Define Irony: Millions in Legal Weed Sales are Fixing Colorado’s Crumbling Schools

Once again, Colorado is showing the good things that happen when people gain freedom and a new industry is born. For the second year in a row, $40 million from taxes on legal pot sales will be going into a program to repair and replace rundown schools.

According to the Denver Post, this figure funds a significant portion of the $300 million in funding for the Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) program, along with funding from other sources including the lottery and the Colorado Land Board. Although billions more are needed to completely fix the problem of crumbling schools, officials welcome anything they can get to provide the kids a good school.

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“I don’t care where the money comes from, if we get a new school, I’m for it,” said Hayley Whitehead, a Deer Trail graduate who works as the district’s administrative assistant. “I see the invoices and see what we need for repairs, so I have a pretty good idea of the situation here.”

“There are lots of so-called ‘sin taxes’ for uses and products that people don’t necessarily endorse,” added Jay Hoskinson, regional program manager for capital construction for the Colorado Department of Education. “But I think people also start looking at it as a possible new revenue source. And it kind of gets intermingled with other funding and becomes pretty much all part of the same package.”

“And so far, we’ve not heard from any school districts who say, “No, we are not going to use that money,’” Hoskinson said.”

The Denver Post cites Deer Trail as a poignant example. The old school—where wheelchair-bound students must be hoisted upstairs—will be demolished and replaced by a state-of-the-art school serving students from preK to 12^th grade. The new school will cost $34 million.

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There is also a housing rush in Deer Trail, which is another hint that legal recreational pot sales are part of an economic upswing in Colorado. We already know that the cannabis industry is contributing more to the economy than any other industry in the state.

The bottom line is, if people want to ingest substances considered “illicit” by government, they are going to do it. Instead of the futility of prohibition—which only brings cruelty and suffering—states like Colorado have embraced the rationality of decriminalization. And they’re making a lot of money from it.

Meanwhile, none of the horrible things that drug war fanatics predicted are coming true. Teenagers are not using cannabis more than they did when it was illegal, car crashes are not increasing from ‘stoned driving,’ and society has refrained from going berserk.

Millions of dollars that went into the black market are now going into schools and other beneficial endeavors. People can now buy cannabis from reputable vendors who tell consumers exactly what is in the products. Traffic stops resulting in searches have drastically declined, meaning citizens are less likely to be extorted, injured or killed by cops.

Safety, human rights and economy are the most important reasons for cannabis decriminalization, even if states are doing it just for the tax money. Even the most die-hard prohibitionist must think twice when seeing new schools being built in part thanks to legal pot.

Colorado to Use Pot Taxes to Treat Drug Addiction — INSTEAD of Prison

Colorado is continuing its role as a leader in progressive approaches to drug policy. The state legalized recreational cannabis in 2014 and has since witnessed extraordinary economic benefits along with tax revenues from the sale of cannabis.

Now, Colorado wants to double down against the War on Drugs by using tax revenue from pot sales to fund a public health approach to drug abuse and mental health — including alternatives to locking people in prison.

According to the Drug Policy Alliance:

“The Department of Human Services (DHS) in conjunction with the Governor’s Office, at the request and guidance of Drug Policy Alliance and other advocates such as the Equitas Foundation, submitted a request yesterday to the Colorado General Assembly Joint Budget Committee (JBC) to allocate over $6 million annually from the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund for grant-based initiatives that will create meaningful alternatives to criminal justice involvement for Coloradans with mental health or substance use issues.  If successful over the 2017 legislative process the monies will increase the treatment, public health and harm reduction infrastructures for multiple jurisdictions in Colorado.”

A key part of the program will be the implementation of Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD), which gives police the ability to divert low-level drug users to “supportive resources” instead of turning them into criminals. LEAD, which is already being implemented in other cities such as Seattle, is empirically shown “to reduce recidivism, save money and improve police/community relations.”

“The intent of many voters in approving Amendment 64 was to find a criminal justice alternative to the War on Drugs. The LEAD model aligns with this intent by keeping low-level drug offenders out of the criminal justice system while offering them support to break the cycle of drug dependency, says Mark Bolton, senior deputy legal counsel to Governor Hickenlooper.”

The proposal signals a recognition that locking people in cages for the victimless behavior of ingesting a substance brings zero benefit to the drug abuser. Instead, it deprives people who abuse addictive substances of the chance to improve their lives, it creates hostility toward government and it creates a demand for prisons and militarized police forces.

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For too long, law enforcement has profited from the War on Drugs, criminalizing victimless behavior so cops can seize millions in assets from innocent people, through civil asset forfeiture, or Policing for Profit. For decades the War on Drugs has also allowed cops to selectively target minorities and political dissidents.

Colorado and other states are rapidly realizing they can still bring in revenue by legalizing and taxing cannabis, while freeing up cops to go after actual violent criminals instead of antagonizing communities in the drug war crusade.

Of course, taxation is not the answer to the problems of government, but at least people are now prospering through the cannabis market and users are no longer subject to injustice – except for the arbitrary blood-THC limit for driving, which is another subject entirely.

For now, we can celebrate another win for rationality.

