 Joining me and welcoming my friends, my colleagues, the senior policy manager of drug policy alliance in Colorado, the man who had the great pleasure of telling us that it was legal in this state. Join me and welcome me our way. Good morning, reformers. Good morning, paradigm shifters. We are ready to set it off. Let's mount up and let's do this thing. It's wonderful being from Colorado for many reasons. There's mentors and beautiful organizations like the Colorado criminal justice reform coalition, the harm reduction action center. We have great state electives like Pat Steadman. And you know, even when it comes to that twilight zone that is DC, we have great people there as well. We have a congressman that we know we can lean on when it comes to drug policy reform. Marijuana reform is nothing to him. We have a congressman who represents us in DC who actually puts some things on the table that was a little bit more aggressive than even we wanted to do. So with that said, I would like to introduce and I hope you all give a warm, warm welcome to Congressman Jared Polis. That's a tough act to follow that amazingly well-spoken young lady in the personal testimonial. And as Art said, I'm from the twilight zone of Washington DC. How many of you are here visiting Colorado for the conference? Great. Welcome to our great state. We're excited to have you here. I'm sorry our amendment 64 doesn't go into effect until January 1st. But we are very excited about amendment 64 and a rare opportunity where politicians actually deserve some credit. In our state legislature, after amendment 64 passed, there was a good bipartisan coalition to implement amendment 64 in good faith. So it kind of removed the politics out of it. The voters had their say and we got about our business. It's exactly what we need to do at the federal level. I think we all, to a certain extent, need to pinch ourselves because there has been such transformation on how this issue is viewed just in the last few years. I mean, it was almost unforeseeable. And many of you are, I'm sure, veterans of the movement and have had these positions all along. Ten years ago, even five years ago, to think that we would be at a place where a majority of our fellow Americans favor the legalization of marijuana. That's where we are today. And elected officials, and this is something that I think you all understand, but politicians and elected officials are as much followers as leaders. And so where public opinion goes, so goes opportunistic elected officials. So you will see, I'm confident, increasing support among that lagging indicator, which is elected officials both at national and state levels for supporting drug policy reform. And in a way amendment 64 performed here in Colorado, how ballot initiatives performed in Washington as well as medical marijuana initiatives in other states, has been a wake up call to elected officials and policymakers that they can't be on the wrong side of history and they can't be on the wrong side of this issue. Because it will hurt their own prospects and their own electoral prospects at the ballot box. We have seen a little indication of this changing tide even in the United States Congress. A couple things. When I first got there, and this is my fifth year, legalizing marijuana drug policy reform was not yet a mainstream issue. We talked about it, we advanced it. But I'm a Democrat on my side. It was not a majority position. There were a number of us who talked about it, and of course a brave few Republicans, Ron Paul and others that talked about it. Fast forward to where we are today, five years later, it has become a mainstream position in my party, the Democratic Party. Where when we actually had a vote on not, this was an amendment to the Department of Justice's appropriations bill on defunding prosecutions in states that have medical marijuana, this was before amendment 64, we had more than three quarters of the Democrats join us including the Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on that vote. And we still have a brave band of Republicans, whether they're for states rights or individual liberty. We have a brave band of Republicans, a new generation of Tea Party supporters and others that have replaced Ron Paul and work with us on all these issues. And it was precisely this coalition that actually led to a win on the floor of the House. Yeah, it wasn't a win for marijuana, it wasn't a win for drug policy form, what was it a win for, it was a win for hemp legalization. And that's important, it's important in its own right because by the way Colorado legalized industrial hemp production under amendment 64 and we're very excited to develop that crop for additional opportunities for our farmers and others. And it's also important symbolically because this is the first time in recent history that anything related to hemp or marijuana has actually won a vote on the floor of the House and we won that vote 225 to 200. With a bipartisan majority, again, most Democrats, a handful of Republicans, it's an amendment in the Farm Bill which is being conference right now that would specifically allow universities to not risk their federal funding when they're doing industrial