One book . Thats all you get. You mentioned one earlier, but the meditations of marcus coming up later today, well bring you a hearing looking at how federal policies can improve Higher Education. Outline recommendations for improving Graduation Rates and academic performance. The senate is in the process of reauthorizing the Higher Education act that expired at the end of 2013. It gets underway at 3 00 p. M. Eastern today on cspan. And afterwards, well open the phone lines to get your take. It starts at 4 30. The cspan cities tour visits literary and Historic Sites across the nation to hear from local historians, authors and civic leaders. Every other weekend on cspan 2s book tv and on American History tv on cspan 3. And this month with congress on the summer recess, the citys tour is on cspan every day at 6 00 p. M. Eastern. Today, topeka, kansas. Also, books on kansas role in the leadup to the civil war. All starts at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Tonight, programs on the atomic bombs dropped on the japanese cities of hiroshima and nagasaki in 1945. Starting at 8 00 p. M. , the moment in time, the manhattan project. A documentary detailing the project to create a nuclear bomb. The library of congress and Los Alamos National laboratory coproduction features interviews and oral histories with many of the key project scientists. At 9 00 p. M. , first person accounts by two atomic bomb survivors. And at 10 00, japans decision to surrender. Remarks by u. S. Army command and general Staff College professor ft. Levinworth. When Congress Returns from the august recess, one of the first items of business will be a resolution of disapproval on the Obama Administrations Nuclear Agreement with iran and other world powers. Starting tonight at 8 00 p. M. On cspan, well bring you key statements and hearings. Including a speech in early august by president obama at american university. House and Senate Hearings with negotiators. And statements for and against the agreement by senate leaders. Heres some of the highlights. Because the sanctions wont produce the results the critics want. We have to be honest, congressional rejection of this deal leaves any u. S. Administration that is absolutely committed to preventing iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon with one option. Another war in the middle east. I say this not to be provocative, i am stating a fact. Without this deal, iran will be in a position, however tough our rhetoric may be to steadily advance its capabilities. Its breakout time, which is already fairly small, could shrink to near zero. Does anyone really doubt that the same voice is now raised against this deal . Well be demanding that whoever is president bombed those Nuclear Facilities . And as someone who does firmly believe iran must not get a Nuclear Weapon and wrestled with this issue since the beginning of my presidency, i can tell you that alternatives to military action will have been exhausted once we reject a hard one diplomatic solution that the world almost unanimously supports. The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy or some form of war. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not three months from now. But soon. When i was in college, i wasnt a particularly good student. First part of college, i was interested in sports. The latter part i was interested in working. I learned one thing. The Critical Path method and ended up building buildings all over our country. And i learned, you start with Something Like this and you lay out a vision and build it out. And you put first things first. Its sort of the Critical Path. And what ive seen our secretary do is, i know hes developed a tremendous wavrmt with irans foreign minister. And he talks about it often. What youve done is codify a perfectly assigned pathway. For iran to get a Nuclear Weapon by abiding by this agreement. I look at the things they need to do the way its laid out and i dont think you could more perfectly lay it out. From my perspective, mr. Secretary, im sorry. Not unlike a hotel guest that leaves only with a Hotel Bathrobe on his back. I believe youve been fleeced. Congress has until september 17th to vote on the agreement. All of the president s remarks and the Senate ForeignRelations Committee hearing starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. You can watch house floor debate when they gavel back in. In january 2014, the First Retail Marijuana Stores opened in california after landmark legislation making colorado the first state in the country to legalize Recreational Marijuana use. Next, a panel that looked at the local, state and National Impact of decriminalizing Recreational Marijuana. Thank you all for being here. I startle myself with my voice coming through. So forgive me. Let me set a couple of ground rules, tell you what were going to do tonight. First thing, if i can ask everybody to put cell phones on off or vibrate or some other thing that wont disturb others, that would be appreciated. What well do is introduce the speakers and well go in order. Theyll each give a 15minute presentation. Well open it up to the audience for q a. I have a number of questions that if you guys arent active enough, ill launch into. But if youre active, ill step aside and let you ask your questions. The one thing i do ask of everyone here is this is a hot topic and a controversial topic, notwithstanding the amendment thats been passed. And so if everybody will kindly be courteous in their questions and try and ask questions rather than pontificate, that would be appreciated, as well. And with that, let me get out of your way and introduce brian. Thank you, its a pleasure to be here and ill be using this microphone. Can you hear me . Its a real pleasure to be here. I am an attorney and ive been working for the past ten years fulltime on marijuana issues in colorado. A lot of what you see today, i was definitely a large part of the effort to make that happen. For about 80 years or so, marijuana was illegal. Of course, we all lived through, you know, the war on drugs and, you know, the reagan administration, sort of this is your brain on drugs and everything in between. Marijuanas been legal in colorado for two years. But weve only had recreational sales for a year. Ill be talking about what weve learned in the last couple of years. Having said that, were only a year or two in, right . We can sort of try to look into the future, talk about whats happened the past year or so. But its certainly an interesting landmark, moment that were in. As such, i think theres sort of a confluence of two things, right . We have this long standing policy of marijuana being illegal. 