“Drug use and mental health concerns are primary reasons many are drawn into the criminal justice system and the problem is compounded by other challenges like poverty, lack of social supports and selective enforcement of the law. It is inhumane and a waste of taxpayer dollars to keep arresting and incarcerating the same people over and over when they would be better served by access to wraparound services and case management support that a program like LEAD has to offer,” said Art Way, state director, Colorado and senior director of criminal justice reform strategy at Drug Policy Alliance. “We commend Governor Hickenlooper and the DHS for taking this step to express clearly that Coloradans, including law enforcement, are no longer willing to solely depend on the criminal justice system to address public health issues.”

Natl Survey Shows Most Cops Want Pot Legal — But They’ll Keep Arresting You Because It’s Their Job

Pew Research Center has released the results of the National Survey of Law Enforcement Officers, asking nearly 8,000 police officers about their personal thoughts on cannabis legalization for both medical and recreational usage. The study found that almost one third, 32 percent of them think cannabis should be legal for recreational use. However the largest group, 37 percent of respondents think cannabis should be legal only for medical use. After rounding errors, at least 30 percent of cops think cannabis should remain illegal.

This total effectively means that two thirds of police officers still support the prohibition of cannabis some form. By comparison, only 15 percent of the general population thinks cannabis should remain illegal, according to Pew. Nearly half of Americans, at 49 percent, are in favor of recreational usage. Over a third of Americans are only in favor of approved medical usage.

The Pew Research Center study was conducted online from May through August 2016, among a national sample of 7,917 police officers in local police and sheriff departments with at least 100 sworn officers. The study was compared to a survey of the general public of 4,538 U.S. adults conducted online and by mail from August through September 2016. The survey is considered representative of both the public and law enforcement nationwide and is one of the largest of its kind, according to Pew. While this article uses the word cannabis, the survey was presented to the officers as marijuana.

The responses to Pew’s study were also split by age on the issue. Officers under age 35 were more likely to support recreational use at 37 percent, compared to 27 percent for the ages between 50 and 60.

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Not mentioned in the study, but a reality nonetheless, is the fact that no matter the opinion of the officers on cannabis, they will still arrest you for it — as it is their job. Parents looking to medicate their epileptic children with cannabis wouldn’t be so scared of doing it if 60 percent of cops weren’t a threat. However, as proven by statistics, less the rare exceptions, the majority of cops continue to kidnap and cage people over this illegal plant — personal views on cannabis aside.

Law enforcement groups have strongly opposed legalization efforts across the country for decades. However lobbying efforts against cannabis have intensified in recent years. California’s Proposition 64 which legalized recreational use saw almost 10 million dollars in opposition from the top 5 police organizations in the state. Two of the top five are collective bargaining organizations, the California Correctional Supervisors Organization and the Peace Officers Research Association of California. The remaining three are professional and training organizations, the California Police Chiefs Association, California Narcotics Officers’ Association, and the Los Angeles Peace Officers’ Association.

Washington Post was forced to note that the Pew survey indicates wide variation in views on cannabis use among officers. The Post highlighted pro-legalization group LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which is made up of active-duty and retired police officers who want to speak out “about the failures of our existing drug policies.” LEAP has been active in local campaigns to legalize recreational usage in Colorado, Washington and elsewhere.

The Washington Post quoted LEAP board member Diane Goldstein, a retired Lieutenant Commander from the Redondo Beach Police Department, who stated common reasons why police officers have more conservative attitudes than the public about marijuana legalization. “Law enforcement continues to represent an outlier view on this issue because police are trained with outdated, unscientific, drug-war-oriented materials,” Goldstein said.

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The Free Thought Project has covered the negative effects of the drug war and seeks common sense changes to American law enforcement which ends the system of policing for profit and promotes public safety. Free Thought has interviewed numerous cops on the subject, one who calls the drug war a scam. Law enforcement policy is changing in some areas as a 2015 report by the Drug Enforcement Administration showed that 1,100 police departments no longer consider marijuana a threat, according to the DEA’s National Drug Threat Assessment Summary.

The drug war only encourages corruption, ranging from petty violations like the California cops who raided a legal dispensary and were caught on video eating edible candy products, to major operations like the entire police department in Florida caught laundering tens of millions of dollars for drug cartels. Another California police department executed a raid with guns drawn on a legal dispensary, seizing cash and assets after disabling security cameras.

Public safety continues to be an issue with police raids looking for marijuana, such as a case in Buffalo where a woman and her dog were shot by Buffalo cops, a department that has likely shot over 100 dogs since 2011. A Florida man was killed in a SWAT team raid that yielded two dollars worth of marijuana. An Iowa man was left paralyzed after being shot in the neck by an officer during a traffic stop. The man allegedly tried to escape after being arrested because the officer smelled marijuana.

Drug war raids have also left a toddler disfigured by a flash grenade thrown into a crib, and a 7-year-old girl killed while sleeping on the couch with her Grandmother. Detroit cops recently killed three dogs in a raid on a woman’s house searching for cannabis plants, even though two dogs were locked in the basement and one in a bathroom.

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The Drug war has been proven a waste of time, as cops mistake cannabis for vegetable plants like tomatoes in one Texas case and for okra in Georgia.

The Free Thought Project is uniquely focused on the national trend of dangerous police raids for marijuana prohibition which can be found in search results or in our Drug War archive.