This week on cspan in prime time, three nights featuring executives and innovators driving todays most successful internet companies. For 40,000 a year, instead its just attacked the end for the privilege of leasing a car for 40 grand a year he gets to be impoverished. Here from insiders at Facebook Paypal and more all part of a special presentation while congress is in recess. Israel probably the top in the world, country in the world for gdp growth and job creation inclusion of Minorities Health care, education to every location, moving their city south. Spent three nights of tech starting tonight at 7 p. M. Eastern on cspan. In january 2014, the First Retail Marijuana Stores open in colorado following the passage of landmark legislation making it the first state in the country to legalize Recreational Marijuana use. Now one year later a panel looks at the local, state, and National Impact of decriminalizing Recreational Marijuana, and gives advice to other states considering similar laws. This runs two hours. Thank you all for being here. I startled myself with my voice coming through, so forgive me. Let me set a couple ground will come to you what were going to do tonight. First thing if aggressively to put cell phones on off or vibrate or some other thing that will not disturb others. That would be appreciated. What we will do is i will introduce the speakers and well just go in order to go each get about a 15 minute presentation. Will then open it up to the audience for q a. I have a number of questions that if you guys are not active enough i will launch into but if youre acted ill step aside and let you ask your questions. One thing that if you ask of everyone here is this is a hot topic in the controversial topic notwithstanding the enemy thats been passed. And so everybody will kindly be courteous in the questions and try and ask questions rather than pontificate, that would be appreciated as well. And with that let me get out of you and introduce brian vicente. [applause] thank you. Its a real pleasure to be year. And i am using this microphone. Can you him a . Can you hear me . How is that . Thanks so much to its a real pleasure to be here. So i am an attorney and ive been working for the past 10 years old time on marijuana issues in colorado. A lot of what you see today, definitely a large part of the effort to make that happen. We stand at a very interesting moment in time. For about 80 years or so marijuana was illegal. Of course we all lived through the war on drugs and the Reagan Administration sort of this is your brain on drugs and everything in between the now we have turn this corner, right, so marijuana has been legal in colorado for about two years weve only had legal recreational sales from stores for about a year. I will be talking what i think we have learned in the last couple of years. Having said that, were only a year or two in so we can sort of try to look into the future, talk about what happened the last year or so. It is certainly just an innocent landmark, moment that we are in. As such i think its sort of a confluence of two things. We have this longstanding policy of marijuana being illegal. Colorado voters by 10 margin said no, but in november 2012 are going to make marijuana legal, not criminalize adults for using the substance and that is a massive policy shift. That is a large change in how our criminal Justice System is set up and of course, the ramifications for the approximate 900,000 people who are arrested every year in this country, colorado at least and those of other states have adopted a different policy that doesnt criminalize those people. Thats one piece together these we have a confluence if we didnt just legalize marijuana. We also essentially created an opportunity for commerce. What color did with legalize marijuana and that also set up a tightly regulated system that allows certain types of businesses to sell grow and produce this product. Its kind of tough to think of any shift in time or policy change that has been set up in that way. At such i thought it was incumbent upon our state to get this right. Before i kind of launch into the Recreational Marijuana in the Retail Marijuana sight of it it is certainly worth dwelling on medical marijuana. A lot of the groundwork that we see and the basis for our system and color is the and color is effect without medical marijuana since 2000, and i think that helped influence voters. When youre brought up and thought that marijuana is bad and evil substance but all of a sudden this law passes the people of cancer aids, what have you, have access to your question if this policy make sense but is it really that bad . After about 12 years or so i think that influenced voters. If you can work for this published a call for individual, could work for adults 21 over. The movement weve seen on marijuana particularly marable pashtun medical marijuana, the only policy topic out there would probably be gay marriage. Think about what attitudes have shifted in the past 10, 15, 20 years, massive shift on gay marriage. Talk to anyone under 40 anyone under 30, they are like shocked that anyone would consider gay marriage immoral. And the movements state by state by state the same thing with medical marijuana. We not 23 states with medical marijuana, four states are fully legalize marijuana for adults we went over including colorado so again large shift to even look at at the polling, particularly among Younger Voters, marijuana and gay marriage track together to when you talk to Younger Voters they are just sort of like of course you should tax as part of the of course you shouldnt arrest people and put them in jail. Sort of silly. Interesting movement. So what happened in november 2012 in colorado, and basically again by about a 10 margin voters voted to do really three things. And again never been done issue so colorado is leading the way. The first one was devoted to set up his regulated system of marijuana sales, production and growth. I could talk a bit more about that. The second piece is that allowed adults 21 and over, so didnt not anyone younger than 21 to possess and to cultivate small amounts of marijuana. We also legalize hemp production and hemp is the sentiment is there one but it has none of very very small amounts of thc which is the psychoactive component which makes you any greater to marijuana and it can be used or fuel and things like that. Those are the three things i kind of went on in colorado that were pretty landmark. So then we had a year or so when we worked closely with the state, with the governors office, with the legislature with the department of revenue to set up the rules for this new system. I would applaud i think the governor and staff in that he opposed this measure all the way through the entire campaign, which i was the codirector of, very outspoken but once the voters voted and passed the season all right, this is the law. The same thing with attorney general. He said this is the law. We want to make sure this is done in a thoughtful, responsible way. I think the continued to really do that. So what does it look like in the past you . I would argue to you that i think its been an unqualified success. Colorados experiment, indirectly marijuana. I will speak about that but its important of this isnt just my viewpoint. One of the two authors and the guy who ran the campaign. Been if you look at every major plot leader, that is examine the last in colorado as look at the data, that has been out here anyone from on the left, the new york times, the right, the brookings institute, the denver post, all these thought leaders, policy leaders are saying this appears to be working. It appears to be functioning in a way that effect may make colorado a better place. Lets talk about some of the positive steps forward and kind of what we have seen. But before i launch into that i did want to know, i talked about the governors office. All the stores you see there grows and so forth are all regular by the department of revenue. In order to have one of these businesses yet to comply with hundreds of pages of code regulation, regular stocking on your door. Heyou have to have cameras on every inch of the property. Anyone who owns this must be a two year resident of colorado. Its a very tightly regulated system. I think that is part of the reason why colorado is serving as a model for other states as they look to see if we want to keep incarcerated and arresting people for marijuana or you want to try Something Different like colorado . A couple other states have an exact same thing weve done since then. We have a regulatory structure which maintains this. The department of revenue is the same entity that regulates alcohol, casinos but i know how to regulate things and it is on its of this is a product going to regulate and it is working pretty well. We can look at the fact they have begun to do sting operations. We are familiar with those with the police will send in someone who is 20, a Law Enforcement agent and try to but ill call and often dont get six of 10 of the Liquor Stores in town will sell to this person or what have you. In the marijuana context a fatty very difficult time getting any of these businesses to sell to someone under 21. For a long time there was zero of these actual undercover successful cases that i think i did funneling out to use it isnt happening from the storefront, that much is clear. As i stated as i was campaigning for this measure, there are many dire predictions. If colorado legalize marijuana the sky will fall and blood running in the streets and cartels will take over. No one will ever come here to ski again because it be such a bad place. None of those negative predictions have come true. Crime, weve actually had a decrease in crime across the board in colorado, particularly in denver where you have several hundred of these stores. Traffic fatalities are at a record low and theres a lot of concentric right lead to rightfully so. Its just worth noting that traffic fatalities are down in the state. So the tire predictions again did not come true. Teenagers, many other people in your parents. It matters. How our teenagers going to access when colorado legalize marijuana . Their sort of folks like myself have often argued along the way that what we do know for the last 30 or 40 years teens have had will be considered universal access to marijuana. If you go to any high school, teens with tidy they can get if they want to get it, right . To me thats a sign of a policy failure. We are doing this to protect teens and they have universal access. Our argument was listen they are buying this on street corners, parks from people who dont ask for id. We need to know this market can move the market away from street corners, put it on a camera where it is regulated and as such teens will have a more difficult time accessing it. And what we do know is that theres been no statistically significant change. A lot of people said it would be a massive spike in times of teens would be using marijuana. For the