Be it Enacted by the People of the State of Colorado:
SECTION 1. In Colorado Revised Statutes, 18-12-203, amend (1) (c) and (1) (f) as follows:
18-12-203. Criteria for obtaining a permit. (1) Beginning May 17, 2003, except as otherwise provided in this section, a sheriff shall issue a permit to carry a concealed handgun to an applicant who . . .
(c) Is not ineligible to possess a firearm pursuant to section 18-12-108; or federal law;
(f) Is not an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance as defined in section 18-18-102 (5), EXCEPT THAT A SHERIFF SHALL NOT USE A PERMIT APPLICANT’S LAWFUL USE OF MARIJUANA PURSUANT TO SECTION 14 OR 16 OF ARTICLE XVIII OF THE STATE CONSTITUTION AS A BASIS FOR DENYING THE APPLICANT A PERMIT. Whether an applicant is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance shall be determined as provided in federal STATE law and regulations.
More info at: coequalgunrights.org
The wording is unlawful or addicted.
Says nothing about being dependent.
If your prescribed the drug???
Loophole here is how I feel about it.
You can be addicted and dependent but still have 100% control of your faculties.
You can be legally addicted to pain killers and still have 100% of your faculties.
Pot Im not so sure of. Euphoria or being high is a whole other ball of wax.
So I say no if your using medical marijuana.
You can’t seriously be implying that marijuana use should be grounds for denying a permit while opiate addiction is a non issue.
Yes I am.
The key word is lawful use.
Opiates don’t always involve a high or euphoria.
I cant say that for pot.
Pain management doesn’t involve any high at all.
Just the relief of pain, Sure there is misuses and misusers as there is of any drug.
But you can be dependent on a narcotic. Even addicted and not be high from it.
Nor have your faculties disturbed in any manner what so ever from use of said drugs.
Can you say the same from smoking pot??
I cant, as I don’t nor have I smoked pot in the last 40+ years.
When I was a teen ager and I tried pot. I got a buzz.
As I understand it unless the THC is removed from the drug which it cant be if smoked,
Im not for allowing pot users, gun permits.
As an adult and taking narcotics as proscribed. Ive never felt any euphoria at all,
So your anecdotal personal experience regarding non-euphoria high is enough evidence to discredit broad evidence of opiate painkillers getting people to some level of high even under prescribed dosages?
I “wonder why” they put those “Do not operate” warnings on the bottles or in the literature given with the pills?
So you’re willing to recognize that people can use opiates for chronic pain management without getting high, but not willing to recognize that people can use cannabis for chronic pain management without getting high? And you believe that if somebody’s high part of the time, he should be unarmed at all times? Seems like there’d be much more to be gained by disarming alcohol users than by disarming medical marijuana license holders.
You can’t be serious… While I am not at all suggesting that you or anyone else as a prescription opiates user should be a prohibited person, I strongly disagree with your take.
There are no euphoric effects from opiate painkillers, eh? Then why the rash of pharmacies being robbed? Why the heroin problems in most big cities across our country, where the vast majority of users started with a prescription drug addiction? Where I haven’t heard of your typical pothead stealing and robbing to feed their habit the same cannot be said about those who become hooked on painkillers.
Everyone reacts differently to drugs, and perhaps your experience was different, but back in my college days the only thing I ever saw get hurt from people smoking weed was a bag of Cheetos.
I don’t know how opiates affect you, but for me, I am far more likely to be able to function high as a kite on pot than on opiates. Opiates don’t just kill pain, bro. My father would have panic attacks and put holes in walls on morphine. I am not any more functional, and the people I know all get extraordinarily fracked on opiates. Pot use for most of us is absolutely fine. Your personal experience is not the norm.
If you want folks to leave you alone, leave others alone. Free country. We are sick of being told by people every damn thing! Dont like pot? DONT USE ANY!! Some of us have been operating safely for not years but decades. We are sick of you thinking this is something new.
