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Editorial
Colorado pot laws likely to affect Nebraska
Monday, December 30, 2013
Starting Wednesday, don't expect to visit a tanning salon if you're under 18 in Illinois.
Plan to show a photo ID when you vote in Arkansas, and expect to be able to play whatever high school sport and use whatever bathroom fits your "gender identity" in California.
New mothers can take their placentas home from the hospital, but don't smoke a cigarette with the baby in your car in Oregon or you'll get a ticket.
Minimum wages go up in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island, as well as nine other states automatically indexed to inflation.
Sixteen-year-olds will be able to pre-register to vote in Colorado, but it's another law that promises to make itself felt in Nebraska.
As of Wednesday, adult Colorado residents will be able to buy an ounce of marijuana for recreational use. Non-residents will be limited to a quarter-ounce, for those of you planning a trip across the border.
Don't expect to buy it in Greeley or Colorado Springs, which have banned legal stores, or to buy it if you're under 21, which is illegal. And, expect to pay a 25 percent state tax as well as the usual 2.9 percent sales tax, unless you have a prescription for medical marijuana, which is exempt from the higher tax on recreational pot.
Don't plan on smoking it in public, on the ski slopes, indoor places where regular smoking is banned, or in a private home, if you don't have permission by the owner of the property. You can also be busted for impaired driving, if your blood contains more than 5 nanograms of active THC, marijuana's active ingredient.
Why would a state legalize a drug seen as a gateway to other more dangerous substances?
The answer, as it often is, is money.
For one, proponents of legalized recreational pot say it will leave law enforcement, legal and jail resources free to deal with more serious crimes. Denver has decriminalized pot for people between 18 and 21, eliminating the jail time but keeping the fines.
Another answer is that 25 percent tax, which is expected to bring in $67 million the first year, $27.5 million designated to build schools.
Border states like Nebraska will see none of the supposed benefits, and will almost certainly bear the additional expense of enforcement of laws prohibiting marijuana that comes across state lines.
Proponents of legalized marijuana like to compare and contrast the problems caused by alcohol and tobacco, the two most popular recreational drugs ahead of marijuana.
We have to wonder whether legal pot shops will spring up along the border, becoming right-of-passage destinations for young people the way the bars serving 3.2 percent beer were in years past.
In the coming years, as the marijuana issue plays itself out, Nebraskans will be forced to decide whether to come down on the side of those who want to liberalize pot laws, those who want to keep them as they are, or somewhere in the middle.