first ever and it would be terrible. In fact, we have seen no statistically significant change but in other states and this all comes from state and federal data, that have not legalize marijuana they have seen spikes in marijuana use. Its hard to exactly where this is going to go but certainly in the last year or two theres not been a spike in these things. Seems to be flat lighting the Colorado High School Graduation Rates are higher than ever. Dropout rates have been going down the last supper years. So it didnt is there a direct relationship . Navy thats a bit of a stretch but for people are saying absolutely this would be the worst thing for teens at the we simply have not seen that. Colorado seems to be Getting Better and better every year. A couple other issues that i think speak to how things are going. The economy, right . What we do know is for the last 50, 75 years people have been buying marijuana illegal in colorado and pretty much everywhere else. The dollars of marijuana consumed have been lining the pockets of the underground market and cartels. Colorado said we would regulate that, but it cant account and make sure only people who pass background checks and will pay taxes are going to be selling this product. And as such colorado stands to gain about 50 million this year in new tax revenue. A portion is allocated specifically for Schools School construction. We predict this will grow over time. Thats about what we estimated it would be but the same time its been a slow rollout were certain communities wouldnt allow medical marijuana to switch over to retail and as such medical marijuana is not taxed. Its been kind of an issue but at the end of the day we know were capturing significant revenue in the state. And really there was a lot of discussion that if colorado were to legalize marijuana, we will no longer be an attractive place for business. What weve seen in the last year has been stunning. The denver area we have google moving 1500 person headquarters. Business insider voted colorado the Fastest Growing economy in the country. Its pretty phenomenal. It doesnt seem to be scaring people away from locating the businesses here. In fact, you could say in the case of google, perhaps this is in fact, an incentive to businesses and they want to do not have some of the staff be criminalized. Look at steve jobs and other prominent americans have admitted using marijuana. Something to think about. Tourism is a major issue. A lot of people said if we legalize marijuana no one will come skiing. We do know this has been a great year for the state and for tourism, not the best snow here yet but it doesnt seem groups are being scared away from coming here and it seems like tourist numbers are as high as they have been. One very interesting piece is whats happened the last year is weve had about 10,000 direct jobs in this industry. Thats not a small number in what is considered a down economy, according to the president obamas state that he was calling calling our way out of this recession. We do know in the last supper years it has not been a positive economic climate in this country. We have 10,000 new jobs directly in this industry. A lot of those jobs studies and out of the university of denver, jobs start at like 70 an hour average wage. Much better than what you might get in any other entrylevel jobs. I think thats meaningful. I would say there is ancillary jobs that have risen up around the my law firm, we employ about 25 people. All we get is marijuana work. Thats all we do is represent marijuana business. Construction, talk to anyone interested or construction business, particularly around warehouses, many of these have been rented out that a been vacant. That are improvements going in. Again thats Economic Growth we see directly from this industry. Public health one of the interesting pieces about again taxing marijuana for the First Time Ever, previously cartels and underground people could just get away without paying taxes. Everyone has to pay taxes. It is being used of Public Education which is a good thing. About 9 billion of the medical marijuana revenue is being used for the First Time Ever to actually study medical marijuana come to see if it is useful for certain conditions. Thats profound. We have 23 states with medical marijuana laws yet the federal government has blocked funding and studies of marijuana for medicine for decades and decades. At least studying this when all the states are passing these laws, at least studying it makes sense. Colorado step up to the plate and give 9 billion to see if veterans with ptsd would benefit from medical marijuana. Very meaningful stop. I think its obviously a positive net benefit were seeing out of this. Some other Public Health issues. Again, we are only 12 months into these regulated sales so its hard is exactly whats going to go on. I think theres a bit of a substance that. The people are drinking less, using more marijuana and theres a substitution at the end of the day ill call kills people. Marijuana has not killed anyone in history. Im not saying i would push that point people to use but at the same time theres a substitution, its worth at least pondering. Im told i only have a minute left. So to wind down, obviously this is not an area with a challenge. Marijuana continues the illegal federally but the federal government has been pretty clear guidance to color and other states to they said if you follow these strict state rules, this is not intended to we will come down and prosecute people necessarily. But at the same time i believe a column that has been in since we passed these laws, three other states have legalized marijuana for record purposes. I think another five will by the end of 2016. I can talk more about who that would be during q. And a people like. I think we set a model on how this product should be regulated, how it should be taxed, and the fact they should only be sold to individuals 21 and over. So without i will turn things over to the next speaker. Thank you. [applause] thank you, brian. Next we have gina carbone. Be careful with your step. Can i put this here . Okay, thanks. Can you hear me okay . Hold both things at one time, okay. Thank you so much for coming out tonight, cold night. I am in denver. Obviously, i started this Organization Called smart colorado after the passage of amendment 64 with a couple of other women. The impetus was for this, i was appointed to the Governors Working Group for the Governors Task force, and we came up with the recommendations for the regulations for this whole experiment. My background is in public affairs. I worked in d. C. , in new york for over a decade, never doing drugs work like this, anything with marijuana. I got into this more out of curiosity and the fact that i am a Third Generation colorado native and i was are interested in what this is going to look like for colorado. Most importantly i am a mother of four boys though, and raising kids in this indictment is extremely challenging. In this environment. So thats a little bit about smart colorado, we are an all volunteer citizen led organization. And what we are really concerned with is the commercialization of marijuana. I want to toggle bit more about that. Anyway, so we were told during the campaign that this would be tied to regulate and enforce kept out of hands of her kids, a way to get rid of the black market and it will be a huge economic windfall. I challenge those things come and youll see why in this presentation. Okay, so the reality, colorado citizens during the campaign were not told that we would have this mass commercialization with more pop shops than starbucks and mcdonalds that marijuana would be infused indie kids candies and fruit flavored sodas. We would have nearly 300 different types of edibles sold with more coming down the pipe all the time. Would have is highly potent, pure thc concentrate that are widely available and that colorado would become a major exporter of marijuana throughout the tourney. No one knows how much marijuana is being produced in our state. So there are vast differences commit people into this whole idea before this campaign of, and maybe voted for amendment 64 for a variety of reasons, one is decriminalization. And then legalization is different than decriminalization, finally commercialization which is very different. In colorado weve done all three. So did a talk about the mass commercialization in colorado, 866 shops. Of course, that is changing all the time because people are putting in applications for new facilities. So over 2300 licensed marijuana facilities in the state and this is the cultivation side the facilities were edibles are made, the aftershocks and we have a to testing facilities. Here they are. Denver though, thats where i live, the epicenter of marijuana, 308 marijuana shops in denver, and i want to point out this is very different from seattle, about the same size, same population within 21. We have 308. Close to 1000 licensed facilities in denver alone. Again, the testing cultivation. So in amendment 64, one great thing that brian and his coworkers did is they let municipalities decide if they want to commercialize marijuana and sell it and shops. So we have the majority of cities in colorado have said no to this. Of course, the big one like denver has said yes. But just to let you know there are a lot of communities across colorado that do not want to sell in stores. Okay, i just want to talk briefly. I tell this to people my age, and some you might be a little bit older. This is not the same kind of pot from years ago, even 10 years ago. It is extremely potent these days. It comes in a huge variety of forms, even vaporize, dab. Weve had this explosion of edibles which i make up about half of the market from 50 of the market anything and everything can be in the one inches product. We have marijuana concentrate which comes in the form of hash oil, shattered . , and again you will learn more about that. 7590 pure thc. Im sure you can get up to 100 pure thc. And again this is baked or smoker i forget or forgive us as the crack of marijuana. It is so potent. So the use thats what we really concerned about, thats why we started smart colorado but, in fact, when i was on that task force with the other people, the discussion was always about how do we grow this industry, how do we allow everyone who wants to be in the business get them into the business . How do we make is as big as possible . And no one at the table was talking about what is this going to do to our kids. And, in fact, there were a list of eight different priorities that the state gave us, and we were supposed to rank the priority to guess what came in dead last . Is concern for kids. That was everyones last priority. So again thats why we started smart colorado after that. So just a couple things of things about youth use. We have had a resurgence of it after decades of being lower. Average first page is 14. Marijuana is the number one reason adolescents are admitted to Substance Abuse programs but