So Bill Ritter — that’s Governor Ritter, former District Attorney of Denver — sanctioned crazy parties at the governor’s mansion. At first I wondered why this is news. (God knows I’ve done worse, back when I was young and dumb.) I wish Ritter would throw more parties and sign fewer bills. But leave it to Mason Tvert of SAFER, a group advocating legal marijuana, to spin the story into something interesting.
As The Denver Post reports:
Marijuana supporters want to ask the governor why his young son can have a drinking party inside the governor’s mansion while other citizens can’t smoke marijuana inside their own homes without the fear of prosecution.
Mason Tvert, who spearheaded the largely symbolic victory in 2005 when Denver voters legalized possession of one ounce or less of marijuana, held a press conference [May 16] outside the mansion at East Eighth Avenue and Logan Street, the same day it was reported in the Denver Post that August Ritter III has been hosting keg parties in the mansion.
Tvert asks a fair question. Yet Ritter, who has admitted to smoking marijuana, has discussed lighter sentences for drug users but never has wavered from his prohibitionist stance.