Colorado's Economy is Vibrant...So Why is Trump Attacking It?

Can you think of anything that might calm this man down?

$17,300,000,000 is what Colorado's tourism industry generated in 2016. There is no doubt that our state does well with its skiing, hiking, hunting and fishing industries.  But were you aware that since Colorado legalized the use of both medical and recreational marijuana, our state has increased its tourism significantly? Agree with it or not, people are curious to see what the buzz (pun intended) is all about in Colorado.

In 2016, the legal sales of marijuana in the state added $266,000,000 to our coffers.  That has done a great deal to improve Colorado's budgetary woes, especially in the area  of capital improvement in schools and helping the homeless.  Theses facts can be found in a great NPR interview from last year aimed at making people aware of how these tax dollars are spent. http://www.npr.org/2016/10/01/496226348/where-does-colorados-marijuana-money-go. It is not going to completely heal our fiscal difficulties, especially since the prices for marijuana will begin to drop as more states fall into line with pot-friendly legislation, but there is no doubt it has helped a great deal.

In an October article in the Washington Post, the newspaper attempts to understand the impact on the states of Washington and Colorado after having legalized marijuana usage and possession amounts.  That article can be viewed here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/13/heres-how-legal-pot-changed-colorado-and-washington/?utm_term=.13b36d02e432.   In a brief summary, both states have not had any significant negative fallout from the decisions.  Crime is slightly down.  Drug arrests are very much in a downward spiral.  Usage among teenagers has not gone up and might actually be going down.  Traffic accident rates involving pot have not gone up.  There is even some evidence to suggest that medical marijuana may dramatically help abate the crisis in this nation as it struggles with the worst opioid crisis in its history. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/11/could-pot-help-solve-us-opioid-epidemic.

But President Trump sees things differently.  His appointment of former Senator Jeff Session as Attorney General marks a return to the policies that rank marijuana as a dangerous drug on a par with heroin.  It is expected that the AG will make moves to criminalize those who recreationally use marijuana by throwing them in jail as common criminals.  This is going to become a gigantic crisis here in our state as a significant number of Coloradoans  benefit from the legalized sale and usage of the substance.  Many people grow their own marijuana and it has led to a reduction of alcohol consumption, which is both hazardous and expensive.  Many are finding pain relief that is safe and effective requiring less uses of dangerous and often addictive prescription drugs.  Some people are finding that marijuana not only helps them solve sleeping problems without the dangerous side effects of drugs like Ambien.  And, there does not seem to be the debilitating impact of what drinkers painfully refer to as "hangovers."

So why are the new AG and President Trump so worried about the twenty-eight states that have relaxed laws on marijuana?  Perhaps you need look no further than the high paid lobbyists of the alcohol industry.  Perhaps you need look no further than the high paid lobbyists working for private prisons that need customers in the form of inmates.  You may even want to examine the lobbyists for Big Pharma who see the medical benefits of marijuana cutting into their profits.  If you think that my belief is that our new president and his appointed officials are doing this for nefarious purposes, you would be correct.

This states' rights argument comes up from time to time.  When it is convenient for the conservatives, they say leave it to the states to decide.  When it serves their corporate sponsors, the conservatives want the federal government to step in and do the dirty work for them.  President Trump, Colorado has decided as a state to loosen federal regulations on marijuana and we are doing just fine. If you criminalize us for what we have done here in Colorado, you may be in for a big surprise.

Personally, I don't use  alcohol or marijuana for recreational purposes.  I do have relatives who have abused alcohol and prescription drugs, resulting in death.  I do have relatives who have had pain issues and have become addicted to painkillers.  I have a number of  family members who battle insomnia and then have had horrifying side effects with drugs like Ambien. 

I live in arguably one of the most conservative counties in our state.  As a liberal Democrat I am in a minority of epic proportions.  Many of my friends, neighbors, and acquaintances in this county are conservative Republicans.  They may not publicly talk about the fact that they not only use marijuana, but  they grow marijuana for their own consumption.  In my opinion, they are not going to be happy about this decision.  This may be more of a problem than anyone might imagine when the government comes for their weed.  These are the same people who said that they would not remain silent if someone came for their guns (which nobody ever did).  It will be interesting to see what happens in this case.

Suffice it to say, if Sessions turns its forces loose on the people of Colorado for marijuana usage, there will be resistance from both side of the political aisle and the other states will be watching.  This is just one more attempt to divide the people of this nation and replace our cherished Democracy with authoritarian rule of law.  Resist.

Might I suggest an app for your smart phone that will help speak truth to power?

Picture of CA app not the CO

Yes, it is a long title.  Truth be told, the title of this piece really says most everything that needs to be said.  The application is one that is called Mobile Justice Co.  It is free on iTunes.  It is software from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) located in Colorado. It is software that helps you watch situations where for example a police officer might be overstepping his bounds.  It might help a person being harassed or it might help someone who is a victim of a hate crime.  You simply load it on your phone.  If you find yourself in a difficult situation, simply pull out your phone and start the app.  You can see in the picture what features are included.  Push the orange button marked Record  and it will take over your phone's camera and begin recording.  When you feel you have captured a significant event, just press Report and the phone sends what you have captured directly to the American Civil Liberties Union offices here in Colorado. There is also a feature that allows your phone to be alerted in case someone else is being harassed and the event is nearby.  In this function you can quickly be told where to proceed and you hit the orange button marked Record to act as a witness. When you are finished you merely send the report as already discussed.

There is an information button that gives you instructions of what you can and cannot do in an arrest situation in the state of Colorado.  It also has an audio feature that works in a similar manner.  This app might just protect you in an unfortunate situation of over-policing or help someone have eyewitness protections.  Just something to think about when politicians are attempting to reel in protesters around the nation.  Be brave.  Resist.