hemp research which is very important because as anybody who's been involved with agriculture knows, most major crops that we have, whether it's corn or wheat, have advanced tremendously in their yields and their production over the last several decades. And hemp has been essentially frozen in early 20th century forms. So we have a revolution in hemp production efficiency that can occur because research has been banned. Universities with a couple exceptions that have gotten waivers have been scared to engage in industrial hemp research for risk of losing their federal funds. So we're seeking to clarify that in federal law. We have a great state land grant university here in Colorado, Colorado State University. Once this is cleared up, I'm confident that they will proceed as well with that. And we will continue to show that industrial hemp has an important part in the economic and agricultural portfolio, not only of our state but of states like Kentucky and other states that have embraced industrial hemp. We had an educational event for my colleagues on Capitol Hill. We had a hemp ice cream that we gave to all of my friends in Congress, hemp bars, nutritional hemp bars. And on July 4th of this year, we flew a United States flag made of industrial hemp on top of the United States Capitol, which is less revolutionary than one might think, given that many of the original American flags that Betsy Ross and others sewed were actually made of industrial hemp back in the late 18th century. In many ways, it's a return to our great nation's roots. But we're here to talk about a broader drug policy. A lot of the eyes of the nation will be turned towards Colorado, towards Washington, towards our experience here. And it's important to get it right. I mean, it's fine to celebrate and be excited. We should be to pat ourselves in the back and get ready for the next battle. As was mentioned in the previous speech, there's rampant injustice in this country. There's families that have been torn apart because of the drug war. There's people who have lost their lives because of the drug war. There's ancillary crime because of the drug war. And we need to continue to advance that case. But here in the short term, over the next six months, 12 months, we need to make sure we get it right here in Colorado, get it right in Washington. So that when articles are written, when studies are done, they say, look what this has accomplished here in Colorado. Through legalization, we've been able to decrease marijuana use among teenagers. We've been able to eliminate the criminal element. We've been able to create this many jobs. We've been able to generate this much tax revenue. We've been able to decrease crime in these areas. These are the goals that we've always talked about for years, and frankly, the American people are being won over towards. But we need to now prove the point and demonstrate the results. And I'm confident we will. But it isn't easy, and for those of you who live in Colorado, hopefully you're involved with this implementation effort, which to our governor, John Hickenlooper's credit, has involved all the relevant stakeholders in the discussions, from law enforcement to the business community, to the health community, to the drug abuse prevention community, to those entrepreneurs who have been brave enough to stake a claim in the marijuana space here in the medicinal side and now on the commercial sale piece over the last few years. We know that the federal government still stands in the way of our local entrepreneurs and businesses succeeding, access to banking privileges high on our agenda, working on that with my fellow Colorado and Ed Pearlmutter to clarify and make sure that banks are able to bank marijuana businesses here in Colorado. We know that there's still an existential threat of a DEA crackdown. Of course, we're assured by Attorney General Holder's clarification with regard to Colorado and Washington. But all it takes until the statute is changed is an attorney general or a president waking up on the wrong side of the bed one day and rounding up and arresting people rather than allowing them to operate legal state businesses. And that's why I've introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act, HR 499. And I have some homework for you, and I want to end on this note. I have some homework for you. All of you who raised your hands who aren't from Colorado have somebody in Congress that works for you. You all have a representative. You all have two senators. For most of you, they're probably not yet sponsors of 499. And if they are, call them and thank them. But if they're not, I want you all to call your representative, call your senators, ask them to co-sponsor HR 499, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act, which would decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, regulate marijuana like alcohol, and help us gain support. Because it will come from you. Remember, your representative in Congress is as much a follower as a leader, and you can challenge yourself to be their leader. And I encourage you to do that. Let's pass marijuana decriminalization at the federal level and welcome to our great state of Colorado.