DENVER—The three left-leaning activists running
the Yes on Amendment 64 campaign to legalize marijuana in Colorado
always bring jackets to their poorly heated third floor digs.
Victory is within their grasp and they only have one more week of
toiling in the unassuming building that houses their historic two
million dollar effort. The last effort to legalize marijuana in
Colorado was such a shoestring operation that they ran it out of
their own home and spent the majority of their campaign funds to
qualify for the ballot. They failed. Now, the people of the
Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol have the opportunity to
radically reshape American drug policy in a way that was
unimaginable over a decade ago, all while shivering about one mile
from Coors Field.

Betty Aldworth, the campaign’s advocacy director, and Mason
Tvert, the co-director of the campaign, have their own oddly shaped
offices on one side of the floor. The awful bluish green shag
carpet stares up at a rickety drop ceiling. Everyone can see
everything on this side of the floor as the individual offices are
divided by massive windows framed in pine. Tvert’s desk is so large
that you can barely open the door to his office and you wonder how
they ever managed to fit it in there. Brian Vicente, the other
campaign co-director, has his own office adjacent to the campaign’s
multi-purpose war room. Flanked by couches with jacket-clad
volunteers making phone calls to potential supporters, it’s packed
with professional looking campaign literature, and a press
conference backdrop for TV appearances. There are no posters of pot
or Bob Marley anywhere. This is a real operation, albeit a
frequently chilly one.

The Field Director

Aldworth copes with the cold by wearing a long sweater-jacket in
her office where low-profile filing cabinets are covered in
pro-marijuana stickers. She’s worked on a variety of campaigns at
the state and local level as well as with that national liberal
organization MoveOn. This is her first campaign where she has
worked on field operations and she is confident as they’re just
wrapping up their canvassing operations. “We got really extensive
and robust campus work that we’re doing, getting the vote on
campus, with young people,” said Aldworth, noting that they’ve
partnered with Students for Sensible Drug Policy to help out in
this effort.

Even though they’ve identified who their typical supporters are
by making phone calls and knocking on-doors—something unusual for a
marijuana legalization initiative—she doesn’t think they have a
clear idea of who their typical supporter is because, well, there
isn’t one. “Young adult voters tend to be more supportive on this
issue but I also talk to people in their 90s that actually remember
the Volstead act. They tell me, ‘alcohol prohibition failed and
marijuana prohibiton is a similar failure and I am voting yes on
amendment 64 because I see that,’” she said.

She is confident that their messaging on marijuana being similar
to alcohol is resonating with such a huge swath of the electorate
that they don’t really need to identify their typical voters. The
“marijuana is just like alcohol and should be regulated as such”
messaging they are employing is a purposeful effort to change the
way people think about the plant.

The Journeyman

When I meet up with Tvert in his campaign office he has brought
his dog to work because the animal is sick. Not only is his dog,
Charlie, sick but there are also extra blankets in the laundry bin
to keep him warm. For Tvert, an Arizona native, this campaign is
something he’s been working toward since 2004 when he first started
working on marijuana policy reform. In 2005 and 2007 he ran
successful initiatives that decriminalized marijuana in Denver and
made it the lowest priority for law enforcement in Denver,
respectively.

In 2006 he headed up the first marijuana legalization campaign
in Colorado. Tvert spent the majority of that campaign pulling all
kinds of free media stunts because they had almost no financial
resources after they got on the ballot. It was as much about
winning as it was about starting the conversation about marijuana
legalization. The 2006 effort, known as Amendment 44, did not
contain any of the regulatory provisions that 64 does. Still, the
2006 experience was important for the marijuana reform movement
because it provided them valuable statewide campaign experience;
even more important, it got Colorado talking.

“At the time we ran that initiative with a desire to win but
with the expectation of losing and the goal of inspiring public
discussion about the issue that would move things forward,” Tvert
said.

Not only is the electoral climate better in 2012 for a variety
of reasons, but the campaign they’re running is light years ahead
of what they attempted in 2006. They have seven paid staff members
now instead of just three in 2006. They’re running a multi-platform
advertising campaign worth upwards of, what they estimate, is about
$1.5 million statewide. When Tvert first attempted this in 2006
they raised just over $200,000 and relied on eye-catching
billboards in hopes of generating free media coverage. Even though
they lost their free media plan worked in attracting attention.
When Drug Czar John Walters visited Colorado they placed an ad on a
billboard near where he was speaking with a big picture of him and
a quote from him saying marijuana is “the safest thing in the
world.” Thanks to this one time billboard expenditure, they received
extensive media coverage.

“We didn’t want to have a debate about taxes, we didn’t want to
have a debate about how it should be regulated, we wanted to have a
debate about should adults be allowed to use a less harmful
substance than alcohol and everything was geared around that
message,” he said.

The ad campaign they are running now looks professional and
that’s part of the reason Tvert is cautiously optimistic about
winning on Election Day.

“I think we have a very good chance of winning but it’s
definitely going to be a very close election,” Tvert said

The Lawyer

The cool doesn’t bother Vicente too much but that hasn’t stopped
him from wearing both a long-sleeve plaid shirt and a long-sleeve
thermal to the office when I interviwed him. Vicente has worked in
marijuana reform for years, getting his start with the Marijuana
Policy Project in the mid-2000s. His most recent electoral effort
was the successful passage of an initiative to legalize marijuana
in the Colorado ski town of Breckenridge. When he’s not agitating
for the legalization of marijuana he’s busy working at his legal
practice, Vicente Consulting, where he helps medical marijuana
patients involved in legal cases.

He sees the 2012 effort as potentially groundbreaking for
legalization advocates because not only are they close to winning
but they have laid the groundwork for future states to follow. Part
of the reason for this is that the medical marijuana system in
place in Colorado helped guide them. Today there are an estimated
500 medical marijuana dispensaries throughout Colorado and the
heavily regulated industry is booming statewide.

“It sets up a real framework for how it works instead of just
legalizing an ounce and letting the system sort itself out,” he
said.

The system Colorado put in place when it first legalized medical
marijuana usage wasn’t perfect, but over time things smoothed out
and now, he thinks, the state is the national model for marijuana
reform. Previous efforts that lacked teeth and enforcement failed
because there weren’t enough rules.

“We need strict regulations. This isn’t growing tomatoes or
something, this is similar to producing beer,” he said.