The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol announced this week that more than 300 physicians from 65 localities in Colorado have now endorsed Amendment 64, which would make marijuana legal in the state to people over 21. More than 130 college professors from Colorado and around the nation have also stated that they support the amendment, the campaign said. Here are the details.
* According to Dr. Larry Bedard, former president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, "It is time to embrace a more commonsense policy, and stop criminalizing adults for using a substance less harmful than alcohol."
* Bedard, who participated in a news conference with campaign members, stated that in more than 35 years as an emergency physician, he saw hundreds of injuries, accidents and deaths due to alcohol, but virtually none associated with marijuana.
* Dr. Bruce Madison, a former associate medical director of the faculty at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, also spoke at the conference on Tuesday, stating that current laws waste millions of dollars in a "failed War on Marijuana," and ruin "thousands of lives by unnecessary arrest and incarceration."
* The 130 college professors, many in the fields of law, health, economics and criminal justice, signed an open letter to the voters of Colorado stating, "We have reviewed Amendment 64 and concluded that it presents an effective, responsible and needed new approach for Colorado and the nation."
* The letter went on to state that marijuana prohibition is particularly harmful to teens, "driving marijuana into the underground market where proof of age is not required and where other illegal products might be available."
* The letter goes on to state that the legalization of marijuana will help the state economically by reducing the amount of resources needed to enforce marijuana projibition.
* Amendment 64, which is on this year's November ballot in Colorado, will remove legal penalties for personal possession of up to one ounce of marijuana and for the home-growing of up to six marijuana plants by those over 21.
* The amendment will also create legal marijuana establishments, including retail stores, cultivation facilities, product manufacturing facilities and testing facilities and facilities involving the cultivation, processing and sale of industrial hemp, all to be licensed by the state Department of Revenue.
* If passed, the amendment calls for an excise tax of up to 15 percent on the wholesale sale of non-medical marijuana, with the first $40 million of revenue from the tax each year being directed to the state's Public School Capital Construction Assistance Fund.
