Municipalities

       Although we rarely think of municipal laws in the context of repealing national prohibition, it is certainly possible for cities and towns to demonstrate their repugnance toward prohibition and support for legalization by repealing local prohibition ordinances. As a legal matter, this means that citizens busted for pot could not be charged under local law, but could still be charged and prosecuted under state (or federal ) law. Thus the effect is legally symbolic, but politically significant, as it gives voters two important opportunities in the privacy of the voting booth:  the opportunity to denounce prohibition, and the opportunity to declare  with their vote what they cannot dare declare otherwise, in justifiable fear for their jobs, their drivers licenses and custody of their children.
 

June 2, 2010. The Detroit initiative has qualified for the November ballot!

May 6, 2010. Reformers in Detroit, Michigan, have collected sufficient signatures to put a measure on the November ballot to legalize possession of up to one ounce of marijuana on private property by adults 21 or older. It's not a regulation and taxation measure, but more like what Denver did in 2005. Here's their website. And here's some video from local TV. The City Council has ducked the issue, abdicating the policy choice to the voters.

April 9, 2010. Nederland did it!

February 9, 2010. Now another Colorado community, Nederland, is joining.  Signatures are being collected to put a legalization initiative on the April, 2010, ballot.

January 22, 2010. Two more Colorado municipalities, Aspen and Leadville, are said to be considering "decriminalizing" marijuana. I suspect they meant "legalizing."

January 16, 2010. News today out of Seattle, Washington, where the newly-elected district attorney, Pete Holmes, is refusing to prosecute marijuana enforcement cases, making good on a campaign promise to abide by a 2003 voter referendum which declared that such cases should be the lowest priority for law enforcement.  This is a classic case of de facto decriminalization.

January 3, 2010.In anticipation of the passage of the Lee Initiative in November, which will give local governents the right to license, regulate and tax commerce in cannabis, a San Franciso City Supervisor has urged a that the voters be heard from as to whether the City should start developing plans to do that.

I think this is the first of many stories we will see coming out of California municipalities.


On November 3, 2009, voters of Breckenridge, Colorado, voted to legalize.  See Vail Daily of October 30, 2009. Post-election stories here, here, and here. What is significant is that this is not simply a medical marijuana thing, but the voters repealed local prohibition for all uses of cannabis. Breckenridge  update.

     And here's a cute story from a jealous rival ski town.

A few days after the election, a story in the Aspen Daily News indicates that other towns are considering doing the same thing for next year's election. Durango? More about Colorado municipalities here.

Denver, Colorado, voted to legalize possession of small amounts in 2005.

[November 18,2009] Hailey, Idaho! Hailey is a ski town of around 7,000 in the Idaho mountains. According to today's story at that link, earlier this year three initiatives were passed by the local voters: "allowing use of marijuana for medical purposes, legalizing industrial hemp and making enforcement of the marijuana laws the lowest priority for Hailey police."  The city appointed a Marijuana Oversight Committee to make sense of it all. The committee decided to focus on medical marijuana. Bravo Hailey! We'll keep watching.