Amendment 64 Lawsuit Dismissed; Blue Book Going to Print with 366 Words Opposing Measure and 208 Words in Favor

Legislative Council succeeds in maintaining grossly imbalanced word-count despite constitutional requirement to produce "fair and impartial" summary

Statement below from Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Co-Director Mason Tvert

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012 – DENVER – A Denver District Court judge has dismissed the lawsuit filed by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol to reinsert key arguments in support of Amendment 64 that were mistakenly removed from the state voter guide, known as the blue book. Judge Robert Hyatt granted the defendents' motion to dismiss the case based on a jurisdictional issue and not on the merits of the case.

Read the details of the case at http://www.regulatemarijuana.org/blue-book.

Last Wednesday, in what the evidence clearly shows was a misunderstanding, the Legislative Council removed some of the strongest arguments in support of Amendment 64 without the knowing support of two-thirds of the committee required to modify the final draft of the blue book prepared before the hearing by the Legislative Council Staff. State law requires the guide to include the major arguments in support of each state issue that will appear on the ballot. The deleted arguments were: Marijuana is objectively less harmful than alcohol; the consequences of a marijuana offense are too severe; and law enforcement resources would be better spent on more serious crimes. As a result, the blue book, which must be "fair and impartial" under state law, now includes 75 percent more words in the "Arguments Against" section (366) than in the "Arguments For" section (208).  

Public dismay with the Legislative Council's actions has resulted in more than 4,000 new supporters joining the Yes on 64 campaign's email list in the past 24 hours.

The Denver Post also expressed its concern in an editorial with the headline and subheadline, "Panel erred in blue book edits: Backers of a marijuana amendment are right to object to a legislative committee's ommissions." Read the editorial at http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_21510390/editorial-panel-erred-blue-book-edits

Statement from Mason Tvert, co-director of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which is supporting Amendment 64:

"This was not a loss for our campaign; this was a loss for the people of Colorado, who will not receive the fair and impartial election information promised to them by our state constitution. No objective person would look at a 366- to 208 word-count disparity and consider it to be 'fair and impartial.'

"This is just the latest example of government officials skewing information about marijuana and deceiving the public in order to maintain the wasteful policy of marijuana prohibition. It started with Richard Nixon throwing out the Shafer Commission report, which declared marijuana relatively harmless, and launching the war on marijuana. And now it continues with the Colorado Legislative Council improperly deleting key information from a state voter guide.  

"We are comforted by the fact that such egregious deception of the pubic will provide further momentum for our campaign. The public doesn't like being deceived and many voters may end up voting for Amendment 64 as a protest vote against a dishonest government."

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