COX REFUSES TO TELL MARIJUANA STANCE

David Cox freely admitted he likes to drink, but he won't say if he
still supports decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana as he has
in the past.

In 2006, Cox was active in getting Amendment 44 on the state ballot,
even being paid to circulate petitions, according to campaign finance
records and his own interviews with The Daily Sentinel at the time.

But when questioned about it last week, the Republican candidate for
House District 54 repeatedly refused to say where he stood on the subject.

"I do not want to be mischaracterized," Cox said. "If I cannot
provide a detailed explanation of my opinions and why I believe the
things I believe, then it does me no good to just have a blurb of
maybe a single sentence that allows everyone to rely on their own
past beliefs in terms of legalizing or not legalizing, and it gives
me absolutely no time or explanation of why I think the things I do."

Instead, Cox referred readers to his website,
http://www.davidcoxcoloradorep54.com , which includes detailed
descriptions of his opinions on a variety of subjects. Nowhere,
though, does he address marijuana, much less legalizing or decriminalizing it.

Cox was quoted in numerous press accounts of the 2006 failed effort
to decriminalize possession of one ounce of marijuana, including
posing for a Daily Sentinel photo with Mason Tvert, executive
director of SAFER Colorado, a Denver-based group that got Amendment
44 onto the ballot and had a similar measure passed by Denver voters in 2005.

In one Sentinel story the day after the amendment failed, Cox said he
would continue to break the law and smoke the illicit weed wherever he liked.

On Thursday, Tvert said he remembers Cox as a major proponent of the
amendment, and that he even stayed at Cox's Orchard Mesa home during
campaigning.

"He was almost like a coordinator out there (in Mesa County), doing a
lot of work for us," Tvert said. "He certainly did a lot of
grass-roots, activism work, collecting signatures, distributing
literature and yard signs, stuff like that. He donated money to us to
put up the billboard that we put up in Grand Junction."

"He's definitely committed to the cause, or at least he was," Tvert
added. "He was definitely a gung-ho supporter in this. I hope he still is."

Cox said he wouldn't discuss his opinions about marijuana with the
public until he gets on the primary ballot, saying the only voters he
needs to concern himself with now are delegates for the House
District 54 assembly.

He said he already discussed it with Republican Party members who
will be choosing candidates in the May 8 assembly, and they were fine
with his stance on the subject.

But his two GOP challengers for the seat, Ray Scott and Robert
Hislop, said they doubted that. Both said legalizing or
decriminalizing the herbal weed would be a bad idea, and that they
were pleased Colorado voters rejected it by a 60-40 percent margin.

"Being a lawman ... what I would do is have stricter restrictions,"
said Hislop, a former U.S. Secret Service agent.

"I absolutely believe we should not legalize marijuana," Scott added.
"They're calling it medical marijuana now, and I think that's kind of
a disguise. What's our next step? Medical crack?"