The last point Sean Paige talks about is the Constitution. He is right. We had a majority vote that wrote it into the Constitution. What needs to happen is we need to try and follow the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) method in regulating. Apply the stipulations to open up a shop (without the tens of thousands of dollars to open up), keep the criminal element away, tax it FAIRLY and make sure the dispensaries are on the up and up. It doesn’t need to be so complicated but when you have as many cooks in the kitchen adding their two cents what starts out as simple ends up being a menagerie. This doesn’t have to be hard. People make it hard.

There is no crime problem associated with MMJ, as you imply. I have repeatedly asked the police chief and DA for hard statistical evidence of that, and it’s less-than-alarming, relative to other crime threats. MMJ providers and sellers can attract criminals, obviously – just like banks, liquor stores and Subway shops. But if we began shutting down every business that’s a potential draw for criminals, based on hard crime data, MMJ dispensaries would be far down the list. These are secure facilities, not accessible to the general public, which have security cameras and other monitoring equipment in place to deter crime and protect the privacy and safety of patients and employees.

The illegality of non-medical marijuana is a much bigger generator of crime, as anyone with any common sense knows. School yards and school friends are where Colorado Springs kids get their drugs, not legal, locked-down MMJ shops. Parents who make villains of MMJ shops are overlooking threats much closer to home, starting in their own medicine cabinets. The black tar heroin ring discovered at Cheyenne Mountain High School a few years ago, and the drug networks not uncovered that keep local high schoolers high, have nothing to do with MMJ. But I guess it’s easier for local law enforcers and anxious parents to pick on MMJ patients than to root out the real source of the problem.

I’m not aware of one MMJ provider that has been busted by the DEA as a “front” in Colorado. Mexican drug cartels don’t need fronts, given the ease with which they are operating already (including in Colorado Springs schools). Why would they want to pay taxes and subject themselves to regulation and public scrutiny, as MMJ shops do, if they don’t have to? Partial legalization is cutting into drug cartel profits, as numerous reports have indicated. The DEA, like any self-serving bureaucracy, wants to keep the drug war going (even though it is a demonstrated failure) because it keeps DEA budgets fat. They think everything will unravel if they concede that marijuana might have some beneficial value. But a little independent research, and independent thinking, will lead you to alternative interpretations.

I don’t know whether it helps people, scientifically, any more than I know whether the copper bracelet by grandma wore to fight arthritis worked. But I’m not arrogant enough to try and pre-empt that personal and private choice, if this right is written into the state constitution. I’m not sure why so many non-patients care so much: Are you as judgmental about the prescription pills all your friends are popping? I believe in personal freedom — including the freedom to medicate oneself with MMJ, if that is legal. I trust people to decide for themselves. I know this complicates the messages we send our children. As a step-parent, I understand those concerns. But freedom creates a lot of uncomfortable situations. And people can’t be denied their rights just because exercising those rights makes other people uncomfortable.

I do want to keep MMJ out of neighborhoods. But the best way to ensure that it stays in neighborhoods, and stays underground, is to shut down openly-operating strip mall dispensaries. At least we know where these dispensaries and grow operations are. They can be monitored, regulated, taxed — and shut down if they fail to operate on the up-and-up. Shut them down with a ban and where do you think this activity will go? It will go into your neighborhoods. How will that improve public safety?

Live in denial if you choose, but it’s a legal activity, approved by voters and written into the Constitution. If you don’t approve, amend the Constitution. Until that happens, if it happens, it’s an issue we need to deal with, hopefully in a rational and constructive way, which means getting educated about the issue, rather than trading in misinformation and myth. Take the second path if you like, CitizenX, but I think most people in Colorado Springs want to move forward, not live in the past.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration has stated that many MMDs “are nothing more than drug trafficking organizations bringing criminal activities to our neighborhoods and drugs near our children and schools.” I have not heard anything from you stating your position on drafting ordinances, laws, MMD monitoring, and acceptable easements to protect our community – only comments on generating sales at in order to help city budget problems.

Your solution to the well-being of patients of MMDs, as stated in your comment, “that the buyer and seller know eachother and both are operating openly” is also ludicrous and unreasonable. You neglected to leave out the statistic on the high number of felonies/misdemeanors that MMD shop owners have. Do you suggest a ‘buyer’ should request a Background Check prior to the sale?

Since your primary focus appears to be solely on generating “sales tax”, rather than safety concerns regarding our children and neighborhoods, then perhaps your next ambitious plot should also be to legalize brothels, as some areas of Nevada has done. Maybe that’s why their city lights are still on, right?

Until federal laws are changed, and marijuana’s status as a schedule 1 drug is removed, selling it from a pharmacy isn’t possible. That day will come, perhaps. But it can’t happen now. The best we can achieve for now, in terms of quality control, is that the buyer and seller know eachother and both are operating openly, and accountably, which is a vast improvement over the black market, where there is no quality control and the Mexican drug cartels pocket all the proceeds.

The idea that every FDA-approved drug prescribed by a doctor and filled by an experienced pharmacist is absolutely safe, and not subject to abuse or misuse by those so inclined, is ludicrous, given the epidemic of prescription drug problems we see in the country. I’ve yet to read about an overdose caused by legally-purchased medical marijuana in Colorado. Can the same be said for drugs bought over the counter at Walgreens?

Being a councilperson requires that one focus on numerous things at once, CitizenX; that’s what I’m doing. Medical marijuana-related economic activity actually is helping with the city’s budget problems, in case you haven’t been paying attention; it’s partially credited with a recent surge in sales tax revenues, which will lessen the pain in the next round of budget cuts. If we let reason be our guide and do this right, by locally regulating and taxing an activity that is protected by the state Constitution, we can see benefits for the local economy and the city’s bottom line, while respecting the rights of patients.

Sean: Don’t you have more important things you can focus on for our City? Like, the budget.