On April 6, Nederland voters decided - by a vote of 259 to 218 - to legalize marijuana and paraphernalia completely for anyone over 21 years old. Good for them.
The mountain town's residents went further than Breckenridge, which last year legalized possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, and by a vote of 259 to 218, removed all criminal penalties against buying, selling, possessing, consuming, growing and transporting marijuana for anyone age 21 or older.
H/T to Polizeros.
Apparently, this will have little legal implications for the community - "'Marijuana enforcement for small quantities and personal use is not a priority for our department or for our community, but we'll continue to investigate and enforce trafficking,'" he said - but what's more important is the "symbolic" side of it.
This is the first town in the entire United States to completely legalize marijuana, as Californians might do by ballot initiative this fall. This is what progress looks like.
In the words of Polizero's Bob Morris:
In addition to being an intelligent move on many levels, not the least of which is crippling the drug cartels, this is also a direct challenge to the authority of the US government which insists on the idiotic laws against marijuana, probably because so many dirty banks, hedge funds, and politicians benefit from it.
Oh gosh, did I imply our system is corrupt and awash in drug money? Silly me. What I meant to say was Wall Street with the connivance of D.C. launders enormous amounts of dirty money. Oops, I did it again, implying our government is corrupt. I guess I’m just hopeless.
Considering that we now have the obscenity of Obama ordering the assassination of a US citizen, I’d say, the more direct challenges we have to the authority of the US government, the better.
And just wait until November, when Californians legalize marijuana. Because they will.