one in six use it casually become addicted, or says one in nine adults. Thats an important point that marijuana is different for the lessons with a developing brain. I will go over that again. Weve had a 66 increase in the states largest detox center. And in this is interesting. People thought when we legalize it we will get rid of the medical market, at least it will shrink down to indirectly in the First Six Months of legalization there was a 46 increase in 1820 year old trying to get the card. Because again medical marijuana shops, you can be 18. In fact, iran is no age limit but you need an adult, your parents permission if youre younger than 18. But 18 you can go ahead and come into these shops. We have seen a shift from people he did want to pay back taxes in recreational and they can get two ounces instead of one if they went down the medical road. So thats why we have a lot of 18 and 20 year olds getting medical marijuana. Okay, who uses medical marijuana . I guess this is no surprise, the biggest users where is my point of . As you can see is this age group. This is no surprise but for a Community Like vail that gets a lot of its workers take a few years off of college, i suspect a lot of people working on the mountain making snow, did all that, they are in that age group. It is concerning when they could be using marijuana and working. The problem is, the confusion about medical marijuana, and clearly there are, i do believe that there are some legitimate reasons or possibilities that using medical marijuana. We just havent studied it enough. What we do know though is theres massive abuse in the system we have in colorado. These statistics that ive seen in colorado and denver audits are about only 5 people are really using it for cancer, lock oma, hiv ms those things. 95 people are using it for general pain, and theres an awful lot of 20 some year old snowboarders better out there just use it to get high. We know that. The problem is though the message has been that marijuana is a wellness product, and thats the message our kids are getting. Its an urban come it cant be harmful. It secure. When i talk to high scores they tell me these are the reasons, theyre using it because of adhd, concentrate conflict issues headaches, anxiety, depression, menstrual cramps. These are what the teenagers are telling. Aca beehive as not acceptable Recreational Activity because we legalize the. The messages are getting kids to music, pop culture, advertising online magazines newspapers, commercials. Marijuana is glorified and politicize come and because it is sold illegally in stores it is believed to be safe. So we have normalized marijuana use. In denver our ordinance says you can smoke or use marijuana in your front yard. Out in the open for everyone to see. A lot of people thought this was going to be for adult use in the privacy of your own home, small amounts, but in for sure in denver thats not what we are seeing. Again our newspaper with all sorts of things in it about recipes, alternation pot events. The recent events marijuana events im sure youve heard about in denver, the advertisements and then the repetition of colorado be known as the stoner state now. This is one of the number one indicator is. This has been true for alcohol and tobacco. When kids do not see things as a risk, they are more willing to use it. And this is disturbing because the perception has been going down. This is a very recent statistic from the National Survey on drug use and health. This came out. It shows colorado versus the u. S. In terms of marijuana use starting over age 12 as you can see and then it breaks it down. Clearly colorado is higher than the nation and all of those groups. So, just briefly i am not a doctor but im sure youve heard some of this about the impact of early and persistent use. Again, it affects adolescents differently and studies have shown it can permanently alter and damage team brains and it affects learning and memory and the pre frontal cortex and an analysis. It affects processing short and longterm memory perception memory skills, all of this. I thought of this quote the other day. The concern we still have and i have is whether young people will view this to say marijuana is safe in literally every euro sign and just ive talked to i talked to was very concerned that among kids even you can permanently diminished longterm memory. He just said this the other day. Maybe you heard of a study that heavy marijuana use when you are young can affect your iq. This is a test that was done in new zealand. More tests need to be done. What we have seen so far is troubling. Did you cut this . It doesnt seem to be okay. So let me just jump to the end. It doesnt seem to be okay. I talked about all the edibles. Just a few pictures. I was on the working group for the state with edibles. We have seen in an in crease in hospitalization and even certainly Young Children coming in that are sick but also adults. Vomiting psychosis things that havent been seen before and it all goes back to the potency of todays marijuana. The problem of it looking like regular food smart colorado introduced legislation to get the industry to stamp or somehow mark the food outside of the package to try to cut down on some of that confusion. We have been fought tooth and nail in the industry. Its been a very difficult process. And i need to wrap up here. That was a billboard that we did. I guess i just want to get to this slide that says these are very discreet vaporizers. Again from industries as they are not marketing to kids but you wonder why the edibles look like candy and why the vaporizers come in as my inhalers asthma inhalers and things like this. You can make a lot of comparisons to marijuana and the Tobacco Industry. Revenue isnt worth it. There are tremendous costs in setting up a the regulatory system. I want to point that out. I was just at a conference recently where one of your ski towns said they are challenging and they do have Recreational Marijuana is in fact resources. They do not have enough money for the staff that is going in expecting the places. Its having to enforce it. Its having to look at the facilities. Remember, none of the food is looked up like the fda looks at other food to regulate it. So somebody has somebody has to be looking at edibles that way looking at the kitchen making sure there are not contaminants because the state is not doing that. So this is a burden on small communities. They have to do that same kind of thing themselves. And i know we need to it is hard to mandate on small communities. There is a strain on health care services, healthcare costs Addiction Recovery just like with alcohol and tobacco and that does need to be factored in. For the 60 million that brian talked about that was made annually this year in tax revenue is a drop in the bucket when you consider all these other costs of regulating it in setting up this whole new structure. Its about less than 1 of the overall cost to the state. And the collateral cost. These things if you can read any of them actually came from the department of revenue at this conference. This was our own regulators say thats no this hasnt been as great as people have said. The black market and employment issues litigation, strain on social services, adversely affecting the state. I dont even get into the extra action blowing up houses thats going on but obviously the edible problem increasing the Motor Vehicle accidents which actually my statistics show we have been increasing. And i think i will show the urgent need for more data. We dont have all the data and we need more. This is a quote again at the conference i was asked with regulators and people from the state. The Deputy Attorney general admitted, and i quote it is not working in spite of regulations marijuana is everywhere. It is publicly consumed, widely advertised and the police have their hands tied by the provisions that few if any voters understood when they voted for amendment 20 which was for medical marijuana and amendment of 64. Anyway, thank you very much. [applause] i noticed both of the speakers already suffer from what all suffer from myself including when i speak and that is you think i have 15 minutes how am i possibly going to fill that and then you get about 12 minutes in how am i going to possibly cover what i want to cover but everybody makes the same error. The next speaker is sanho tree. Thank you very much. Ive been asked to give a big picture in washington, d. C. I work on the institute for policies, and i worked on drug policy issues for the past 18 years or so. Here is where i agree with some of the critics of the current policy. If the gateway to the oval office. Every president since 93 has violated the drug law in serious ways that would trigger the mandatory minimum sentences in some cases and also the just leaders. It is hard not to find elected officials and candidates to run for office who claim they have been drugfree their entire lives. Its also newt gingrich, rick santorum. Ive got just saying this to embarrass them that it is a question of legitimacy. These are the people that are writing the wall and the question has to be asked. Has it been good for them . Has it helped them into their lives and careers and if not why is it for everyone else. And the question of justice and fairness colorado sent a message not only to the nation but to the world and they really appreciate how profound the reverberations were. If sent the state department into a bit of a frenzy because they were being asked by the allies in the hemisphere in any of whom are critical of the war on drugs saying now that your citizens are turning their backs on drugs are you going to rethink your policies with regards to those that you impose on us that we are required to carry out . They didnt know what to say because the Obama Administration hadnt come up with their Marijuana Policy at survey were sent scrambling. What are we going to do about this, are we going to prosecute etc. . So it opened a lot of political space within the nation, within the federal government, and internationally. You move to a boulder in the federal bureaucracy the drug war bureaucracy. It was a huge bureaucracy that moves for no person and suddenly they were sent scrambling. So that is an accomplishment. Other countries have taken a. Q. From colorado. The team voted to legalize nationally marijuana and regulate it and pass it. And they became the first nation in the world to do this and all they did is penalize it so they didnt go the whole way and outright legalize it. But it is an interesting example because uruguay never had criminalization of drug use or possession for personal use. And the fact it codifies it in the mid70s so you could not get arrested. And the people who say the sky is going to fall because they dont have tough drug laws when is the last time you read an article about the scapegoat is uruguay. It doesnt exist. What they did is because they were always permitted to use for several decades now, what they did