cannabis in 2012, it was passed by citizens at the ballot box, not through a legislative push led by the governor. In fact, Hickenlooper himself opposed legalization question, Amendment 64.<\/p>\n
\u201cColorado\u00a0is known for many great things \u2014 marijuana should not be one of them,\u201d he\u00a0said in his announcement<\/a>\u00a0about opposing Amendment 64 in September 2012.<\/p>\n Later, once the people of his state decided otherwise and Colorado was in the thick of launching adult-use sales in 2014,\u00a0Hickenlooper told\u00a0the Durango Herald<\/a>, \u201cI hate Colorado having to be the experiment\u2026 we should not try to get people to do more of what is not a healthy thing.\u201d<\/p>\n So, in 2014, Hickenlooper\u2019s office\u00a0allocated the majority of the revenue<\/a>\u00a0gathered from adult-use cannabis sales and directed it to fund youth anti-cannabis projects. He also promised to \u201cregulate the living daylights\u201d out of cannabis.<\/p>\n In 2016,\u00a0he pushed to further<\/a>\u00a0limit the amount of home grows in Colorado. In 2018, as his stint as governor rolled to a close, Hickenlooper\u00a0vetoed three cannabis bills<\/a>: one that would give cannabis to autistic children, one that would have allowed for \u201ccannabis tastings\u201d at stores, and one that would have allowed publicly traded companies to invest in Colorado cannabis companies.<\/p>\n In short, the fact that Hickenlooper took credit for the restorative effect marijuana legalization has had on the state\u2019s criminal justice system is\u00a0a bit of a stretch<\/a>, leaving the activists who attempted to implement the will of the voters in Amendment 64 baffled.<\/p>\n We reached to a bunch of Colorado\u2019s OG activists to see just how high Hickenlooper rolled up his sleeves in 2012 to get to work legalizing marijuana.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s bizarre that Hickenlooper is seemingly taking credit for legalization in Colorado, and it\u2019s somewhat laughable that he attempted to use it as a way to distinguish himself from the rest of the field,\u201d Mason Tvert told Cannabis Now. Tvert, now the VP of Communications at Colorado\u2019s VS Strategies, led the legalization effort in Colorado back in 2012 and much of the decade leading up to legalization being approved by the will of the voters.<\/p>\n Tvert went on to note as a mayor and then as governor, Hickenlooper repeatedly opposed efforts to roll back marijuana prohibition, including the state\u2019s historic legalization initiative in 2012.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile he deserves credit for implementing that law and finally coming around on the issue, he has no business holding it over the heads of the many candidates who support legalization \u2014 including several who never opposed it, as he did,\u201d Tvert said. \u201cIf Hickenlooper wants to use marijuana policy as a campaign issue, he should avoid misrepresenting what he did in the past and focus on what he would do in the future.\u201c\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Kayvan Khalatbari is a long time Denver entrepreneur and Colorado cannabis advocate. He is also a founding partner of the Denver Relief dispensary, which was sold to Willie Nelson. Khalatbari also now serves in the leadership of the\u00a0Minority Cannabis Business Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI think [Hickenlooper] trying to take credit for cannabis legalization yet again, with all that he attempted to do to discourage its implementation, shows how desperate he is to get noticed,\u201d Khalatbari told Cannabis Now. \u201cHe has a history of moderate, neo-liberal policies and that simply won\u2019t cut it in a Democratic field with so many young people, people of color and LGBTQ folks.\u201d<\/p>\n Matthew Schweich,\u00a0the Marijuana Policy Project\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0Deputy Director who was a key player in legalizing marijuana in Maine and Massachusetts, said, \u201cLegalization has certainly improved Colorado\u2019s criminal justice system but it\u2019s important to recognize that the social justice issues facing this country extend far beyond marijuana prohibition.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFurthermore,\u201d Schweich said, \u201cGovernor Hickenlooper should not imply that he deserves credit for a legalization policy that he opposed at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n And last but not least,\u00a0NORML<\/a>\u2019s Executive Director Erik Altieri weighed in. \u201cHickenlooper deserves no credit for legalization in Colorado and his claim is inauthentic and duplicitous,\u201d Altieri told Cannabis Now. \u201cThe only ones who deserve credit are the citizens of Colorado, who took the bold and sensible step towards legalization, despite the utter lack of leadership from their governor.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong>\u00a0do you think presidential candidates should support cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Activists Shocked as Hickenlooper Claims Credit for Colorado\u2019s Cannabis Legalization<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper didn\u2019t have the best night at the first presidential debate for Democratic candidates last night, but things got worse after he used his final moments on camera to take credit for Colorado legalizing marijuana. In the middle of his closing statement, as he recounted whatContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6814,1408,50,10491,2983,687,1259,146,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36440,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36439\/revisions\/36440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Colorado Activists Respond to Hickenlooper\u2019s Cannabis Claims<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Activists Shocked as Hickenlooper Claims Credit for Colorado\u2019s Cannabis Legalization<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"