Pretty much everything he's saying lately is ridiculous …

As with anywhere else in the world, Colorado has its fair share of problems. That’s what we get for shoving a bunch of people into one area — it’s what happens when cities grow larger.

But along with the rent hikes, increased pollution, nauseating traffic and bickering back and forth about who deserves to live here, the state’s public safety is taking a massive hit, too. More specifically, the 16th St. Mall in downtown Denver is a shit-show right now.

Yet, Denver’s noble leader, Mayor Michael B. Hancock, wants to blame an innocuous luxury for why the citizens of this city aren’t feeling safe anymore: Pot.

“This is one of the results of the legalization of marijuana in Denver, “ the mayor told reporters after video of the attack went viral, “and we’re going to have to deal with it.”

He went on to say that he’s spoken to some of these “urban travelers” himself and that they’re very clear on why Colorado is a favored destination point right now.

His rationalization in light of a few conversations with the homeless is that, if we didn’t legalize marijuana 3 years ago, 32-year-old Clarence Seeley (the man arrested and charged for the attack) wouldn’t have grabbed a pipe and hit people over the head with it on the street while acting like the Not-So-Incredible Hulk.

Except, a quick Google search pulls up at least 20 arrests of Seeley’s, most of them for violent behavior in his home state of Indiana. This dude’s a raging twat, and raging twats with no adult responsibility generally have only one thing on their minds — how to be even more of a raging twat tomorrow.

According to a few of the arrest records, Seeley often gets combative with police officers, has a hard time being cool with strangers and picks fights for no apparent reason. But even if he did come to Colorado just to get high … so what?

By Mayor Hancock’s logic, he would also:

Blame alcohol for Brock Turner’s assault on an anonymous Stanford student …
Blame the gorilla for being shot in a Cincinatti zoo …
Blame music for Christina Grimmie being murdered after her performance …
Blame being too gay for the loss of life in an Orlando nightclub …
Blame a foot-long BLT sandwich for Jared Fogle’s twisted fantasies of small children …
Etc. etc. etc. …

But let’s blame pot. Because, as Hancock stated, it’s something we’re ‘going to have to deal with.’ It’s that easy out for politicians. Surprisingly, his buddies at the top seem to agree with him, too.

“We’ll be reaching out to every last one of the dispensaries (on the mall) for the purpose of asking not to sell a single joint,” Denver Police Chief Robert White said at a news conference aimed towards the reduction of violence on the 16th St. Mall.

White claims that if dispensaries along the mall would just stop selling the single joints, there wouldn’t be any problems with the travelers. Because, he says, people who smoke weed on the mall are the exact ones buying the pre-rolled sticky kush and are apparently too dumb to smoke loose flowers out of a coke can or ripped up Bible pages.

So here we are, struggling to find our footing within myriad problems that any other large metropolitan area is faced with and all those in charge can see is a tunnel-viewed version of mob-fueled mania.

Here’s the easy answer: There’s a bunch of fucking idiots in this world, and now that we’re a popular destination point for all kinds of people, we’re going to have to ‘deal with’ the lowest hanging fruit coming here more often. Statistically, we all do a pretty swell job of working together and finding solutions like rational human beings in this state — others, they like to take pipes and beat the heads of their opponents because of a shitty upbringing or mental health issues.

It’s not going to be easy, but finding out how to live in unison here in Colorado is necessary. First: We have to get these incompetent asshats out of higher offices. If we’re really going to move forward in any respectable increments, we’ll need leadership that looks past a knee-jerk mentality. Or, you know, someone that isn't a walking talking meme would help too.

Second, we can't continue to rely on everyone else to do what needs to be done. There's a lot more of 'us' on the streets, and if 'they' see they're not welcome, and can't get away with that kind of shit in Colorado, it won't be long before the "scourge of hoodlums" (as our mayor calls them) find somewhere else to go. 

These are isolated incidents, and don't reflect the whole of what's happening in this state. We're growing — and if you can remember at all what those leg pains felt like when you were going through puberty — growing hurts. 

And you know what kind of medicine alleviates pain, don't you …?

cover photo: Michael Nagle for Bloomberg