is legalize marijuana so that it could be taxed and regulated and controlled. So what they essentially did is have more control of this and push out the black market in the criminal organizations and to take that revenue and use it for prevention and regulation and keep it out of the hands of minors. They are about to roll that out. Note that uruguay is setting the price of 1 dollar a gram when they announced they were going to do that. Whether they can make that i dont know but its important to keep in mind what we are talking about is the war on drugs whether it is cocaine, heroin or marijuana committees are essentially minimally processed and it costs little to produce pennies per dose. The policies of prohibition built a huge price support for the drug traffickers and criminal organizations. We make these astronomically more valuable than they ought to be and thats what drives the violence and pushes to new markets and whatnot. The federal bureaucracy and the drug war bureaucracy as well because the International Narcotics control board, which is the un agency that enforces or tries to enforce the International Drug treaties told them you must want then you must want to do this. You must roll back to the status quo before. Think about what youre saying. These are drug warriors saying you must not pass and regulate and try to control marijuana. He must get it back to the criminal market. These are Law Enforcement. This is how badly they are scrambling to protect the jobs and the budget. And so other countries are now following that lead. Jamaica just this week indicated that they are going to go ahead with small possession of recreational and medical marijuana. Other countries guatemala is also planning an end of the war on drugs. Columbia, one of our staunch is pushing for it. Domestically this year were this past election, three more jurisdictions have Marijuana Legalization. So again, alaska and my home of washington, d. C. Its important to note here because the voters of washington, d. C. Voted by a 70 margin in favor of legalization of marijuana. In washington, d. C. There are 143 precincts. You know how many voted in favor, 142. Only one precinct voted against it and it was in the upper Northwest Quadrant one of the most affluent regions of dc. And in that jurisdiction it only lost by nine votes, away from a complete landslide and politicians need to take note of that. And republicans of course tried to stop this so they put an amendment on the envelope us to the omnibus appropriation. They said washington, d. C. Must not spend a penny to tax or regulate this. This was done by the keeper of the republicans in maryland who wanted to make a name for himself as a drug warrior said he basically inserted an amendment in a backroom deal because he didnt have the votes to do it and he got a writer into the appropriations budget that the initiative itself is self and acting so under the fourth when the citizens voted for this marijuana became illegal to possess and grow and to just come enough to sell and regulate with some possession became legal that the republicans are prevented now from regulating it so this is a dream of having Legal Marijuana and no way to regulate it. I dont like that. I want it regulated and controlled not less. To keep them out of the hands of children etc. Now we will have a bit of anarchy. The city dc is important according to the exit polls as a matter of Racial Justice and social justice. They did wonderful studies that were shocking. 91 were africanamerican. And if you know anything about washington d. C. On a marijuana use is the marijuana use is widespread across all racial groups etc. According to the surveys, the number one state in terms of marijuana use and population density is and colorado, its rhode island, number two washington, d. C. In terms of density. So everyone knew that lots of different people of races and backgrounds use it in watching cnbc and only africanamericans were just being singled out in a horrible way so much so that the city Council Voted in favor of this and they are still trying to implement a system against the will of congress. Even before the referendum passed they were Holding Hearings on how to regulate marijuana so this is a broad support in washington, d. C. In many ways, the reversal of the drug war policy in the country has resulted demographically. It is destiny with regards to this issue. The modern drug war as we put it has been a part of the modern cultural war that stems from the culture with regards to the vietnam war and a continued to dominate politics for several decades afterwards. Its determined by where you stand on other social issues on the interracial marriage, on sexuality, drug use rock n roll etc. And its been very exploited for decades. Think about since the 2004 election one of them was on the iraq war. The other thing was marriage so that they were able to get the state that have those initiatives that here to vote against marriage to make it. The social issues have been very useful politically by the right but they are losing their traction because demographically the baby boomers which i am are fading out and the next generations are coming online in terms of the voting and politics. Those kind of cultural war issues dont resonate at the younger generations. Gay marriage they couldnt care less. Marijuana also fell into that category. So these reliable issues that were used politically to attack liberals and others have since become a boomerang. Its splitting the party right down the middle between the libertarian and republicans in the social conservatives. So so the social war going on in the gop and i will play out in an interesting way. It comes to the subway system. There are two that carry the train. If you touch it, youre dead politically. So i think things like gun control, raising taxes, Climate Change were soft on drugs, soft on crime. The politicians usually runaway from these because no matter which position they will anger a good part of the electorate. But the polarization of the third rail with regards to the cultural war issues are flipping very rapidly in a. Of whats kept it locked in place for so long as the solution to the problems are counterintuitive. The way i explain that one of my popular philosophers he probably heard of the listings and Simpson Bartholomew will. He begins to campaign by attacking his opponent three of my opponent says there are no easy answers and i think that he isnt looking hard enough. Thats a problem with politics today. People want easy answers and they play on things like fox news and its an easy soundbite and its counterintuitive. You cannot regulate that which you drive underground. They are the ones that self regulate. What do i mean by counterintuitive . This is an example of the counterintuitive problem solving. If you get stuck in one, the kneejerk solution is to pull the harder you pull the more stuff you get. Its counterintuitive to think maybe relaxing a bit is the way that you extract from a difficult problem and the war on drugs is one of those things that has a counterintuitive solution. So what do we do about it . If you do support whats happening in colorado and washington Washington State and washington, d. C. And other states on how do we operationalize. Until about the nature of the problem but how do you operationalize this so that we can get more reform in other states that are trying to do the similar things and i think one of the ways to do that is that theres too much accountability for the politicians and before you freak out and think im crazy like me give you an example of what i mean by that. If you want someone to tell the truth, if you all were with the u. S. Congress say ten years ago and i asked a show of hands who believes we should regulate and tax marijuana like alcohol, probably few of you would raise your hand, maybe you could count on one hand the number that would do that. If you did that today however maybe a few more hands would come up. Maybe two or three hands could count the number. But what if i said put your head down on your table like in grade school and then raise your hand if you support this and it would be completely different results. I think thats the way if you give politicians a temporarily bill of anonymity to have a nonbinding straw poll i think that the wall should be made in secret. There needs accountability at the end of it as an icebreaker you could do decent churches, association meetings, whatever have an anonymous stronghold because when you find out that a lot of the people in the room actually agree with you it changes the nature of the conversation. If you were able to do a survey in Congress Today and it turned out that say two thirds wanted to tax and regulate cannabis if you released the aggregate numbers with no names attached, just the aggregate of two thirds of congress believes this, then that gives some political cover to stand up and do that right thing to say im being courageous by saying publicly what my colleague steve privately that its time to change our policies on this issue thats a way to solve a lot of the issues in washington and new york running out of time with me and congress are running out of time to deal with very serious issues, things like Climate Change, sensible gun control or other issues that are controversial and can deal with because they are pinned down by these votes. I think it started in 73 when the house of representatives instituted electronic voting. You push a button and register to vote. Who could be against that . It became easier to get the recorded votes and graduates gradually the number started rising. Before this they didnt go through a roll call vote. They did a voice vote sometimes count heads and parties but not names and in this climate we could have more practical politics and people could cross over the party line and say my party wants to support this but i have children and grandchildren of care about what they will inhibit so im going to Cross Party Lines and vote against my partys wishes. If you did a temporary bill of conscious that the veil of conscious of whats been expressed for the first time theyre honest and true feelings of what they really believe is in the best interest of the nation as a whole rather than the political party. Why should we be against more honesty in politics . We have to have a formal vote but you can begin to have an icebreaker to take the sting out of the third rail and the gotcha politics because right now washington is fundamentally broken. They cant do anything. Its never been this bad and i have lived in washington since 1987. I grew up in the suburbs. I want to thank the voters of colorado for getting involved. [applause] we have learned that sanho is a christmas baby based on his statement that hes in the last six days of the baby boom. He also answered my question why there was a finger trap sitting setting on the bias when he was speaking. I want to make two quick observations one is article one of the state constitution