You’re, my friend…you’re
As in “You’re making my head hurt”
Hmmm…
Errors of homophone and homonym, spelling and grammatical structure of the O.P. are indicative of opiate use.
>;{>
Just thinking out loud.
Is the anti-gun group looking to increase the amount of money the gov gets from someone else?
Why do they care. Not lower taxes for sure. Gov wont do that for any real sources of income.
Anti-gun people do not care about gun violence, Just look at Fast and Furious. Or how about the war on drugs, how is that anti-gun position going to work?
They defy analysis. I believe they are just plain stupid. They may be chewing off more than they bargain for in their anti-gun position. Let one criminal take out Sharon for instance and she thinks she’ll become a martyr. AND 70 virgins is working out so well for them. LOL
As far as being a recreational user, I don’t know how they would know if you are using without some type of adjudication. As far as those with ‘patient’ status, I have three friends with medical cards who have gotten their ccw’s this year with no hitch. Maybe my county’s sherrif is more liberal when it comes to issuing ccw’s, but this seems like a solution in search of a problem or perhaps a stone better unturned.
I beg to differ.
The new language was added specifically in order to bar a Sheriff from denying a permit based upon recreational use of marijuana, irrespective to Federal law, because such use is now legal according to Colorado law.
Bitching about this is akin to bitching about the Kansas Second Amendment Protection Act.
Seems jake to me. If they choose to have a permitting process, that’s another discussion, but modification of the statute so as to remove language which might be used to curtail the free exercise of a right is the right thing to do.
I’m certain that lots of other laws have been amended as well in order to accommodate the disparity between the laws of Colorado and those of the U.S.
I worry that other states will start refusing to recognize the CO permit once this language is added. But you do point to a solution–get rid of the permit requirement (i.e., let people conceal without a permit as it should be), but leave the permit process in place (so that people traveling to other states have a permission slip they will recognize). Since those permits would be for the benefit of other states’ systems, the pot prohibition can be left in place then, since the ONLY purpose of the permit would then be to enable people to exercise their right in rights-infringing places outside the CO government’s control.
This is the State of Colorado recognizing that they have nothing to fear from stoners with guns…. Unless they run out of Doritos…
Armed robbery of pizza deliverators, but taking the pizza rather than any cash.
Perfect.
OK so I can be granted a permit to carry a concealed weapon, but I can’t legally actually purchase that weapon based on the form 4473 – and based on the new jacked up CO laws, I could be legally able to possess a weapon that I was not legally able to purchase – I would have had to have a background check on the federal form – unless I got it privately – oh wait, that now requires a bg check as well…. unless a blood relative got it as a gift – no wait is that a straw purchase? – If I owned the gun prior to March 2013 and got it privately without a bg check so I did not lie on the fed form…. and hope the magazine does not hold 16… unless of course you owned the magazine prior to the ownership of the gun, and before July 1, 2013….you can check the date on the mag… oh wait….
I will need another hit to figure this one out…….
Even if you purchase it privately in a state that doesn’t require a background check, it’s still illegal if you’re an addict, you just won’t get caught.
In any case, why should Colorado enforce a federal law? If the feds want to, they are welcome to do so on their own and with their own money. Colorado simply reconciled its state-level carry law with its drug law. Sounds perfectly logical to me.
So a pint (of liquor) a day alcoholic is a-ok, but someone now legally and responsibly consuming a legal substance that has a track record of being safer than alcohol should NEVER TOUCH GUNZ CUZ EVIL DRUG GUN EVIL AND BAD AND EVIL AND….
Makes a whole lot of sense. I don’t currently consume do to my profession, but I certainly wish to see normalization occur.
While I agree with you 100% the unfortunate reality is that on a federal level it is not legal – and the form to purchase a firearm is a federal form, which asks if your an unlawful user of a controlled substance. Here in CO the crime would not be for using marijuana whether its medical or recreational, but lying on a federal form to acquire a firearm. State law does not matter.
