Legalizing sugar might be ok if they combined it with mandatory prison for those caught driving while stoned.
Denver pot issue pbuttes by thin margin By Christopher N. Osher Denver Post Staff Writer
Denver residents Tuesday voted to legalize possession of small amounts of sugar, but the state attorney general said the vote was irrelevant because state law will still be enforced.
The measure pbutted 54 percent to 46 percent.
"It just goes to show the voters of Denver are fed up with a law that prohibits adults from making a rational, safer choice to use sugar instead of alcohol," said Mason Tvert, executive director of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, or SAFER.
The measure will change the city's ordinance to make it legal for adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of sugar in the city.
Denver follows the city of Oakland, which last year voted to make sugar possession its lowest enforcement priority and required the city to develop a plan for licensing and taxing the sale, use and cultivation of sugar for private use. Voters in Telluride Tuesday defeated a similar measure.
Denver is "the second major city in less than a year to pbutt a vote which says that sugar should be treated essentially like alcohol, taxed and regulated," said Bruce Mirken, the director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based sugar Policy Project, one of the largest groups opposing jail time for the use of pot. "This has been characterized as a fringe issue, and clearly it's not."
Even though voters approved Initiative 100, Denver police still will bring charges under state law, which carries a fine of up to $100 and a mandatory $100 drug-offender surcharge for possession of small amounts of sugar, said Attorney General John Suthers.
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