It's a simple question I ask in my latest column, which you can find below. Since the Denver City Council has banned smokeless flavored nicotine products, why won't they ban smokeless flavored cannabis products? 

The answer is that hypocritically crazed people rarely realize they're hypocritical or crazy.

Now down to business. I've bored you with stories about my son who has Down Syndrome, Chance. So why not one more?

Do you remember when you were small, and Santa Claus came every Christmas Eve? It was real and it was magic. Do you remember when your own children went through that phase, and you could relive all that magic again, but through their eyes?

Then they grew too old, the childlike magic melted away, and it broke your heart. If you're in that sad situation my message to you is simple: suck it loser. That hasn’t happened to me yet.

Chance is now 20-years-old and often wears a three-day beard that would make an old fisherman jealous. And to him, Santa Claus is more real and more magic than ever. That’s his Christmas gift to me.

He demands a specific Christmas ritual. On Christmas Eve, I go over to my ex-wife’s house, (good thing we’re still very close friends). Chance and I get ready for Santa's visit with cookies, milk, and carrots for the reindeer. Somehow, Santa Claus knows to give Chance a phone call just before bed. 

Chance demands he and I sleep in the same bed in the guest room until Christmas morning when we attempt to drag his hibernating, yet viciously angry, not-a-morning-person, sister down to the tree.

Last year on Christmas morning, at like 4:00 am, I'm lying there awake thinking why the hell are two grown men doing this. Chance starts to rustle, so I keep my eyes mostly closed to spy on him. He very slowly climbs out of bed to the floor. On all fours, he slowly and gingerly crawls to the door. I then see a hand reach up from nowhere to turn the doorknob as quietly as possible. 

He continues on hands and knees, so as not to get caught, and wiggles out of the room. Crawling down the stairs, he seeks evidence of Santa’s visit. A couple minutes later, this very same adult man wearing only underwear crawls back into the room, around the bed again, and quietly back under the covers, proud he didn’t wake me.

So, while your 18-year-old was out spending your money, crashing your car, and disappointing you with bad life choices, mine was finding proof of Christmas magic. Don’t get mad at me that you chose not to have a child with Down Syndrome. You’re gonna have to live with your decisions.

I hope you can find some of that childlike wonder like my 20-year-old son brings every day this Christmas season.

From all of us at Independence Institute, we are grateful and blessed to be partnering with you on this grand adventure to bring freedom back to Colorado. We take on our mission with the same joy Chance has on Christmas morning. Thank you for making our work possible.

Merry, Merry Christmas!

In Complete Colorado, Nash Herman has a piece on disturbing economic trends in Colorado.

Cory Gaines continues his coverage of media outlets amplifying Progressive voices.

Columnist Ari Armstrong thinks imperial Democrats need a viable opposition party.

Airing tonight on PBS channel 12 at 8:30 P.M.: Famed lawyer, law professor, and former President of the ACLU, Nadine Strossen explains why liberals and progressives need to protect speech. Remember when liberals used to defend free speech instead of canceling people for saying something they find offensive, like the wrong pronoun? Remember you can always find the audio of the show on the Devil’s Advocate podcast on your favorite listening app.

On YouTube, Kyle Clark of 9News is arguably the most influential political commentator in the state. I asked him if he sees bias in the local media and if they were wrong in their reporting of Venezuelan gangs in Aurora. This is one Devil's Advocate you do not want to miss. I hope you share it.

Is nuclear power an option in Colorado? What are the benefits and what are the risks? PowerGab Hosts Jake Fogleman and Amy Cooke talk with Mark Hinaman of Fire to Fission and the Colorado Nuclear Alliance to get all the details.

The ridiculous double-standard behind Denver’s flavor ban

By Jon Caldara

I get tired of all the double standards.

When The Little Mermaid swims around half naked, singing to her underwater friends, she is “sweet” and “beautiful.” But when I do it, people say I’m “drunk” and “no longer welcome at the aquarium.”

Modern society often makes knowing when you’re acting hypocritically difficult. I mean, burn a body at a crematorium, you’re “doing a good job.” Do it at home you’re “destroying evidence.” It’s just hard to know when people are going to get upset and throw the double-standard flag at you.

So, of course, I’ve got a great deal of sympathy for the Denver City Council and its bizarre inconsistent hypocrisy between cannabis and tobacco.

Denver has more marijuana dispensaries than Starbucks locations. The amount of money they make off cannabis taxes is substantial. And those cannabis products are flavored in the form of gummies, candies, and cookies. These products are proudly peddled in their town.

But, like mandating motorcycle riders wear helmets while outlawing seat belts, the very same council is embarrassed tobacco products, like flavored nicotine products, are legally sold in their fentanyl-fueled, psychedelic mushroom-hazed, Cheech and Chong-themed city.

So, it’s only logical they recently banned flavored, smokeless tobacco products but not flavored cannabis products. Duh, it just makes sense.

Flavored nicotine products are far less harmful than smoking and deliver the nicotine smokers want without the damaging carcinogens of setting stuff on fire and inhaling the smoke. Thus, these products are crucial for folks trying to stop smoking.

The best way to keep people smoking is to ban these products, which is what Denver just did.

Their reasoning? Flavored smokeless nicotine will become children’s gateway to smoking tobacco. But somehow flavored cannabis products like gummies isn’t a gateway to smoking marijuana.

If you don’t understand that simple, flawless logic then you are obviously not smart enough to be a policymaker for an entire city.

According to testimony from last week’s Denver City Council meeting, the tax loss from this ban could be more than $13 million per year.

Good thing Denver is running out of money at the right time.

The economic value is so important to the region the state of Colorado bent over backward to tempt the makers of Zyn, a popular smokeless nicotine product, to locate their massive production factory near Denver. So, why wouldn’t Denver return the favor by outlawing the same product?

I think we can agree there is no more burning issue than smokeless nicotine products. We’ve seen protests and violent rallies around the city and county building of people demanding Denver make it harder to quit smoking. It made the BLM riots look boring; Jan. 6, 2021, look like a quilting party.

Just how much do the people of Denver want flavored nicotine outlawed? At my organization, Independence Institute, we were curious and commissioned a poll of Denver voters. The polling firm surveyed 459 people to find which of a dozen issues facing the city were most important.

Banning nicotine products didn’t make it into the top three. Heck, it didn’t make it into the top 11. In fact, not a single person said it was an issue. Not one.

The most important issues to Denver voters are affordable housing (33.5%), public safety (15.6%), taxes and city spending (14.2%) and illegal immigration (12.9%).

Again, out of the 12 issues offered, flavored nicotine products came in last with a whopping 0.0%. No wonder it’s a council priority.

Let’s see if we have a grasp of the full picture here: flavored nicotine products help people stop smoking by giving them a much, much healthier way to consume nicotine.

We gave sizable tax incentives for Zyn to be manufactured here, beating out other cities and states who were wooing the company.

Sales of this product bring in multiple millions of dollars in tax revenue at a time of budget shortfalls.

No one thinks this is an issue — no one.

So, the Denver City Council banned these flavored products that do help people stop smoking tobacco while not banning flavored marijuana products that don’t help people stop using cannabis.

Denver voters, you elected the smartest people in the world. Next, instead of fixing potholes they are going to outlaw exercise equipment.

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