It’s kind of irrelevant because the omnibus funding bill removed DOJ (ATF) funding for any operation against medical marijuana users so technically they are unable to pursue such 4473 ‘violations’.
But yes, Congress needs to get off their ass.
Or a state needs to take the feds to court over marijuana regulation and clear up this mess and establish whether states have the authority to over-ride the federal regulations on this issue.
This stuff drives me nuts, like the immigration stuff where we have states providing sanctuary, refusing to cooperate with the feds on enforcement. Either enforce the laws or change them. It’s permeated down to the sheriff level now. Sheriff’s picking and choosing which laws to enforce or not– I understand their rationale regarding some laws being unconstitutional but that should be settled in court. Get an injunction against enforcing until the courts rule.
Ok I might be all washed up here going on experiences from 40+ years ago.
Plus my own from the last few years.
But I still don’t want some one high pointing a gun at me regardless of their mental state.
The word was legal use I guess. Most if not all will lie on the federal form, I didn’t as Im not addicted or an unlawful user. I get my guns.
If Colorado wants to give permits to recreational pot users so be it.
I don’t live there.
Unless some folks who I know are stoned 24/7. You all think should have a gun. Then hey that’s just fine with me. I wont suffer from any of their decisions directly.
Yeah, because potheads are notoriously violent…. Idiot.
If you are behaving yourself, someone pointing a gun at you is a crime. Him having a gun should not be, regardless of his mental/chemical status. Seems pretty easy, why do we ALWAYS have to have another superfluous law? Answer; to increase the size and power of government. Laws which can be selectively enforced serve that purpose wonderfully. Some ACTIONS are legitimately criminal. Possessions, intentions, plans, or the company you keep should be your own business until some action of yours breaks a law. And I don’t mean the action of buying a gun.
But I still don’t want some one high pointing a gun at me
I don’t want anyone pointing a gun at me. Period.
There are many people making use of their gun permits where you live that smoke pot regularly. You very likely walk among several of them every time you go into a public place that isn’t a GFZ. People are forced to lie about something that should not be illegal in order to be granted a permit to do something that should never be required to exercise a natural right.
It is scary how many pro-2A people that comment here do not even fully support the 2A much less freedoms they don’t like.
You’re safer around someone on cannabis with a firearm than someone who just pigged out on Oreos and washed them down with coffee. THC and its cohorts make people more mellow; sugar and caffeine make them less.
And then there’s alcohol…..
I wonder if other states will drop reciprocity with CO should this pass? “I see you have a Colorado CHP but for all we know here in you could still be a pothead so we won’t recognize that permit.”
The solution to this conundrum is to leave the permit law as is on this issue, but have constitutional carry. The permit would remain in place for the convenience of those traveling out of state (much like Alaska, et. al.) and said permit would still satisfy the other states’ requirements, whilst not trodding on anyone’s 2A rights while in CO (which is all the CO government can control anyway).
Hmmm. It should have read “for all we know here in [whatever state] you..” but the text in brackets (as well as the brackets themselves) got eaten. (I did use angle brackets originally (and those got eaten), but that doesn’t explain why my attempt to use square brackets instead later didn’t “take.”)
Angle brackets are usually used in html coding, which the TTAG site reads, so that’s probably why they disappeared on you. The other three types should appear without issue.Since “whatever state ” is not an html code the angle brackets just make the whole string disappear. Cannot explain why the square brackets disappeared unless they were between angle brackets somehow.
Before these laws were passed, the US consumed almost exactly a million zillion metric tons of pot a year for about 50 years, and now that a couple of states have (finally!) legalized its use, now that we’ve had 24 consecutive years (as of 2016) of ADMITTED pot smokers as POTUS (all freely elected after the admission), you somehow think we now have a handle on those naughty “potheads”? You absolutely have to be joking.
I have no idea what relation this has to the point I was making. One of us is misunderstanding the other (or you replied to the wrong person).
