What Does “Regulate Marijuana” Really Mean?

I have a dear friend who was pregnant with her first child years ago. She was reading up on pregnancy, childbirth, caring for a newborn, and breast feeding.

She learned about the process of expressing breast milk. One day we were driving, about to get on the highway, which I called the “expressway.” She mentioned that she thought it was strange that people call highways “expressways,” because “express means to squeeze out your breast milk.”

I pointed out that the word “express” means lots of things. She quickly realized I was right, and I quickly realized that she was so incredibly wrapped up in the changes that were happening within her body, and the plans that she had to make for the near future, that she just wasn’t thinking of other meanings of the word.

“Regulate” means a few different things.  www.merriam-webster.com defines it as:
to govern or direct according to rule
to bring under the control of law or constituted authority
to make regulations for or concerning
to bring order, method, or uniformity to
to fix or adjust the time, amount, degree, or rate of

But to pro-pot activists, “regulate” is code for “legalize.”

I get that – “regulate” marijuana means to bring it under the control of government rules and regulations, and out of the control of the black market. It’s a valid use of the word, just as expressing breast milk is a valid use of the root “express.” And one way to bring pot under the control of legal authorities is to make it legal.

The most extreme example of that can be seen here in Colorado, where pot and pot-infused products are legally sold in retail stores to anyone in the world who is 21 or older, and pot grow operations to supply stores are legal. Here pot is fully legal and is regulated by the State and municipalities. (Growers and sellers have lots of rules to follow, and state employees are supposed to check up on them to verify that the rules are being followed.)

The oldest example of regulation of pot can be seen in The Netherlands, where cannabis coffee shops, although illegal, have been tolerated, as long as they don’t keep more than the tolerated amount of pot, or sell more than the tolerated amount of pot. Large-scale growing of pot is illegal and laws against it are enforced. In The Netherlands, pot remains illegal, but many of the laws against it are not enforced – this is a form of regulation.

The Twitter account associated with this blog has had 3 or 4 comments over the last few months about how the account “doesn’t seem like it’s for regulation.” I understand why the Tweeters have been confused. In their world, “regulate” means legalize, and my tweets are often about problems with pot.

When this blog and Twitter account were started, I didn’t realize that people could be so wrapped up in their issues that a narrow use of the word “regulate” would be the only use they could conceive of. Like my friend who was so obsessed with the baby in her tummy that all she could think of when she heard “express” was breast milk. (Not expressing feelings, not express mail, not espresso, not the expressway.)

One person on Twitter actually asked if the account was a “regulate marijuana page or an anti-marijuana page.” Well, it’s a I’m-stuck-with-it-but-I’m-not-going-to-bend-over-and-take-it-any-way-the-industry-wants-to-give-it-to-me page.

What I support is MEANINGFUL regulation. I don’t think legalization is good. But as a central Denver resident, I am stuck with it, so my focus is on regulation.

This blog was started AFTER we had legalized pot here in Colorado, during the process of drafting up regulations for pot. Although I didn’t vote for legalized pot, I’m not interested in trying to change that in Colorado. I wasn’t interested in pot policy at all until the City of Denver began the process of coming up with rules to regulate pot consumption, pot growth, pot product manufacturing and retail sales within the City limits. This was a process that I felt could be influenced, and needed to be influenced, by citizens. This is why the blog and Twitter account have the word “regulate” in their titles.

I also knew that the real work of regulating (coming up with regulations) BEGAN after legalization. Some pro-pot people seem to think that “legalize” and “regulate” are synonymous, and that the work of “regulation” in Colorado ENDED with legalization. Nope.

Denver has mostly finished drafting its rules. The State seems to be mostly tying up loose ends. But lawsuits and amendments and all kinds of other legal processes still have the potential to change pot rules here in Colorado and in Denver.

Regulation, making the rules and enforcing them, is an ongoing process, and always will be. Sadly, Colorado’s enforcement of its own rules is really ineffective; Colorado’s regulation of pot is ineffective. We still have unlicensed medical marijuana dispensaries operating 4 years after they applied for licenses. And these stores are allowed to apply for retail licenses! Colorado isn’t even enforcing the medical marijuana rules it drew up years ago. 2013 audits of the State’s and the City’s medical marijuana regulation showed that they’d been doing a terrible job.

The tweets and blog posts are meant to show why it’s so important to actually regulate the pot that we’ve legalized, and to actually enforce the rules. Regulation as I see it (strict, meaningful regulation) is fully a part of Amendment 64. The words “regulate” and “regulation” are all over the place in the text of that Amendment.

What I’m realizing now is that effective regulation of such an industry may not be possible, or may take decades to achieve. Despite the tax revenues coming in for the purpose of regulation, we have some bumbling government employees, some unethical businesspeople, and lots of citizens not paying attention. It may just be growing pains, or it may be more like Pandora’s box – we have unleashed lots of things here, that we may never be able to effectively control.

Posted by greatercapitolhillmom on April 6, 2014

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