defeats the utopian idea of congressional anonymity. So that would require a constitutional amendment but its a fascinating idea and i think youre right. Also i think whether or not you are pro or antiMarijuana Legalization there is an irony i think to the Federal District of columbia having legalized marijuana is next. [applause] dont clap yet, you havent heard me. So getting back, i am going to be quick. I think i have a kind of unique vantage point. Very quick and then i will hang out afterwards and want to keep talking politics. The election is over and weve spoken. I am on the ground and i want to talk about what im seeing. I work at the University Colorado hospital, not the director and i am onsite. It is widely recognized as the chemical dependency nationwide. We are hospitalbased Treatment Program for adults only. We would never dream of taking anybody mandated. I myself sober since 1976 happened in the District Of Columbia where i got caught with possession with intent, need related. And im on the board of project sam just smart approach to marijuana. Through this whole thing it has emerged as the opposing the legalization voice. In reality and heres the charter of the conformed policy in the science of todays marijuana to have an honest conversation which is tough and why i love being here. We are so proud to be at the Aspen Institute here and its a more thoughtful venue where we can have discussions like this as opposed to the back and forth backend for the fingerpointing specialinterest nonsense and to prevent the establishment of big marijuana that is huge for me and i want to spend more time on it in and my 20 minutes than anything else and we advocate sam does and i do to promote the research of marijuana as property. At the university of mississippi they said this kind of blockade is on it and i think there needs to be more research because theres interesting anecdotal evidence about what you can get from components in the plant. I have yet to see a lot of that for the whole plant smoke but theres existence out there. We need to study it, and so long as somebody is doing real science, im behind them 100 of the way. Let them lead it. They are nothing to talk about tonight at least me and when we ask questions, i will find the best Case Scenario if you ask me about this. I dont care about casual adult use. Do it, get high, dont drive and dont let kids see you. As a drug addict myself, cardcarrying, living a life of sobriety, the last guy in the world that gets to throw a stone at somebody that chooses to do this is me. I chose an sobriety. Its who i am but i am not going to demonize anybody that doesnt. I dont care about casual adult use and theres a lot of medical implications people want to bring up sometimes when we do this the past my pay grade. Im not a doctor and never even played one on tv. But before we do this, one more thing. I am a dad. I have three kids in Public School in colorado boulder county. So a lot of this comes from that. I dont want to do this. I love my job. Love it. I get to work with drug addicts or addicts all day and thats my passion. I left a nonprofit i started called phoenix multiscored to join the no campaign because i was concerned with the specific language and i left the treatment after working for the vail for a little bit. With my kids in Public School tell me the things that compel me to do it because its, you know the idea. You know this. One i will give you resources for the slides at the end. All of the science anyone ever talks about keeping mind two things when they tell you about addiction rates involving marijuana or anything that has to do with it. Keep in mind that this content. I will show you a chart where the average thc count below 12 and i will show you the graph and just a second but keep in mind to wander to all studies by definition while we get little snippets and we even have fairly small and in some of these studies, real science is needed and i will talk about that at the end but there are also some really Good Sciences and theres a couple of longitudinal studies and any study any research, any data that is presented to me that hasnt been published in the Peer Reviewed journal doesnt exist and that encourages you to consider the same thing. It is Peer Reviewed, published or its not real. As an International Institute drug abuse, read what he wants to but its commendable that clinicians where i work work to make the diagnosis for the First Time Ever and weve included cannabis withdrawal is a real diagnosis and its not because we are finally noticing it. Its because it is getting more and more intense and its getting more intense because we get more intense. What is occurring couple Different Things. But the percentage is at 5. 6 . 5,. 6. He wrote about it and the kids that were treating the 90 products smoked marijuana is a 30 of thc product it does Different Things it changes your biology here and here. The more you smoke the worse things will get. Theres an interesting study. Some people absolutely into the oval office and a lot of them end up in my rehab as well. We we see we have this incredible tendency to take these things and to take an example here tuesday that must apply to everyone. The Public Policy has to look at the big picture. One of the things that tells me is that the theoretical level. We are here. We are living this. This is happening. This experiment i kind of resent the term because an experiment has 100 willing participants and somebody what to see what happens but the idea, while we will get to that in just a second. Sorry. Lets go to 8064 because thats what you asked us to talk about and 15 minutes worth. Allow the Law Enforcement to focus more on serious crimes. Public safety we will figure this out. Eliminate the black market, keep it behind the counter. Humor me on some of these slides. Note who this is first. The chief of police. There are like 30 people that hes the former chief investigator for the medical Marijuana Enforcement Division from the conception and then prior to that he was the deputy chief. So he has a platform. He gets it. Because theres been an increase in colorado Law Enforcement is faced with increased expenditures of resources and dealing with marijuana issues. Its the need for training officers in the marijuana code. Theres lots of this. I am not a cop. I often not in the industry or someone on the outskirts of the industry getting paid from it. Weve got somebody in uniform here tonight. Find a cop and asked him has this made it harder. Ask them because what we are getting is coming through the lobby and the special interest. The vast majority of the time ask the people on the ground and see what they tell you. The chief of police give a nice big statement but heres a quick soundbite. Early indicators point to an increase by the youth driving while impaired by marijuana, incidents involving emergency room visits. A little bit of the little bit of data that we have about how we are helping cops come and this is 2013 and this is 2014. Public consumption citation in denver a load we have not freed up all of these times. Keep in mind this is all of 2015. Driving under the influence they have to get this one quick. Traffic fatalities in colorado are down. Cars are getting safer, we are cracking down on cell phone use. Traffic fatalities where the operator tested positive for marijuana are strikingly up. I tried to first make this grass where i showed the other ones but its so high on many people die, and people die in car accidents. The graph looks funny. But this is the rubber meeting the road. This isnt theoretical. Whats going to happen if there is a significant increase because somebody got high and got behind the wheel. I dont care if you get high. I dont. Dont drive, dont let the kids see it. Unfortunately a majority of the world is not paying attention. Teen driving is scary enough to begin with. [laughter] this is a great survey. They just initiated last year the Interesting Program showing in the First Six Months of 2014 77 of all involved marijuana. If i can put videos on i get a lot more play time in the world. Look at these articles. I apologize because you just shared your politics with us so if you want to look at the factor, take a look at this article. The Washington Post with the wholesale price farmers are turning away from cannabis mexican heroine is flooded with america, npr because of the changes they are having to make the cartel is pushing more cocaine and did they seriously think . No cartels sell drugs. We want to solve this problem look at it internationally or consider reducing the culture of intoxication that we have here because it is the man that drives that. I will give you this resource at the end. By legalizing marijuana we have become the black market for the 40 other states we can document some instead of eliminating it weve become it and the black market for those under 21. These are great. I dont want to read them all but colorado has the best read on earth which is good for those of you using it in the privacy of your own home and not letting your kids see you. What it means is 520 in denver or 79 i will show you in a second, if i can get that i can make 950. And like any user to the amount that i was using, that is not how it worked back then. I will tell you how it works in just a second. This is straight off of the campaign. So if we do this we are going to put it behind the counter and make it hard for the kids to get no one in their right mind is going to sell marijuana to make it over the counter. Livelihood gone. It would be read to kill us. If we catch ten people in the next 15 years of his going to be ridiculous. But that is not how it works. Because we have 5500 pounds of marijuana changing hands every week that we know of in colorado and that is about a 40 estimated a total. A various so much in the state it is super easy for the kids to get and they will never get it from behind the counter. Trust me. I work in rehab. You dont have to trust me. I work in rehab and this is what i see. So the idea that we are going to keep people from trying harder drugs i told you this in a campaign all the time too. You are going to keep to the corner. That is and how it works. You have a guy for every drug, you dont give the secret knock to the guy that has everything. You called your guy come he sells you an ounce you sell most of it or you were able to smoke koerber porphyry. Thats how it works. Youre the guy your weed guy is your your weed guy. That is co contamination i think is the good one here. The foreseeable consequence of the birth of a shameless unregulated regime this is the biggest beef that ive got with the whole thing. Ive been a supporter of the decriminalization and ive given money to organizations that advocate the decriminalization because i dont think people should go to jail for the low levels of drug possession. But i think that as soon as you commercialize Something Like this and then as soon as you play catch up building the Regulatory Infrastructure, you are screwed. If you want to do this right you build a solid airtight Regulatory Infrastructure first and then you bring it up. You dont always try to play catch play catchup with industry that will always be one step ahead of you because there is money to be made. This is great. Ive seen the future more like wine and beer. Regardless of the ideas weve had and what we are told about how great the Regulatory Infrastructure is, what is actually happening on the street is so different than what is on paper and a lot of it is left to the industry to regulate themselves. Responsible, classy, 20 off with a student id. 16th street mall. Hilarious unless you have 5yearold. Baby jesus. 