Colorado can lay claim to a very limited resource in America: a seat in Congress thats a weed vote.
Rep. Jared Polis was a reliable pro-marijuana vote in Washington even before he and three other representatives founded the Cannabis Caucus. And so with Polis now plotting a run for governor, it stands to reason that his successor will be 420-friendly. Its just a question of how friendly.
Surely, there is more than marijuana on Todd Mitchems mind. Mitchem is a motivational speaker and authorhe just penned a tome all about changing routines called You, Disruptedbut he is undeniably inextricably tied to cannabis. Hes a marijuana entrepreneur, the former chief revenue officer for Denver-based O.pen Vape and the founder of Tinder-but-just-friends-but-for-stoners app High There! What would he do in Congress? Could there really be a marijuana businessman roaming the halls of the Capitol?? Colorado may yet find out.
Earlier this month, Mitchem announced his candidacy for Poliss seat earlier this month, as Denvers Westword reported. And lo, its weed that compelled Mitchem to enter the race, he told the paperthe Trump administrations bellicose stance on weed.
Ive done a lot for work in the [marijuana] industry, but when Trump was elected and I saw the mess around Jeff Sessions and the pushback against the industry, it just showed how much of a mess the federal government is, Mitchem told the paper (for whom hes also penned an op-ed slamming Sessions and pointing to the recent prosecution of a state marijuana official as a sign that the legal marijuana industry is working out just fine and doesnt need to be dismantled).
But whats really motivating me isnt just marijuana issues, he added. Its all these issues impacting our community. Whats affected me the most is health care. My familys premiums have risen about $700.
Mitchem would represent Colorados second district, which includes Boulder and the suburbs to the north and west of Denver. Running as a Libertarianthe same party affiliation as other prominent politicians who associate themselves with pot, among them former New Mexico governor and erstwhile third-party spoiler Gary What is Aleppo? JohnsonMitchem enters a field thats so far uncrowded. Only two other candidates have officially begun runs, though its early. The election isnt until November 2018.
Mitchem served as the chief revenue officer for Denver-based O.pen Vape, one of the larger and more out-there vaporizer pen/cartridge companies and the same firm that unsuccessfully tried to buy the naming rights for the Denver Broncos stadium in 2016, for a little under a year before departing in 2014following, because this is the 21st-century, a Twitter spat. Mitchem feuded, online, with some other marijuana industry figures over O.pen Vapes drug-testing policy. Yes, a cannabis company had a policy forbidding some controlled substance use (but not cannabis).
Mitchem believes running as a Libertarian can itself be a form of disruption. Sen. Bernie Sanders is an independent, but ran as a Democrat. Our president-for-now, real-estate grifter and reality-television one-trick-pony Donald Trump, is ostensibly a Republican but would be challenged to identify a conservative principle unless it appeared in meme form. As Mitchem pointed out in a press release announcing his candidacy, almost half of voters identify with neither mainstream political party.
These numbers combined with a record low congressional approval rating demonstrate its truly time for our entire country to rethink the kind of leaders it picks, he wrote. At the same time, Mitchem is staying true to the Libertarian bits of Republican dogma. He says rising healthcare costs and tax burdens nearly ...