“I wonder if other states will drop reciprocity with CO should this pass? “I see you have a Colorado CHP but for all we know here in you could still be a pothead so we won’t recognize that permit.”
That was you, I believe, Steve. If I’m not misunderstanding, you were referring to changing firearms laws because a state legalized pot. The very idea that even *might* happen precipitated my response.
Your original response still makes no sense to me. This has nothing to do with whether I or someone else thinks they have a handle on “potheads.”
My concern (as stated) was that other states could refuse to recognize a Colorado permit because Colorado would allow “potheads” to get a permit. They could do that whether or not I think I “have a handle on ‘potheads’ ” (whatever the heck that is even supposed to mean).
I think “safety first” has the right take on this. I cannot say if marijuana, as a euphoric, impairs a person’s ability to handle a firearm safely or with good judgement, but I do recall reading somewhere that it can create feelings of paranoia in the user, which could result in impaired judgement. But I have also read that some “designer strains” of marijuana no longer produce that effect.
It looks like CO is deliberately creating a conflict between Federal and State Law.
Methinks something is rotten in Denver. [Possibly marijuana sodden brains.]
As far as making people more violent and less likely to control themselves, alcohol is a far more efficient drug to do so than weed. But we don’t prohibit “people with history of alcohol use” from owning or carrying.
I’ll grant you that carrying while drunk or stoned (beyond some reasonable limit) is best restricted. But that has nothing to do with prerequisites for being able to own or carry a gun in principle.
Yeah, I see what you are saying. I have never heard of anyone becoming violent while under the influence of pot (not that it’s impossible I suppose), but I definitely have experienced people becoming violent when intoxicated with alcohol.
It’s fairly well-documented. The effect of both alcohol and pot is to slow down reaction time and alter perception, but from there it is remarkably different. Pot suppresses violent urges (well, it suppressed pretty much all urges, turning the person into a couch slug). Alcohol intensifies them.
But worst of all, the state of altered perception when intoxicated by alcohol (and I mean intoxicated as in drunk, not tipsy) is self-reinforcing, because the drunk person often doesn’t even understand, and will in fact refuse to acknowledge if so told, that they are drunk. This is why drunk people do so much stupid shit… it’s not just that they have all the brakes off, it’s also that they don’t realize that, and act out on their impaired judgement and reflexes, thinking themselves perfectly sane and clear-headed. Hence why drunk people often want to drive etc.
Pot doesn’t have that unfortunate side effect – no matter how high someone is on it, they will always be aware of the fact that they’re high. Obviously, their judgement is still impaired in that state, but realization of that fact serves as a dampening effect, precluding people from doing some of the more stupid and dangerous things.
There was a study a while ago on the effects of DUI, comparing drunk drivers vs stoned drivers. Drunk drivers, on average, tend to go faster and drive more aggressively. Stoned drivers, on average, tend to go slower and drive more cautiously. The study concluded that the observed difference is largely due to the fact that stoned drivers were well aware of their impairment, and tried to compensate for slower reaction times, while drunk drivers did not.
Interesting information. With regard to drunks it exactly matches my experience and perception. With regard to stoned people my experience is limited, but sounds pretty much like what I have observed. They are much more relaxed and docile and seem to take a bit longer to decide how they will react to things except sudden loud noises, sudden changes in ambient light, or other things that invoke the “startle” effect. I guess the brain is hard-wired in some reflexes.
With regard to carrying/using a gun, a drunk is probably more wildly dangerous, whereas a pothead may be way too slow to react. Could be a disadvantage to him/her in a confrontation.
Thanks for taking the time to relay what you know about this matter. I appreciate it very much!
So a pot leaf-camo Honey Badger from CoD: Ghosts? Nice…
No that’s the new brain child of the Bushmaster/ Magpul partnership. It’s model name is the Cannabis Cultivator. The pot leaf finish is meant as camouflage. MSRP $1899
I’ll start of by stating that I’m no legal expert. I do understand that drugs/opiates/alcohol affects individuals differently. What I would like to see are individuals taking personal responsibility when they act irresponsible when under the influence. “It is not my fault. I was high/drunk” is not a substitute for “yes, *I* got high/drunk and caused this unfortunate incident”.