25. This is the scary thing. Happy white people will get you every time. We have infused oils. Now on colfax infused oil because you will never catch the industry. 10 milligrams per serving as the legal limit. Its being advertised everywhere and this is the thc in the last four years in increments of two the last years in colorado. Thats what happens when you and us realize you get things like heroine and crack. Here is a good note to end on. Thats how cheap it is going. 79 with a coupon. I wish i had more time. I will leave that up. The report is interesting. The ahead head of the medicine published a study in the new england journal of medicine about six months ago. Fantastic overarching. Check it out and then theres another one for you. [applause] the way we are going to do this is if people have questions and a creative way of dealing with that raise your hand and i will recognize him. But if you allow anthony who has a boom microphone to get to you before you ask and button lets me repeat it to the audience and we will let the panelists answer but start with this gentleman. The presenters that gave us the facts and the data i appreciate that. Thats what i came for. My daughter took her life. She was an addict. Those of us that have had some experience in the area understand part of the conundrum. Its a very naive population out here. Forget politics. This is a serious issue that is not being addressed and i really do respect the facts and the data that are represented and i look forward to getting hard copies. Thank you. [applause] i certainly have to respect this gentleman lost his daughter to addiction. We sympathize with your loss. But if i can focus on questions from the audience over here. I have a threepart question. But to the panel as well. The question stems from the u. S. Government as classified marijuana as a schedule one drug. It also has no regaining qualities as part of the government schedule so the twopart question is the fda must make sent a letter asking them to look at the reclassified marijuana from the schedule one to any other schedule. The state economy on that and then the other one is the defending of the prosecution just happened on december 14 through the omnibus bill. So they are not prosecuting in the 32 states on the federal level in the Marijuana Prosecutions continue comment on that as well . This gentle man has to questions were directed to mr. Tree. One is scheduled by the government and is classified by the federal government. Essentially the drug that the fda recently sent asking to recategorize it into a different schedule. The second question is the federal government has declared throw a throw in on the best though. Fullstop the prosecuting were defined federal prosecution of marijuana again. Is that it is difficult to get them to understand the nature of the problem with a salary depends on them not understanding it. And this is the problem when you send the letter from schedule one to another schedule. But in many ways it is the cornerstone of the war on drugs domestically. And not on the budget necessarily but the 1. 6 million that we have every year. About half of them so the local Police Departments are very reluctant to give up because of this and this is a cache issue budgetary issue and a lot of them will fight. As any organization word if you are a government agency. They would fight tooth and nail to keep and preserve it. So i think that the dea their heart is not in it. In terms of prosecutions to the omnibus bill, that was a bipartisan measure is sponsored by the republican in california. So this is what is happening and there are states those that he needed a states rights if rights of feel they shouldnt be doing this. This is the federal governments business in terms of the minor prosecution and the resources after the cases like that. So the government doesnt have a role in this. In fact they came close to decriminalizing marijuana and he said look the penalties for drug use shouldnt cause more harm to those themselves and i think that should be the baseline for the policies. We have something over here. I have a question about marijuana here to stay. I agree we need science, maybe we need big pharma or better control with edibles. It is really very unscientific and thats where people are getting into trouble. And i just wondered whether colorado has anything going on to try to fix this problem and the second part of my question is lawenforcement is concerned and what sort of test should they do to make sure somebody is under the influence of marijuana . Is that a urine test they wont have back for days or is it a breathalyzer or Something Else that can be done . One as hell is how to make the extent system in colorado that are into second question is how is the level of marijuana in the blood tested by Law Enforcement . The states jump into this simultaneously the timeline has been quicker in oregon and alaska are now giving as well but it is incumbent upon us to do it responsibly and this is something where the State Government to did something very smart at the beginning where they convened the stakeholders. And after this people in the industry and lawenforcement district attorneys, judges, everyone got together and started to develop a policy around this and the governor has been very consistent about continuing and those working panels and there is room for citizens. This is an issue that you found particularly important to be on the panel and it is crucial to do so because there are a lot of voices in that. In terms of the dui issue, this is a complicated one and that how is typically found in the system and the driving context it is and breath like alcohol it is either blood or urine. But its a little bit difficult for the lawenforcement and policymakers to address this because this is where i would take issue with the statistic is often the tests that show the existence of marijuana in the system and any nonactive form, non psychoactive form can remain in the system for days, sometimes weeks. So when people get in a rack and have marijuana in her system it doesnt mean that they are impaired. It means it is one week, two weeks to 12 hours, and there are tests that boil down to figure that out but currently they are not as they should be. My thought on how you fix the regulatory issues i dont know how realistic it is but what i would do if i were on the panel, i would give the industry a limited spot or a non vote. I would let them them play in but i think that we have to decide to do we care more about promoting the profits of an industry or more about building a tight Regulatory Infrastructure because thats what this comes down to a lot of times how we going to create these jobs and keep people working in to get as much of the bead sold as we can because i dont think its right to sell. I think its kind of a byproduct. Give it a year pull them out of it, the village of scientists and doctors in it and see what ends up happening. That is what we are having a policy level from the local level to the state level and trying to tighten down some of these regulations. And our biggest stumbling block is how powerful the industry has already become. The amount of money and influence already that we have seen and its just getting stronger and stronger and it is very difficult as average citizens to weigh in and have an effect and the perfect example is these edibles like i said i was on this date working group to try to put some regular regulations around these edibles and we were just met with a blockade of industry folks but said it was too expensive to market these products. They didnt want to do it. Mind you the legislation was passed to do this they were going to try to unwind and to do it in this next session and in fact there are 30 bills in the Marijuana Industry on the docket from the next session but we have to deal with. And we are unwinding some of these very things. Whether it is the twoyear stipulation that you have to be in colorado before you can get in, they are trying to undo that. The hours that the shots can be opened and available, they are trying to empty that. So just like any big business they are fighting and they are using the political power and influence and money. It is going to be up to the citizens to tell the legislatures that we want to make sure that this is regulated and we want to do a better job because we are doing a good enough job right now. We need to further the regulations. But what industries do we try to shut out from the regulatory screenings . What you try to regulate guns without allowing the nra to have a voice . I find myself at odds with the industry very often. I think what we can agree on is prohibition has failed and criminalize individuals for their views is not a good idea but question is westerners if you dont believe in prohibition and you dont like what is happening, we can agree that somewhere along that line of regulatory line to the left or to the right is the question of where and not if. We agree that its failed and we shouldnt criminalize the the individuals for doing this. If we can agree on that and its a question of regulation and the devil is in the details and im willing to talk to anyone to figure out what are the best regulations, but not shutting down altogether and going back to the old drug war. Legalization, how would that affect forprofit prison system and the three strikes youre out especially around the country has it going to effect that affect that and how many of the last five president s have smoked marijuana illegally that might not have been president if they were incarcerated for that. We have three questions. How legalization will affect the forprofit prison system. The second one is how many president s, taking these out of order, how many of the recent president s wouldnt have been elected and how will we go addition to the legalization effect of those with a three strikes youre out. The first piece is prison and the numbers we have about 100 million americans that have tried marijuana. Then we have about 800,000 or so that our arrest every year. But the truth is not a lot of people end up in prison just for marijuana possession. The individuals you see in prison again distribution or largescale cultivation, certainly in certain states there will be more people in state prison but at least at the federal level and