Dilemma for Colorado Repubs

We are listed as a blue State. We went for Obama last election cycle and we have a Democratic Governor. But the General Assembly is split nearly 50:50 and lots of local politicians are Republican. Lately, it isn’t an easy road for State and local Republicans who want to stick to their party line and traditional values.

At issue is Medical Marijuana. As local government bodies struggle with how to zone and regulate the trade in legal weed, there’s an internal conflict. On the one hand, some are strictly law and order folks who don’t support decriminalization and don’t want to see a California-style spread of marijuana. They’ve always been for harsher penalties and arrests. But the ground has shifted under them – arrests and the battles on how to regulate marijuana have become a battleground between State and Federal laws. This flies in the face of another tenet of the party – less Federal interference and the primacy of State’s rights.

They are left finding an ally in the Federal drug laws that would have them arguing for more interference in the State instead of less.

Citizens who don’t want dispensaries in their town are speaking out. Local zoning can prevent entry of the marijuana trade and even city councils are feeling the pressure. Will it end up splitting along city vs. rural lines? That’s already happening.

Weed Maps is a site that pinpoints dispensary locations for patients cruising the net. They list Denver (both North and Central), Colorado Springs, and Boulder. They don’t list anything available outside of metropolitan areas. Other sites do list dispensaries, but figure on a drive if you are in Western Colorado, with just four for that part of the State (one in Rifle Mountain and three in Grand Junction).

The parallels with how alcohol was introduced after Prohibition are obvious. Local municipalities made their own rules to fit the local sensibilities. Some states still have dry counties. In Colorado, the courts will decide just how much control a city government can have. And meanwhile, Republicans have to walk the line between being seen as anti-drug, pro-law enforcement, and State’s rights.