Drug policy of Colorado

Cannabis in Colorado refers to cannabis (legal term marijuana) use and possession in Colorado, United States. The Colorado Amendment 64, which was passed by voters on November 6, 2012, led to legalization in January 2014. The policy has led to cannabis tourism. There are two sets of policies in Colorado relating to cannabis use: those for medicinal cannabis and for recreational drug use along with a third set of rules governing hemp.

Amidst an early 20th century trend of limiting the drug, Colorado first restricted cannabis on March 30, 1917. In November 1914 Colorado voters approved the 22nd Amendment to the Colorado Constitution, also known as the Prohibition Amendment, prohibiting alcohol beginning January 1, 1916; and on December 18, 1917 the Eighteenth Amendment (establishing Prohibition) was proposed by Congress.

Shortly after the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act went into effect on October 1, 1937, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Denver Police Department arrested Moses Baca for possession and Samuel Caldwell for dealing. Baca and Caldwell's arrest made them the first marijuana convictions under U.S. federal law for not paying the marijuana tax. Judge Foster Symes sentenced Baca to 18 months and Caldwell to four years in Leavenworth Penitentiary for violating the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act.

In 1975, during a decade-long wave of decriminalization in the country, Colorado decriminalized marijuana. A contributing factor was the work on behalf of NORML by Pitkin County Deputy District Attorney Jay Moore, who helped win over the legislature's Republican leadership with arguments as to money wasted on needless enforcement of marijuana laws.

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