i think tons of people locked up for marijuana not to say that there is a large impact on the promote Justice System in terms of Police Priorities and what they spend their time doing, largely if they are not going to prison they cant get a job and have a conviction would have you. But by the end of the day my understanding is it isnt a dry and driver for the present position. Presentation. You do see a lot of people on probation for a positive urinalysis. Im happy to turn things over for the other questions. In terms of the past president s there was bill clinton famously said he didnt inhale and at the time they said thats probably true because he preferred the counties. But i think that hes basically admitted to use. George bush never admitted publicly that he did privately to his biographer when he ran for office in 2000 that secretly tape recorded the thing. His last name is weed by the way, way kennedy biographer and he disclosed that and bush told him privately i cant really talk about my past drug use because people look up to to me children look up to me comes out cocaine can make you delusional no. [laughter] president obama has written publicly about this about his own not only marijuana but his own cocaine use so this is something to the house of representatives or to the senate, again today i think it was in 2004 dot primary democrats were lined up on stage and i think that it was Anderson Cooper or someone to raise your hand if you have never accused marijuana and a Joe Lieberman had to one that raised his hand and said ive never done that. So demographically the 60s generation are now in power and they have a lot of experience with these things and these are the people that are voting on these laws today. And the three strikes. Dirty urine is one of the three strikes, so someone with two strikes and a test dirty marijuana shows up in their urine that can be the third strike to go away for life at an enormous expense to the state. That is a lot of money to lock someone up. So the zero tolerance kind of laws three strikes mandatory minimum, the politicians make them look tough, but when theyre actually is a limit and active and put in practice, they are incredibly backwards. Is there any one point that if he were going to, from colorado which we are in project, give to other states or congress, or whatever it is what one point would you press for to make sure happens . Slight editorializing of the question is about being colorado and being first in what have we learned that we would pass on to other states, contemplating legalization and or to the federal government. This was discussed quite a bit of the most recent conference, leaders and regulations there. Absolutely for the other states go slowly. Did not follow colorados lead. We had extremely tight deadlines because of amendment 64 and as ben referred to before, we are playing catchup. All those of us already on the ground. In my view medical marijuana, although it started in 2000 it wasnt fully commercialized until 2009. Thats what we saw this explosion of all the stores. Washington state has taken the time a little bit more than we have, but i think thats really, really crucial. And also to get data in order. We have so little dated and i think thats really important for good policy to be made. Before we rolled this out in commercialized it we really need to look at our situation and do it very slowly and try to be very thoughtful and try to set up the regulations first. Let me add what happened in 2009 is attorney general holder on behalf of the Obama Administration announced that theyre going to de prioritize prosecution of marijuana. So even though, legalize it in 2000, thats really when the momentum started. White piece of advice i think would be very simple. To not underestimate the lobby and the industry thats behind this your i think thats something were still doing in colorado, and i think that the idea that this is a grassroots peoples movement, thats just silly. The idea might be. Decriminalization might be but legalization in colorado has become completely synonymous with commercialization. I would tell him to estimate the lobby and industry, and consider separating legalization from commercialization because then you have a lot less guys like me jumping up and down being angry about it. One other thing i would say we need to put our kids first and think about those policies rather than the industry and the money that is being made in this industry. I do want to make a note to ben from regardless of whether interest is involved it is still innocent a grassroots movement, isnt . Absolutely not. Grassroots . [laughter] the original question, i think the other speakers, but a lot of merit to what theyre saying, but go slow. I mean marijuana has been legal for eight years but millions and millions of people in our country been arrested. Im tired of it. These laws are fundamentally racist in their application. They are damaging good peoples lives. We need to stop arrest people for marijuana. States should get on board with this. Having said that we absolutely need to be thoughtful about how you set up these regulations. We are very thoughtful. I led the drafting process in colorado. It was a sixmonth process when we sat down and said we will be the first state to legalize marijuana ever. We will consult every expert we can pick an order for us to crystallize this and do it in a way we can convey this abstract concept, its never happened before, to the public, the called it a campaign to regulate marijuana like alcohol. When you think about that, people 21 and older taxed, regulated, thats the beginning framework i believe each state should look at when considering passing this law. I think states were always meant to be collaborators of democracy in our society, and those that are allowed to experiment with perfect better system that other states can then emulate. I think the one lesson to export is to learn from mistakes, and mistakes will be made along the way. The first mistake that colorado we checked it was prohibition. It did not work. You do not control a drug i drive it underground in giving over to the criminal market. Having said that i would also agree that im troubled by a lot of this advertising. The Supreme Court said commercial speech does not as protected as political speech. I urge other states to exercise those to exercise their powers and find out which models work best. The race to edibles i dont think they should be banned but im not a huge proponent of edibles. Theres lots of lessons that can be learned. Other states should be free to. And we will find out which models are best. Thank you. There are some interesting statistics as always any conversation like this. I thought it interesting you compared 866, i think that was the number, of marijuana establishments in the state of colorado compared to starbucks and mcdonalds. Both of which by the way those substances or ingredients which are harmful to our children. I wouldve been more interested in hearing a statistic compared 876 marijuana distribution facilities to alcohol distribution facilities. I think thats comparison that we need to make. Sometimes any conversation like this it sounds like the late 1800s, the 1900 the probation those who are adamantly against, those who supported war in favor of it. Im curious its a very respected organization. I know it, i have friends who have chosen to take that healing path and are doing very well. However, my question will be statistically, what percentage of your patience our alcohol abuse and what percentage are therefore marijuana abuse, or recovery from the use of marijuana versus the recovery of a call . Let me restate the question. Im going to add my own 2 cents worth to this, not any not in the answer but in the question. The first question has to do this gentleman cites the comparisons to the number of marijuana outlets to mcdonalds and starbucks, but he thinks it more fair comparison might be to alcohol outlets. Russian number one is whats that comparison . My editorializing in the question is and has been when i was in reduce i represented a lot of these in Retail Marijuana outlets, cultivation outlets, medical marijuana. Theres always a comparison in the ordinances that you deal with in each minister proudly that makes some sort of comparison between alcohol and marijuana. My question is is that there, first of all . Lets focus on this gentlemans question. The second question is a question i had written down when you were speaking, ben, is what is the percentage of marijuana we have at cedar compared to alcohol rehab . We will have the data from the last two years at the end of this summer. The number two reason why anyone seeks treatment over 18, so under 18 theres a good case to be made because there adjudicated in debt. The number one reason why anyone seeks treatment over 18 is booze, ill. Number one. Number two, his marijuana. We hold true with those at cedar. We also have seen and interesting uptick in that in the last year. But youve got to go past the surface of that statement and say, is the availability . Is the perception of risk . It is certainly these things. So you have another substance which is widely available, as widely acceptable, objectively speaking ill call it the less addictive substance and many other things of all. That leads people into treatment treatment. But its much more readily available. Peoplespeople start using earlier. They consumed in greater quantities of this question is not a simple booze we think it received we eat, drink too, if one in the country sees more alcohol because alcohol is more prevalent. If you of 1000 patients, how many are there for recovery from transit abuse, and how many are there for recovery from marijuana . Simple question is percentage is, what percentage of those being treated our alcohol versus marijuana . I cant answer that question with any kind of a surety. Samhsa keeps great numbers on this nationwide and there were two pretty good numbers on the. Its not a small number. It really isnt. Its not huge. Its certainly not trying to put it in your you to ask yourself the question, is that because of the depth of the problems in society or is that substance in her late more acts and the other one. Go to samhsa website. Theyve kept amazing date on this for 30 years. If i give you a number i would be making it up. [inaudible] hold on. Lets finish with this question in terms of the comparison of the alcohol outlets compared to the marijuana outlets. Then i will come back and take one more question from you. Regarding that, i do have another slide, it just wasnt included here, that does talk about pharmacies and Liquor Stores and Marijuana Stores and there are still more Marijuana Stores. Stores. I can figure that number for Liquor Stores right off the top of my head over to the graphic that shows a. And they speak with a lot of out of state media and talk about how its viewed to get pot than a cup of coffee or hamburger for mcdonalds, i mean, people are, and of