Exactly. Personal accountability. I don’t want any government interference in my life until I mess up. If I do than I will take my licks.
Let’s open up the Prozac and Xanax (and all their siblings) groups can of worms, these really are mind altering meds, foisted off on a more or less unsuspecting public as “harmless” treatments for mild mood disorders, which they rarely if ever actually help.
There’s still this:
Colorado Revised Statutes 18-12-106. Prohibited use of weapons
(1) A person commits a class 2 misdemeanor if:
…
(d) The person has in his or her possession a firearm while the person is under the influence of intoxicating liquor or of a controlled substance, as defined in section 18-18-102 (5).
I personally know a few old friends(over 40 years) who still get high. One has at least a dozen guns. It never made him violent-just lazy, stupid,lethargic and unmotivated. If Colorado wants this I don’t care. I’m pretty sure potheads lie on the form anyway. YMMV…
This gives a whole new meaning to the name “High Point.”
Since the federal government has no constitutional authority to ban items going into a persons body, how is anyone an unlawful USER of marijuana?
As an answer to a similar question, I was told by a young relative that the constitution is really old and why should we care what it says anyhow. Try to answer that one. I bet you’re just as dumbfounded and tongue tied as I was. I think he ended up thinking he’d really showed me something. And he had!
That house mortgage I *have is 20 years old, that’s kinda old. Why should I or the bank even bother to adhere to it anymore? If I want to stop making payments to it or the bank wants to automatically jack up rates without wording in the contract, why should there be consequences? It’s old, it shouldn’t mean anything anymore.
I would have also asked what he read in the U.S. Constitution that doesn’t make it applicable to present time anymore. Chances are, he probable doesn’t know because he never read it.
Sorry but mind altering drugs and dangerous things are not a good combination. You can rationalize all you want, but it doesn’t change that fact. Hate away pretend libertarians.
That’s why there is a separate law that prohibits people from carrying guns while under influence of drugs (which includes alcohol, by the way).
But why should a person who smoked a joint or drank a beer should be permanently barred from owning a firearm for the rest of their life?
As much as we argue, int19h, you’re dead-nuts-on here.
By Michael’s logic, if you’ve so much as had one beer, EVER, no guns.
Alcohol is mind altering too.
I think he was just specifically talking about having a permit to carry and under the influence at the same time, not actually a bar to have a firearm in the first place.
Personally I find most (if not all) of these laws infringements on our individual rights. Different people operate differently when under the influence of any substance. I had my firearm on my person during the Holiday and consumed alcohol while at home or in a friend’s place, no issues resulted from that. Similarly, I have a buddy who smokes pot with his firearms near or on him, and nothing happened as a result. Not everyone is going to do something stupid when they are under the influence.
I agree that it affects people differently. I know a certain gentleman who has never been to the range in a sober state of mind. He’s been stoned every time. He justifies it by saying that he’s stones every minute off the clock night as well train as such. This guy has never demonstrated to me that he was a danger to himself or others. Wouldn’t hang around him if he did. But knowing him has forced me to change how I look at pot smokers.
Sugar and caffeine are mind-altering drugs.
Seems that the potheads of the world are just as brain addled as they were when I was in High-School and College. Pathetically self-indulgent and clueless. Just remember; Tobacco bad, pot better than good.
Yeah I don’t quite get the double standard on both ends when it comes to Pot and Tobacco. I don’t understand why legalizing one is fine but not the other (besides the cultural aspects of it). I also don’t know why many supporters of pot smoking try to make it a much better (healthier?) alternative than tobacco use. And for the record I don’t do either.
I’d say the biggest issue with cannabis and firearms is that if you’re stoned, your reactions may be slower and you’ll be at a disadvantage facing a bad guy.
Maybe the strategy then would be to toss him a joint . . . .
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