Monday, August 14, 2006

Initiative attracts no attention

As usual there's going to be a ton of initiatives and referenda on the ballot in Colorado this November, including my favorite, Referendum J, which, according to the News, "Requires school districts to spend a portion of their budgets on certain operations." One of those operations will be edumacatin' the kiddies, I bet, so I'm fer it.

There are also two gay marriage-type things already on the ballot, Referendum I, which "Provides same-sex couples the opportunity to attain the legal protections and responsibilities granted to married couples by Colorado law" while specifying that "a domestic partnership is not similar to a marriage" (d'oh!); and Amendment 43, which "Defines marriage in Colorado as only a union between one man and one woman [nice grammar there, dip]." They've both gotten a lot of verbiage but I can't be buggered (sorry) to link to it.


Dave's not here

The initiative that hasn't gotten the attention it deserves, despite its national significance and just plain old interestingness, is the one to make possession of an ounce or less of marijuana legal statewide. (Denver is already the only city in the country to have decriminalized possession of a "baco bit" (as "hippies" call an ounce of marijuana)).

Both Denver papers have completely crapped out on the statewide story. In fact, the initiative roundup I linked to above, and a story from last December on the start of the initiative drive, is all the Rocky's got. The Post, even worse, has only the ballot roundup.

This neglect got really ridiculous last week, when neither paper bothered to report that initiative supporters had submitted 129,000 signatures, almost twice the 68,000 necessary, to get the issue on the ballot. That's kinda newsworthy, isn't it? The stoner press, or at least High Times, was all over it, as were Stop the drug war.org and Norml. Kind of embarrassing to be beat on a story by a bunch of potheads.

(Credit: Hippie Harlot (I love writing that) cover from vintagebks.com, a very cool site.)

Update: Channel 9 had a decent story on the initiative last week.

Update II: Hey, another blogger cliche crossed off my life-list: edumacatin'.

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