Given that keeping marijuana illegal for most people creates a giant black market and bogs down our legal system unnecessarily and sometimes cruelly, there will hopefully come a time when it is legal. Marijuana use is widespread. And we believe moderate usage is not harmful to adults.

And regulating it in a manner similar to alcohol makes sense. That approach will allow us to make decisions about taxation, for instance: Like alcohol, it’s a luxury product for casual users, unlike food, for example. The approach will allow us to make smart decisions about who can buy it — adults, not teenagers whose brains and impulses are still developing — and craft legislation that will discourage and/or punish impaired drivers. And employers won’t want a high workforce any more than they want a drunken one.

Amendment 64 is the biggest decision facing Coloradans for the state this year. And while we obviously support its premise for the reasons cited above, we urge voters to say “no” to Amendment 64.

Our constitution is littered with conflicting tax issues. This measure would not only require the legislature to enact an excise tax, to be approved by the voters, it would dedicate the first $40 million in revenues per year to a state fund for school construction.

We don’t think that type of constitutional specificity is good for the state budget. And we don’t think it’s good for school districts that may rely on it. What happens if the money is seized by the federal government, which sees the market as illegal? What happens when the state or local districts try to fix our mess of a budget, but faces a voting public that assumes our under-funded schools are well-funded?

A better way to legalize or decriminalize marijuana and regulate it could be done on a statutory basis, and in the best-case scenario should be done on a federal level. But Amendment 64 has a myriad of rules, including one regarding transporting a specific number of plants, with a fewer number of “mature, flowering plants,” in a vehicle. Rules covering cultivation in “enclosed, locked” spaces, but not “openly or publicly.” The Camera does not think these specific rules about a proposed, new, commercial business deserve to be sealed as an amendment to the state’s constitution.

And putting schools in a position where they may not ever see the money they are promised while raising the public perception that they are awash in brand-new pot tax revenues is a very bad idea.

We say no on Amendment 64.

— Erika Stutzman, for

the Camera editorial board