Marijuana and the Grand Valley

Tomorrow residents of Grand Junction have a chance of reversing over a century of wrong-headed and racist marijuana laws, locally.

It was 10 years ago this week that voters of Grand Junction voted to ban medical dispensaries from operating within the city limits. Since then, the voters of this state have voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, and guess what nothing happened. The sky has, in fact, not falled. What was falling was teen marijuana use. Colorado Department of Public Health and Safety surveys from 2016 have found that teen marijuana use dropped after legalization.

Alcohol was already illegal in Colorado, by March 30th of 1917 when the state passed the first Marijuana prohibition. Like most marijuana laws at the time, it was geared at both cutting off funds for Pancho Villa’s revolution in Mexico, and to punish and criminalize migrants and refugees fleeing chaos and a poor economy in Mexico. The law made, “the planting, cultivating, harvesting, drying, curing, or preparation for sale or gift of cannabis sativa,” a misdemeanor. It doesn’t seem like the passage was a big deal, a search of Colorado newspapers in 1917 brings up zero results.

The Grand Junction city council passed its own marijuana prohibition in 1924. The Daily Sentinel of November 11th 1924 makes clear who the law was designed to target:

“It is understood that this [marijuana] is being sold and used here by Mexicans who are working in the beet fields. The drug causes a queer intoxication and in many cases drives the user mad. City officials do not believe that its sale is prohibited by state or federal law, and wish to stamp out the evil here.”

The Daily Sentinel doesn’t show that enforcement of this law was all that wide-spread, but when it was enforced, it was always against ‘Mexicans.’ A May 6th, 1928 headline reads “Supposed Marijuana Peddler Preferred Leaving the County.” Joe Garcia was given the choice of leaving the county or spending 60 days in the county lock up. He left town.

With the passing of the 1937, Marijuana Tax Stamp Act, marijuana became illegal nationally. About forty years later the people of the Grand Valley began pushing back.

On April 15th 1978, local Yippie (Youth International Party) organizer David Burnis hosted, the now almost forgotten, Free Festival in Lincoln Park. The Smoke-In drew around five hundred people for a day of “Free Music, Free Love, and Free Pot.” It turned into a riot almost right away, when police moved in to arrest people for smoking marijuana. In retaliation, the crowd resisted hurling rocks and bottles at law enforcement. People were beat, tear gassed and assaulted with a fire hose, and 23 people were arrested, At the same time organizations such as NORMAL were becoming active on the national level, and the legalization fight moved from the streets to the courts and ballot box. In 2000, 54% of Colorado voters approved amendment 20, legalizing medical marijuana. In 2006, SAFER Colorado began the push for full legalization, and in 2012 Colorado voters made history and passed Amendment 64. 64, had provisions for local control. Since 2012 Grand Junction and Mesa County have been “dry” localities. Tomorrow is the last day to get your ballots back for the Grand Junction municipal elections. Go make history.

**Update Grand Junction voted to allow recreational marijuana sales, falling in line with a historical trend of GJ being about ten years behind the rest of the nation.