course, mcdonalds and starbucks are everywhere. So its just a way of comparing the two a lot of out of state people are really surprise within kind of puts things in perspective. I just chose to put that slide in. But anyway. I would just add that certainly there are more liquor licenses in the state of colorado. My guess is it is like 10 times as many to think about restaurants, by rhys, bars then there are marijuana shops. Let me come back to this gentleman and then we will ask one more question. Short subject. As a supervisor i was told by the been [inaudible] anytime he felt like 10 of population was going to be abusing some substance, is it a fixed sum game or not . Is a people moving from alcohol to marijuana or is it added speak with the question very simply is, is there a quantity of people who tend toward addiction, and does it ship with the legalization of marijuana . So maybe there are 10 of the population, for example, that might have addictive personality given a shift from alcohol to marijuana, to something a . Thats a great question, and you handed a much larger conversation which is around the way that addiction manifests inside of our country. It is about 10 10 folks just end up like me. May be no matter what. And theres a lot of reasons why and we have a lot of great, great information about it. We have been learning so much about addiction over the last 30 years, its a chronic disease. The other thing that we have been learning a lot about our individual drugs. So you get somebody like me to differentiate to drugs and how addictive they are and who gets addicted to what and how they get, im not going to do that. What i will do is, because to me its about addiction. Its not about a particular substance here at a particular substance of their but i will tie you the biggest predictor if 10 of the population is going to end up with an addictive this order just because, anybody can become an addict. Just about anybody can put you consume enough of anything, you can get there. Think of your coffee, nicotine. Just about anybody can get there. And the biggest predictions for whether or not you will get their our age of onset so when you first used, the frequency of use, and then of course, the potency of the substance that you are using. So for us who are considerably more concerned with addiction and recovery done in with any particular substance its all about dealing that first used. And making that first use on a substance that is mild as we can have it be and having some stigma around so that they dont do it again. And then frequency of use. So if you can wait until this frontal lobe develops 24 26 on extreme highend if everybody waited until there were 24 to do just about anything, we would bring those rates down to 5 of the country more than likely. You would not have the same issues. The problem is always on the developing brain and thats what this is such an important topic to me because i see this as something that contributes to that for young people not takes away from the. Sorry to take some much time. I would just jump in and say absolutely, that is why we are so concerned with youth marijuana use right now at our messages the kids are are getting and the ability of it in schools, and 18 euros being able to buy it and give it there are a lot of 18 euros in high school by the way. Seniors in high school. I would add one of the thing. Theres been some talk we are may be shifting substance is that that is not thats not the statistics ive seen but we have not decreased our alcohol or drug use for other kinds of drugs as marijuana has escalated. We are just seeing more people use these substances. Let me take the last question. This gentleman over here. I think my job is to make marijuana boring. Thats what i want to see. But i think thats what the dutch have done. The dutch, long ago experimented with drug laws especially marijuana laws and they suffered a hard drive market from the soft drug market. They did was dealt marijuana in the old days has also dealt more addictive drug. They set up the coffee shop system. Theyve had to shoulder the easy access to marijuana yet lower rates of marijuana use compared to the United States can even amongst teenagers. In the grocery coffee shops you dont see a lot of dutch people. You see a lot of tours, germans french and americans. If we can make marijuana boring, and i think it is a relatively poll boring drug it takes to climb out of the. It was an article in the l. A. Times recently about talk about my mother was talking about marijuana in her experience, et cetera to 80 become like the new facebook when your parents are on facebook, it became uncool pretty quickly last night so it began de clamor rises, learn from this experience is, that would help. Talk about commercialization, legalization. Just a societal thing and maybe we can use this one legalization commercialization to rethink alcohol. Of already rethought tobacco rethinking fast food gun laws, things like that. So is there an opportunity in once a Just Transition in colorado and to go back to washington or wherever it needs to go to ticket to get the reforms that we need in our society . Because tobacco is right on television right now saying we target the weakest people in society, the youth to theres a commercial i saw this morning but we know alcohol targeted, you know youth. And gun laws are so archaic that they are crazy. I mean, so can we use this part of the legalization of marijuana . Because its just an industry. So why would you pick on this industry is a you cant make your millions of dollars and you cant do these types of advertising, the types of things that all industry to . Because remember when a famous american said, corporations are people. So you cant have it both ways. Let me make sure i understand this question. Decide the illusion to the Citizens United decision, the question is are there lessons in the Marijuana Legalization experience and debate that would foster reconsideration of other policy issues that are deeply things that are not good for us fast food, alcohol et cetera . I want to address the issue of advertising and this hasnt really been brought up today but colorado has pretty series restrictions on marijuana advertising. What you see is a cherrypicked example of the worst of the worst, frankly. Otherwise all of those ads appeared in publications that by law, have to serve the population, i think it is 50 over 25. If Something Like that. Those are not carrying on Like Cartoon Network and things like that. These are examples that got to basically scare you. Maybe thats important to we need to have a tough discussion about what is appropriate advertising. This is the dawn of an industry. Like it or not it is he. It should not be to gamble. The industry is not not like this evil people behind the curtain of saying lets addict kids. Of represent a lot of these people. You probably know some. These are by and large good people looking to make a living selling this product that is legal in the state. Not trying to ensnare and attracted to those individuals that are advertising in what i feel in cartoonish ways dont complain. By and large i think advertising that was done in this field is pretty good and could certainly be better but we do have laws that prevent them from specifically advertising to kids. And it would be nice if we had regulations, too to prevent a candy something sprayed down with marijuana and we sold and the paper that comes in very discrete forms because this stuff is being brought into the schools. The teachers and counselors and principals are having a hard time identifying get the yet we know they are there. We know that the kids are using it. And so its a matter of changing these regulations for that not just the typical marketing and advertising. On that note when were talking about the netherlands, they dont advertise. It is very discrete. And they have been clamping down on it both in the proximity of where these coffeehouses can be and also they are not allowing tourists anymore. In anything above 15 thc is treated as a hard drive. I do not if you know that. But theyre keeping the potency low also and thats a big difference. They dont have a highly potent stuff that we have in colorado. On the dutch border issue yes, they were getting tours of some of the mayors of the border towns clamped down and it blew up in the face is immediately and many of them have had to backtrack because what happened was we would only sell to dutch citizen, no foreigners. So that created a job opportunity for a lot of dutch you know profiteers within bought marijuana from sold illegally and more people came to buy from these people. So that was a failed policy. I think the lesson we learn from marijuana in colorado is that many people become the politicians will follow. On certain issues, the issues, the real issues that are complex and easily smeared with, it takes popular expression to assure politicians that yes you can talk about this issue as adults openly. There are a lot of people who would like some sort of sensible drug control not banning drugs. Politicians are terrified of the nra but it didnt how many people and how many of them in Congress Also felt the same way if they came out of the closet he might have very different discussion. That could be the same with our bet on travel to cuba, for instance. Politicians were paralyzed by the fear of negative attack ads and get the majority of people in this country wanted normalization of relations and so on and so forth. The reason were terrified of the energy is because its so damn big. We didnt get to it at the beginning. In our a. Thats what im doing this. Because if it had been around at the beginning of tobacco i wouldve thought about that if i knew what we knew now. Weve got good size, good information to we dont need to wait 60 years until this lobby is even larger that we cant combat. Reasonable conversation today is met with taglines quick, easy industry guidelines. And i think now is the time, ma engage any way you want to but we need to have this conversation be much more in depth and we are able to be with the nra in the Tobacco Industry and the alcohol lobby be cured because theyre so big he can do anything about it. Weve got time now. We would opportunity to do this right so lets consider doing it right, having a smart conversation about it and not letting business interests rule of the day. [inaudible] you know what, im going to respectfully ask you to lets finish up after and lets wind up the program. On have of the vail symposium i want to thank everybody for their participation and for the interest. I want to thank the speakers in particular for the passion, the topless, but eloquent in their preparations. I invite all of you to work look at a programming. We have Great Program this winter. We are working on a summer programming. With that said, its cold outside, buckle up drive safely and thank you for being here. [applause] [inaudible conversations]
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