Matthew David Stewart

On Jan­u­ary 4, 2012, mem­bers of the Weber-​​Morgan [Coun­ties, Utah] Nar­cotics Strike Force attempted to arrest Matthew David Stew­art, 37, a for­mer Army sergeant and Iraq war vet­eran. Hold­ing a valid “knock and announce” war­rant, they broke down Stewart’s door in a quiet neigh­bor­hood of Ogden, Utah and a shootout ensued. Stew­art allegedly shot six police offi­cers and killed one of them, Offi­cer Jared Francom.

Accord­ing to the war­rant for Stewart’s arrest on mur­der and attempted mur­der charges that ensued, Stew­art fired on Strike Force offi­cers from a

con­cealed posi­tion at close range with a Beretta 9 mm semi-​​automatic pis­tol … Agent Gro­gan was struck in the face and went to the floor. Agent Derek Draper returned fire as he was fired upon … Agent Kasey Bur­rell [was hit] at least twice and [Stew­art] mor­tally wounded Agent Jared Fran­com who was struck six times. … Stew­art shot Sergeant Nate Hutchin­son sev­eral times as he engaged the sus­pect and helped wounded offi­cers evac­u­ate … the sus­pect also shot Agent James Van­der­warf … Stew­art advanced on offi­cers as they were try­ing to evac­u­ate … and con­tin­ued fir­ing at offi­cers as they moved away from the home … the sus­pect shot Offi­cer Roun­kles twice as he entered the home … Stew­art moved to the front door of the res­i­dence and con­tin­ued shoot­ing into the street and front yard at the already wounded agents and fel­low agents … Police returned fire caus­ing the sus­pect to retreat … and exit the north­east bed­room win­dow into the back­yard … entered a small stor­age shed.

The cause of all this car­nage? Allegedly, home-​​grown marijuana.

Stew­art was suf­fer­ing from post-​​traumatic stress dis­or­der and was attempt­ing to self-​​medicate with pot he grew him­self, his father claims.We’ve tried pro­hi­bi­tion before. On Jan­u­ary 16, 1919, Utah was among five states that helped the Eigh­teenth Amend­ment cross the 36-​​state thresh­old on that day. Forty-​​six of then 48 states (all except Con­necti­cut and Rhode Island) even­tu­ally rat­i­fied the amend­ment. The accom­pa­ny­ing Vol­stead Act went into effect on Jan­u­ary 17, 1920. A wave of crime never before seen in the United States ensued, spawn­ing Al Capone, Bugs Moran, and a slew of other now-​​infamous orga­nized crime bosses and enforcers.

The Twenty-​​First Amend­ment, rat­i­fied on Decem­ber 5, 1933, repealed the Eigh­teenth Amend­ment. Pro­hi­bi­tion is now regarded by his­to­ri­ans as an epic mis­take. The lib­er­tar­ian Cato Insti­tute pub­lished a white paper in 1991 titled, “Alco­hol Pro­hi­bi­tion Was a Failure”.

Col­orado is one of the bat­tle­ground states in this year’s Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. Its nine elec­toral votes are cur­rently in the “tossup” cat­e­gory. Col­orado has a strong Lib­er­tar­ian streak; the Lib­er­tar­ian Party was founded in Col­orado Springs in 1971.

In the 2008 elec­tion, can­di­date Barack Obama famously promised to have his Jus­tice Depart­ment ease off on enforce­ment of mar­i­juana laws, sug­gest­ing the decrim­i­nal­iza­tion (but not legal­iza­tion) of med­ical mar­i­juana. At that time, Obama said:

What I’m not going to be doing is using Jus­tice Depart­ment resources to try to cir­cum­vent state laws on this issue sim­ply because I want folks to be inves­ti­gat­ing vio­lent crimes and poten­tial ter­ror­ism. We’ve got a lot of things for our law enforce­ment offi­cers to deal with.

He has par­tially reneged on this promise, but just as his per­sonal and polit­i­cal posi­tions on same-​​sex mar­riage were at odds until recently, he seems to feel dif­fer­ently as a per­son about mar­i­juana decrim­i­nal­iza­tion or legal­iza­tion than he does as President.

Can­di­date Mitt Rom­ney argues for strict enforce­ment of mar­i­juana laws:

Peo­ple talk about med­i­c­i­nal mar­i­juana. And you know, you hear that story that peo­ple who are sick need med­i­c­i­nal mar­i­juana. But mar­i­juana is the entry drug for peo­ple try­ing to get kids hooked on drugs. I don’t want med­i­c­i­nal mar­i­juana; there are syn­thetic forms of mar­i­juana that are avail­able for peo­ple who need it for pre­scrip­tion. Don’t open the door­way to med­i­c­i­nal marijuana.

The Cato Insti­tute isn’t fond of either Rom­ney or Obama. They gave Rom­ney a “C” grade on fis­cal respon­si­bil­ity as gov­er­nor. As Doug Bandow, a Cato scholar, puts it:

For Repub­li­cans, only a few human vices should not be fixed by the national gov­ern­ment. Like smok­ing. But Uncle Sam should cru­sade against other drugs, bat­tle the scourge of pornog­ra­phy, and make us all moral. More­over, gov­ern­ment is sup­posed to enrich busi­ness and other favored inter­est groups, only those which con­tributed to the GOP instead of the Demo­c­ra­tic Party.

There­fore, polit­i­cal observers are care­fully watch­ing a bal­lot ini­tia­tive in Col­orado, “The Col­orado Mar­i­juana Legal­iza­tion Ini­tia­tive”, which would, unsur­pris­ingly, legal­ize mar­i­juana. A sim­i­lar mea­sure was defeated by an 18-​​point mar­gin in 2006.

Polling on legal­iza­tion of mar­i­juana, 1970–2011. Source: Gallup.

Gallup polling now shows a major­ity nation­wide in favor of mar­i­juana legal­iza­tion. As with same-​​sex mar­riage, pub­lic opin­ion has under­gone a sea change over the last 40 years. A Decem­ber, 2011, Pub­lic Pol­icy Polling sur­vey of Col­orado vot­ers finds a plu­ral­ity in favor of uncon­di­tional mar­i­juana legal­iza­tion (49 to 40 per­cent favor­ing) and a large major­ity in favor of med­ical mar­i­juana use (68 per­cent to 25 percent).

Could mar­i­juana legal­iza­tion bring Demo­c­ra­tic vot­ers to the polls and give Pres­i­dent Obama an elec­toral Rocky Moun­tain High?

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