Hey, Gov. Hickenlooper! When Are Democrats Gonna Get as Brave About the Drug War as Colorado!

The process is "moving," the Colorado governor says, and positive results will "change a lot of minds"

This morning, as I will be doing on Wednesday, I guested on SiriusXM Insight Channel's Stand Up! With Pete Dominick from 10 to noon ET, talking all things convention. As we were yakking, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper dropped by. Dominick asked me if I had any questions for the governor—who started as an opponent to legalizing marijuana in his state, and later changed his mind—and so I asked the question in the headline of this post. Listen to his answer here:

Reason on Hickenlooper's pot evolution here.

Comments

[ShannonRoberts]

I'm got $92 an hour working from home. I See when my neighbor told me she was averaging $120 but I see how it works now. I feel so much freedom now that I'm my own boss. Check It out what I do..

===========? http://www.Alpha-Careers.com

[arbitrary wavefunction]

You're a pot dealer?

[__Warren__]

His name sounds like Lickinpooper!

[Hyperion]

I always think of him as Lickinpooper.

[Hugh Akston]

Wow, Hickenlooper speaks for more than a minute without giving a straight answer to a straight question.

[Brett L]

That's how you get to be governor.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

If I parse the answer about taxing and regulating, one might roughly interpret his comment to broadly mean that the Dems are kind of sort of coming around very, very slowly. Glacially.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Fewer drug dealers.

So the conflict with federal law was always his reason for initially opposing decriminalization? He failed to answer the question here. If that is the case, and the Democrats take back the White House in November, then they have a chance to remove that conflict and allow other states to experiment with marijuana as an industry.

So, I will answer Welch's question: Never. The Democrats will follow reluctantly on this one. They won't lead.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

We have to vote for Democrats to find out what's in them.

[R C Dean]

If that is the case, and the Democrats take back the White House in November,

I'm hoping this was meant to be a funneh.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I don't see them running on Obama's accomplishments with regard to the state of, well, just about anything in the country, so you can be sure the tone from the D ticket or its surrogates to be pretty much that.

[0x90]

When Are Democrats Gonna Get as Brave About the Drug War as Colorado!

It's easy to be brave about Colorado.

[geo1113]

Interesting how he used the quote "states are the laboratories of democracy" yet we need the ACA, $15 minimum wage, social security medicare, department of education, etc, etc, etc.

[Uncle Jay]

RE: Hey, Gov. Hickenlooper! When Are Democrats Gonna Get as Brave About the Drug War as Colorado!
The process is "moving," the Colorado governor says, and positive results will "change a lot of minds"

Q: When Are Democrats Gonna Get as Brave About the Drug War as Colorado?
A: Never
The process is "moving."
No, it's not.
But that's the plan.
You can't have a nanny state if you don't have a reason to have nannies.