Denver, Colorado -- Marijuana advocates scored a breathtaking victory in the Mile High City as Denver voters legalized adult possession of small amounts of marijuana.

"I think it just goes to show that people in Denver were fed up with a law that prohibited adults from making a rational, safer decision regarding what they put into their bodies," said Mason Tvert, the 23-year- old Denver man who spearheaded the Initiative 100 campaign. (Go Mason)

While other big cities, such at Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have passed laws making adult pot use a low police priority, supporters said passage of I-100 would make Denver the first major city to legalize adult pot possession of 1 ounce or less.

Denver officials maintain amending local law changes nothing, because the vast majority of marijuana possession busts will continue to be prosecuted under state law.

"It's still illegal in the city of Denver, because Denver's in Colorado," Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said.

Mayor John Hickenlooper, who opposed the measure because he says marijuana is a "gateway drug," chalked the victory up to "a generational thing."

"People's attitudes toward marijuana; they're clearly changing," he said. "If that election had been 20 years ago, it would have been a very different outcome." (Yes, but now in 2005, with the truth coming out we know that Marijuana is not a gateway drug and that it is actually good for you. Ed.)

Yet, Hickenlooper stressed: "The bottom line is, it doesn't change state law. I think it's more symbolic than anything else."

The marijuana debate was anything but mellow.

Critics accused the I-100 supporters of masking their pro-pot agenda by plastering the city with "Make Denver SAFER" signs omitting the word marijuana, exploiting residents' fear of rising crime rates and publicized calls for more police.

I-100 forces kept hitting the Alcohol-Marijuana Equalization Initiative's theme: Adults should have the right to legally choose marijuana, because it's a safer alternative to booze. The ballot supporters turned the tables on the drug war, attacking alcohol for fueling violent crime, deadly car wrecks, collegiate binge- drinking and liver disease.

The strategy was intensely watched by national marijuana advocates weighing a Nevada ballot initiative next year to tax and regulate pot like alcohol.

"A Denver victory clearly means that the drive to end marijuana prohibition has become a mainstream issue," said Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. "For a city of Denver's size in a red state to endorse something like this is really quite remarkable." (Ed. Amen!)

Please also read: Long Term Exposure To Cannabis