From the week of December 24, 2009

Even though we have a constitutional amendment that the majority of us voted for nine years ago to protect the marijuana user, Attorney General John Suthers and law enforcement have more: fear, ignorance and propaganda. And they have had eight years of the Bush administration's opportunistic DEA task forces fortifying our "drug-friendly" state with multiple offices. Vigilantly waiting at the beck and call of every cop shop that stumbles across more than 99 plants, the DEA got a big-time, mandatory-sentencing federal offense. Elected sheriffs got good PR, bringing out the media for good video. And a high-value bust funnels lots of both the taxpayer's and the marijuana provider's money into the legal community, the justice community and the corrections community.

Most of the Denver press shows dispensaries out of control and reports some kind of growing community threat! In PR, we know the power of the negative image and are hired to push back constantly against it. The only real community threat is any lack of access to marijuana for anyone over the age of eighteen in Colorado who chooses it first from the vast market of other, much more harmful drugs, for whatever reason. We marijuanistos must demand equal protection and compassion for ourselves and for the maintenance of the status quo.

Michelle LaMay

Denver