10 margin said, no. We are going to make marijuana legal. That is a large change in how, you know, our criminal Justice System is set up. And, of course, the ramifications for the, you know, approximately 900,000 people that are arrested every year in this country. You know, colorado, at least and now several other states have adopted a different policy. Didnt criminalize those people. Thats one piece. But the other piece, we have and a confluence. We didnt just legalize marijuana. We also essentially created an opportunity for commerce. Right . What colorado did legalize marijuana and set up a tightly regulated system that allows certain types of businesses to sell. A shift in times and policy that has been set up in that way. As such, you know, i feel its incumbent upon our state to get this right. An interesting moment in time. Before i kind of launch into the Recreational Marijuana and the Retail Marijuana side of it, certainly worth dwelling on medical marijuana for a minute. A lot of the groundwork that we see and the basis for our system in colorado is the fact that weve had medical marijuana here since the year 2000. And i think that helps sort of influence voters, right . When you are brought up and taught that marijuana is bad, is evil substance, but then all of a sudden this law passes and people have cancer, aids, pain, what have you, are allowed access. You start to question. Does this policy make sense . Should it really is it really that bad . And after about, you know, 12 years or so and we had regulated store fronts for sick patients, that influenced voters. And the movement weve seen on marijuana reform, particularly medical marijuana, i think the only kind of comparable policy topic out there would probably be gay marriage. If you think about where attitudes have shifted in the past 10, 15, 20 years, massive shift on gay marriage. Talk to anyone under 40, anyone under 30. Theyre like, shocked that anyone would consider it to that gay marriage immoral or anything. And the movement state by state by state. Same thing with medical marijuana. We now have 23 states with medical marijuana. Also, washington, d. C. Four states fully legalized marijuana for adults 21 and over, including colorado. So, again, large shifts. And if you look at the polling, particularly among, you know, again, younger voters. Marijuana and gay marriage really track together. When you talk to younger voters, theyre sort of like, of course, you should tax this product. Of course, you shouldnt arrest people and put them in jail. Its sort of silly. Interesting sort of movement there. So what happened in november 2012 in colorado . I mean, basically, again, by about a 10 margin, the voters voted to do really three things. Right . And, again, never been done in history. Kind of colorados leading the way. And the first one was they voted to set up this regulated system of marijuana sales, production, and growth. And i could talk a bit more about that. The second piece is they allowed adults 21 and over. So, again, not people younger than 21 to possess and also to cultivate small amounts of marijuana. And the final piece, we also actually legalized hemp production. And hemp is sort of the same plant as marijuana, but it has none of or very small amounts of thc, the psycho active component that makes you inebriated. It can be used for fuel and fiber and things like that. Those are the three things that kind of went on in colorado that were pretty landmark. So then we had, you know, a year or so where we worked very closely with the state, with the Governors Office, with the legislature, with the department of revenue, to set up the rules for this new system. All right . And i would applaud, i think, the governor and his staff in that he opposed this measure, you know, and all the way through, you know, the entire campaign, which i was the codirector of. Once the voters voted and passed this in, he really said, all right, this is the law. And the same thing with the attorney general. They said, this is the law. If this is the way its going to be, were going to make sure this is done in thoughtful, responsible way, and i think theyve continued to do that. So, what has it looked like in the past year . I would argue to you that i think its been an unqualified success. Colorados experiment, colorados foray into regulating marijuana. But its important to know this isnt just my viewpoint, right . As one of the two authors and the guy that ran the campaign. Every major thought leader that has looked at the data, that has been out here, anywhere from on the left in New York Times to the right, the rand institute, the brookings institute, the denver post. All of these, you know, thought leaders, policy leaders are saying, this appears to be working. It appears to be functioning in a way that may make colorado a better place. Lets talk about some of the positive steps forward and what weve seen. Although, before id launch into that. I did want to note. I talked about the Governors Office and, you know, all these stores you see. There are some in the surrounding