SAFER Strikes Again in Denver

The alcohol-pot equalization effort drama continues to unfold in Denver, where city council members on Monday approved the signatures needed to place a new pot initiative – making minor pot possession the lowest policing priority – on the November ballot. The group behind the initiative effort, Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation, was also behind the city’s successful 2005 ballot measure that removed criminal penalties for possession of minor amounts of pot by adults. (Not that this has stopped cops from arresting adults in possession, which they’re bound to do, they say, because state and federal law outlaw pot.) The ultimate goal, SAFER director Mason Tvert has said, is to have the law treat pot and booze the same.

Still, many on the Denver council aren’t too jiggy with the measure, including Mayor John Hickenlooper who, ironically, is a brewery operator. That many council members enjoy adult beverages hasn’t exactly stopped the anti-pot rhetoric flowing from the dais: “I want to issue a challenge to those pushing this initiative,” council President Michael Hancock said in an Aug. 21 story in the Rocky Mountain News. “I hope you’ll go and spend time with the children abandoned and left behind by drug-addicted parents. I guarantee you’ll find marijuana is a gateway drug to harsher addictions.”

Hmmm. What about booze? Indeed, says Tvert, alcohol “contributes more to death and destruction than any other substance.” In all, he says, the Denver council is drinking from the well of hypocrisy with this one: “They are alcohol users opposed to people using a different drug.”