Romer to Colleagues: Quit Huffing and Get Puffing

Chris Romer aims to educate his colleagues about a key issue they'll be voting on this session.
"There are lots of complexities to medical marijuana," he says. "Maybe the only way to really understand them is to have 100 legislators and the attorney general try it for a day."
There are as many reasons as legislative districts why Romer's may be a dumb idea.
One is that the Drug Enforcement Administration isn't likely, as he hopes, to grant the legislature amnesty from federal drug laws. Another is that passing a bong at the statehouse sends the wrong signal to kids.
A leading pot advocate disses Romer's scheme on the grounds that it trivializes the need for medical users. Most lawmakers don't suffer the chronic conditions that marijuana was legalized to treat in Colorado.
"Voters put this law into effect to help sick people. You could argue that lawmakers aren't sick," Sensible Colorado director Brian Vicente says.
"We struggle for legitimacy as is," he adds. "This is only going to be viewed as wacky."
Romer is willing to capitalize on his name (he's former Gov. Roy's son) and the safety of his Democratic Senate seat to give what he calls "street cred" to the cause of gingerly regulating the industry. He realizes that calling for a statehouse smoke may hurt his increasingly likely bid to replace John Hickenlooper as Denver mayor. Still, he says, he's on the right side of history.
"Even though there's some levity about all this, I'm serious as a heart attack," he says. "We need to get marijuana patients and legislators together in this building, open up this conversation and figure out how to work this out."
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