areas and the grows and so forth are regulated by the department of revenue, right . In order to have one of these businesses, you have to comply with hundreds of pages of code, regulation. You have regulators knocking on your doors. You have to have cameras on every inch of the property. Anyone who owns the businesses must be a twoyear resident of colorado, passed certain felony background checks, et cetera, et cetera. Its a very tightly regulated system. And i think that is part of the reason why colorados sort of serving as a model, right . For other states as they look to see, do we want to keep incarcerating and arresting people for marijuana . Or do we want to try Something Different . Of course, a couple other states have done the exact same thing were doing. We have this structure that maintains this. And the department of revenue is the same entity that oversees alcohol, casinos, they know how to regulate things. And they took this on and said this is a product and were going to regulate it. And thus far, seems to be working well. We can look at the fact theyve begun to do sting operations, right . Were familiar with those and the alcohol context where the police will send in someone who is 20 and Law Enforcement agent and try to buy alcohol. And often, theyll get like 6 of 10 of the Liquor Stores will sell to this person. Theyve had a very difficult time getting any of these businesses to sell to someone under 21. For a long time, i think there were zero of these actual undercover successful. I think the idea this is funneling out to youth, you know, it simply isnt happening from the store fronts. That much is clear. So as i stated, as i was campaigning for this measure, there are many dire predictions. If colorado legalizes marijuana, the skys going to fall and blood running in the streets and cartels are going to take over. No one will come here to ski again because itll be a bad place. And im happy to announce none of those negative predictions have come through. To kind of tick through those. Crime. Weve had a decrease in a post legalization in crime across the board in colorado, particularly in denver where you have several hundred of these, you know, stores particularly. Traffic fatalities are at record low. Theres a lot of concern, and rightfully so. Weve legalized the substance. Are people going to drive while impaired . How is that going to look . And its worth noting that traffic fatalities are down in the state since this has happened. The dire predictions, again, did not come true there. Teens, right . Thats a hot topic. Many people in here, parents. Im a parent. It matters, right . How are teens going to have access when colorado legalized marijuana . And, you know, theres certainly folks like myself that thought and argued along the way. What we do know, its the last 30 or 40 years, teens, or maybe longer, teens have had what we consider universal access to marijuana, right . When you go to any high school, teens can tell you, they can get it if they want to get it, right . To me, thats a sign of a policy failure. If were doing this to protect teens and they have universal access, maybe its time to think of a different policy. Our argument was, listen, teens are buying this on street corners or from parks, people that dont ask for i. D. We need to move this market. We need to move the market away from street corners, put it under camera, like a liquor store. And as such, teens will have a more difficult time accessing it. And what we do know is theres been no statistically significant change. A lot of people said thered be a massive spike and tons of teens would be using marijuana for the First Time Ever and it would be terrible. And in fact, weve seen no statistically cig chant change. Its worth noting that in other states, and this comes from state and federal data, that have not legalized marijuana. Theyve seen spikes in marijuana use. So its hard to say exactly where this is going to go. But certainly in the last year or two has not been a spike. And in fact, have seem to have been flat lining. Additionally, Colorado High SchoolGraduation Rates are higher than ever. And dropout rates are going down the last several years. So, again, is there a direct relationship here . Yeah. Maybe thats a bit of a stretch. But for people that are saying there was absolutely this would be the worst thing for teens ever. We just simply have not seen that. And colorado seems to be Getting Better and better every year. Couple other issues that i think speak to how things are going here. The economy. The last 50, 75 years, people have been buying marijuana illegally pretty much everywhere else. Our dollars have been lining the pockets of the underground market and cartels. And what colorado did was bold. We said were going to take the market, regulate it, put the product behind the counter and make sure people who have passed background checks and will pay taxes are going to be selling this product. And as such, colorado stands to gain about 60 million this year, new tax revenue. Allocated specifically for schools, school construction, and we predict this will grow over time. Its been, you know, thats about what weve estimated it would be. But the same time, its been sort of a slow rollout where certain communities wouldnt allow medical Marijuana Stores to switch it over to retail and recreational stores. Medical marijuanas not taxed. Its been kind of an issue. But at the end of the day, we do know were capturing significant revenue in the state. And really, there was a lot of discussion that if colorado were to legalize marijuana, will no longer be an attractive place for business. And the last year has been stunning. The denver area, we have google, moving a 1,500person headquarters there. Business insider voted colorado, acknowledged colorado to be the Fastest Growing economy in the country. Its really pretty