State Senator Jerry Sonnenberg and U.S. Senator Cory Gardner: Old friends

If you live in rural Colorado on the Eastern Plains, these are the two people who will have the greatest clout in the argument for reasonable preservation of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a ACA, Obamacare).  They are old friends from the Colorado State Legislature where they served together before Cory Gardner won his U.S. Senate seat.  They are both conservatives and both proponents of "anything but Obamacare."  Of course there has been no substantive alternative plan floated by either of these two men.  They both are seemingly unmoved by the pleas of their constituents who fear for the health and well-being of their families who are dependent on uninterrupted healthcare that cannot be taken away for preexisting conditions or be capped based on treatment needed.

These two elected officials have great appeal in rural Colorado for the majority of the people living there.  There is no secret that rural America tends to be conservative and has a high proportion of Evangelical Christians. Both of these politicians have their roots in agricultural settings. That said, what bothers me the most about these two men is that they both are against the kind of healthcare where women make choices that are suited to their beliefs and needs. care  Small towns the likes of which these two men evolved are places where religious beliefs sometimes make their way into the private confines of a doctors office. Women want to be able to chose for themselves whether they wish to become pregnant and have a family.  Women often want easy access to birth control pills or IUD's so they may plan for their financial futures.  They may need birth control pill for a wide array of female specific maladies, it is not just about getting pregnant and they want that decision to be theirs. They do not want to be harassed by people who believe every trip to a Planned Parenthood facility is an appointment for an abortion.  But these two guys are just fine with that.  In fact both are major proponents of legislation that reduces a woman's opportunity to receive quality healthcare for any reason including reproductive health. The cavalier dismantling of the Affordable Care Act and the defunding of Planned Parenthood just about guarantees that women especially those who have to raise a family on their own are going to get abandoned by the system. They are tired of men controlling their bodies.

Let's be perfectly clear here, there are good doctors both in Yuma where Cory is from and Sterling where Jerry makes his home.  There is even a Planned Parenthood office in Sterling. But let's just say you are living in Yuma and you give birth to a child with a genetic anomaly. It is almost a guarantee that he or she will need access to affordable healthcare for the remainder of their life.  Just a few years ago, that meant that if the child's parents attempted to gain access to health insurance the application would have been denied because the condition was preexisting.  The family would have run through its financial resources almost immediately.  Bankruptcy would soon have followed.  The child's life would have been put in jeopardy because of lack of treatment and then would likely have died. It is a scenario that was all too real just a few years ago in the days before the ACA. The ACA is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but is doing it is a hell of an improvement.  But now, the republicans are on the brink of taking away the healthcare from 30,000,000 people.  They also decided to allow whatever the future replacement plan is to not honor the most important aspects of the ACA i.g., no disqualification based on preexisting conditions, children being allowed to stay on their parents insurance policies until the age of twenty-six, and no caps on major illnesses.  Never forget that before the ACA, the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States was health related.  This is a situation that can happen to families in Yuma, Sterling, Hugo, Aurora, Denver or Boulder.  You see even conservative families also need adequate and affordable healthcare.  Illness does not follow party lines even though Sonneberg and Gardner behave as though it does.

These two politicians serve the citizens of Colorado.  Sonnenberg is probably safe in his senate seat due to the number of republican constituents in Eastern Colorado, but Cory Gardner has been put on notice by the voters of the entire state. Despite claims to the contrary by the cult of Trump, the progressives, if compelled to vote by the actions unfolding on our televisions daily, will definitely eclipse any attempts by the republicans to retain his seat in 2020. The Women's March on Denver was no fluke.  The republicans, by blindly acquiescing to this mean spirited and woefully ill-prepared POTUS have done just what Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto supposedly lamented in his diary after the attack on Pearl Harbor when he wrote, "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve."  Women have it in their power to make the United States the envy of the world when it comes to healthcare.  I believe Mr. Gardner is beginning to hear the banging on the gates.  It remains to be seen whether Jerry Sonnenberg will begin to fear that the republicans will retain the control of the Colorado State Senate and tone his attack on healthcare down a bit.  

Time will tell us much.  SB17-003, only the third bill on the docket in the Colorado State Senate received such backlash and so many protestors at the capital that they postponed the initial hearing.  It is an age old tactic to keep the majority party from having to field citizen opposition from an organized citizenry.  The idea is they employed is that if you frustrate the people who have taken time off from work etc. by postponing a hearing without notice, they will be reluctant to come out again.  It may have worked in past legislative sessions, but when you meet these people.  When you begin to see the organization that is behind these protests, you begin to see that these people are as serious as a heart attack.  They will not be backing down anytime soon.  When people learned that the hearing was called off, instead of going away dejected, they either walked  to the offices of elected officials or joined in the protest at Cory Gardner's office a few blocks away.  That is not giving up.  That is reconnaissance.  The Indivisible movement is learning very quickly how to outpace the bureaucracy.  Welcome to the age of social media and huge groups of highly motivated people of every demographic imaginable.

Finally, if you do get a chance to visit the offices of either of these two politicians, you may or may not ever get the chance to meet them.  Their staffs are expert at keeping their bosses out of sight, especially if your hat is pink or your lapel pin is a donkey. But never leave without making the secretary take down your name and address.  Make sure you leave a message and tell them you want a response.  Then, as a final gesture, make sure they write down that you are not a paid protestor.  If they balk, tell them you have others waiting down the hall that you can request to have join you and make the very same request.  They work in your capital.  They will almost always do as you ask.