Pot prohibition?

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It’s been about a month since every single candidate for Boulder City Council, including three incumbents, told the Boulder Weekly in an election Q&A that they would oppose banning medical marijuana dispensaries in the city.

Then we got a copy of a city staff memo this week that outlines options for regulating the industry, one of which is to require all businesses to adhere to federal laws.

Since the feds don’t allow growing or purchasing marijuana, such a move would effectively ban all dispensaries in town.

Curious. It seems to be a bit of an overreaction, especially considering the somewhat more reasonable steps that have been taken by other, more uptight cities and towns in the area, such as enacting moratoriums until the legal landscape regarding dispensaries is clearer.

Why get ahead of the state legislation that is being drafted by Colorado Sen.

Chris Romer for the 2010 session? Why would a city begin adopting regulations that could then be trumped by state law in a matter of months? Why, when President Barack Obama recently handed down guidance to his federal agents to leave this matter to the states, would the city of Boulder turn around and defer to the feds? We trust that cooler heads on the Boulder Planning Board — and, more importantly, the newly elected members of City Council — will prevail in finding a way to avoid penalizing a new, voter-approved industry simply based on paranoia and misperceptions.

Everyone expects some degree of zoning and regulation to occur, but this heavyhanded approach should never have been proposed by city staff in a place like Boulder.

Eggs are people, too

A ballot initiative that will likely appear on the 2010 ballot aims to define a woman’s egg as a person, according to an Oct. 27 report in The Colorado Independent.

The report says that the new version of a failed 2008 anti-abortion measure, which will be known as Initiative 25, would move the legal definition farther back into the reproductive cycle, “granting cells the full spectrum of citizen rights.”

The report says the initiative would carry negative consequences for embryonic stem cell research and would criminalize abortion and some forms of birth control.

Why stop at the egg? Why not say a person’s right to life starts when Daddy gets an erection?

Doggie breath

A new poll shows that the majority of pet owners would give “mouth-to-snout” resuscitation to their dog or cat.

The survey, conducted by the Associated Press and Petside.com, showed that 63 percent of dog owners and 53 percent of cat owners would perform CPR on their pet in an emergency. Women are more likely to attempt the procedure than men, by a margin of 65 percent to 50 percent, the poll said.

And the poll uncovered some alarming numbers about pet safety. For instance, only 20 percent of pet owners said they have a “pet first aid kit” in their home. So what exactly does one put in a pet first aid kit? One of those head cones for dogs? Duct tape?

Similarly, 54 percent of the respondents said they do not have a fire evacuation plan for their pets. Shocking.

How does that one work? Train the dog to wake the family when it smells smoke and then head for the doggie door, like Lassie? We don’t see doing much training with a cat; if there were a fire, you´d probably have to look under every bed in the house to find it — not a good plan in a fire.

The survey also found that 62 percent of dog owners and one-third of cat owners let their pets ride in their cars unrestrained, without placing them in a pet carrier.

Aw, c’mon, you can’t take that dog away from the wind outside his favorite car window!

According to the AP story about the poll, people take this stuff seriously, though. Here in Colorado, the local chapter of the American Red Cross offers a pet first aid class.

For more information, see http://tinyurl.com/yjvpu55.

The lesser chicken

This just in: The conservation of “lesser prairie-chickens” will be the subject of a workshop at the Colorado Division of Wildlife office in Lamar at 4 p.m. on Nov. 12.

We weren’t that clear about what a lesser prairie-chicken is, so we pecked away at the rest of the news release. Turns out, they are a native grassland grouse species that are about the size of regular chickens. They used to roam all over southeast Colorado, but now they are listed as a threatened species in the state. So if you find one, let it be. It´s one chicken that doesn´t belong in your backyard.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com