POST MARIJUANA EDITORIAL WRONG

Paper's Editors Say Recent Supreme Court Decision Spells Doom For State
Provisions; But It's Not True

I don't usually comment on editorials -- opinions needn't be balanced or
fair -- but a Denver Post editorial last week asserted that the result of
the U.S. Supreme Court decision on medical marijuana was "invalidating
statutes in eight states, including Colorado." Allegedly, "the court's
decision . . . left no room for any of the [state] provisions to survive."

That's simply not so.

The Supreme Court ruled that the federal anti-marijuana law contains no
exception for medical necessity. Nothing in the Supreme Court decision
means that state laws on medical marijuana are invalid -- only that the
state laws don't have the effect of also invalidating the federal law. So
in Colorado, if you use marijuana in accordance with the state medical
marijuana law, you can't be prosecuted by state or local officials. You
could be prosecuted by federal attorneys, but as the medical marijuana
advocates point out, 99 out of 100 drug prosecutions happen at the state level.

A Mothers Day front page story in the Post claimed, "Some studies show that
male-dominated fields often pay more even if they require less skill and
education." Well, how about naming the studies, so that readers can assess
them for themselves? And why assume that "skill and education" are the only
things that should determine pay? What about risk of injury, exposure to
harsh weather, degree of manual labor, and the hours?

Do newspapers have an ethical obligation to their most vulnerable readers
not to run deceptive advertising? If so, why is the Denver Newspaper
Agency, which controls advertising in both the Post and the News, raising
money by selling ad space to a company making a sleazy pitch involving coins?

I'm told that both the News and Post on Friday were going to publish the ad
that appeared in Thursday's Post, but since my deadline is Thursday, I'll
confine my analysis here to Thursday's large display ad.

The tarted-up ad was designed to look like a newspaper article. It had a
headline ("Public to get FREE U.S. Coins") and carried a byline of "Thomas
Waterfield, Media Services." The text purported to be a newspaperlike story
about the "United States Commemorative Gallery" giving away "free" coins.
According to the story, "without notice, the Gallery decided not to sell
the individual coins but instead will give them away FREE in an effort to
increase awareness of the age-old hobby of collecting U.S. coins."

Tiny print at the bottom of the ad admits that the "United States
Commemorative Gallery" has no "affiliation with any government entity." But
the full-size main text of the ad creates a different impression: "The U.S.
Mint has announced the release of the North Carolina state quarter. To
insure equal nationwide coverage, you can receive an uncirculated North
Carolina Quarter Free."

The "free" North Carolina quarter is available for $1.85. The five-coin set
which is supposedly available for "free" are the five new 2001 state
quarters. To get these five "free" coins, plus a second "free" North
Carolina quarter, plus a display unit, you have to send $17 plus $2.95 for
shipping.

To check on the value of this offer, I called Daryl Mercer, owner of Tebo
Coins in Boulder. Tebo has been in business since 1968, and is a reputable
place to buy collectible coins, as well gold or silver. Mercer told me that
uncirculated 2001 quarters are available at his store for 99 cents each.
Five-coin display units sell for $1.70 to $4.95. In other words, the ad
(which also runs in the Rocky Mountain News) offers something for nearly
$20 whose true value is, at most, about $10.

Indeed, explained Mercer, in coin collecting, an "uncirculated" coin really
just means one that has no visible wear. Quite plainly, even a beginning
coin collector won't fall for the "United States Commemorative Gallery"
sale of "free" coins. Even so, the "United States Commemorative Gallery"
apparently finds the Post and News to be profitable places to hook suckers.
A few weeks ago, "The Gallery" ran a similar ad offering a "free" North
Carolina quarter which would cost $1.36 to obtain.

One advantage of having two newspapers on weekdays is that one can compare
how the papers treat an identical event. At the state capitol last Sunday,
anti-gun and pro-gun activists held competing rallies. Both rallies drew
about 200 people. The News story, on page 15A, presented each group's point
of view, with the anti-gun people getting slightly more words. The anti-gun
rally, organized by the Million Mom March, was far smaller than a similar
rally last year. "But organizers weren't disappointed with the turnout,"
the News reported. It would have been better for the News to write,
"Organizers said they weren't disappointed with the turnout." It's not
entirely plausible that organizers of any rally aren't disappointed about
seeing its size plummet by more than 90 percent.

The Post ran a beautiful picture (a man smelling a flower) from the
anti-gun rally on Page 1, and then put the story on the first page of the
Denver and the West section. In the Post story, an anti-gun organizer
admitted "We're a little disappointed" about the turnout. The Post story
gave many more words to the anti-gun rally than to the nearby pro-gun rally.