OK OF POT ISSUE GIVES NEW MEANING TO MILE HIGH CITY

Marijuana advocates scored a breathtaking victory in the Mile High
City as Denver voters legalized adult possession of small amounts of marijuana.

"I think it just goes to show that people in Denver were fed up with
a law that prohibited adults from making a rational, safer decision
regarding what they put into their bodies," said Mason Tvert, the
23-year-old Denver man who spearheaded the Initiative 100 campaign.

While other big cities, such at Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have
passed laws making adult pot use a low police priority, supporters
said passage of I-100 would make Denver the first major city to
legalize adult pot possession of 1 ounce or less.

Denver officials maintain amending local law changes nothing, because
the vast majority of marijuana possession busts will continue to be
prosecuted under state law.

"It's still illegal in the city of Denver, because Denver's in
Colorado," Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said.

Mayor John Hickenlooper, who opposed the measure because he says
marijuana is a "gateway drug," chalked the victory up to "a
generational thing."

"People's attitudes toward marijuana; they're clearly changing," he
said. "If that election had been 20 years ago, it would have been a
very different outcome."

Yet, Hickenlooper stressed: "The bottom line is, it doesn't change
state law. I think it's more symbolic than anything else."

The marijuana debate was anything but mellow.

Critics accused the I-100 supporters of masking their pro-pot agenda
by plastering the city with "Make Denver SAFER" signs omitting the
word marijuana, exploiting residents' fear of rising crime rates and
publicized calls for more police.

I-100 forces kept hitting the Alcohol-Marijuana Equalization
Initiative's theme: Adults should have the right to legally choose
marijuana, because it's a safer alternative to booze. The ballot
supporters turned the tables on the drug war, attacking alcohol for
fueling violent crime, deadly car wrecks, collegiate binge-drinking
and liver disease.

The strategy was intensely watched by national marijuana advocates
weighing a Nevada ballot initiative next year to tax and regulate pot
like alcohol.

"A Denver victory clearly means that the drive to end marijuana
prohibition has become a mainstream issue," said Bruce Mirken,
spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. "For a
city of Denver's size in a red state to endorse something like this
is really quite remarkable."