Colorado's "Year of Green" (MJ): The Highs, the Lies and the Lows

One of the first retail MJ customers delivers high fives at a Denver Pot Outlet in January.

Now that nearly 365 days have elapsed it is possible to assess the past historical year whereby one state (Colorado) came to be the marijuana mecca of the world.  Enough data is now available to show how successful Amendment 64 has been, in legalizing the retail sale of marijuana. Despite that, too many are unaware of the level of success, as well as the level of failure - given the fact that one less-publicized aspect of 64 is  that local communities, even counties, could opt out. (This had been an important part of the amendment's wording, allowing choice in whether any given locale would take on MJ retail sales or exclude them.)

First, some of the facts compiled from the Denver Post ('Legalization Review', Dec. 28):


- Colorado's annual demand for MJ:  130. 3 metric tons

- Adults 21 and older using MJ at least once per month:   485,000

- Total medical MJ sales - January-October:  $326, 716, 273

- Proportion of MJ sales to out of state tourists in mountain communities - 90 percent

- The proportion of Colorado MJ users who consume it each day:  23 percent

- Amount brought in from taxes, licenses and fees - January-October: $60.1 million 


To read through the preceding, the unwary might conclude the state is awash in stoners, leaning against buildings and barely able to get themselves from point A to point B. They might also wrongly conclude retail pot stores are all over the state. In fact, the Post's stats show that more Colorado communities (165) have chosen to disallow retail pot sales than have accepted them (53).  Check that ratio again and it is more than three to one NO. Yet this is one of the aspects that has rarely been publicized.

According to industry spokesman Mike Elliot, of the Marijuana Industry Group:

"I think the local option is one of the best aspects of Amendment 64. If communities don't want this, it shouldn't be forced down their throats."

Well, that depends. What if, for an entire county, the Amendment passed, but its city council decided to ignore the voters' will?  The Post has noted two radically different approaches, one that respects the citizen and the other which basically spits on his vote.

For example, in Lakewood, CO in November, the City Council gave voters the chance to cast votes in a specific separate referendum that would have allowed the opening of pot retail stores. According to Mayor Bob Murphy, "the issue was important enough that city leaders felt the decision ought to go to a vote of the people, rather than be decided by the city council".

The referendum result was to scrap pot shops in Lakewood for now by a 53- 47 % majority.

Colorado Springs, conservative bastion of military interests that it is, chose to go in the opposite direction, making a city council decision that took it out of citizens' hands. They probably knew, given the fact the amendment passed by 5,000 votes in 2012, they might not win and they didn't wish to take that chance. In other words, they didn't trust we the citizens to make the right decision.

The fallout as many have noted, is that the $6-9 million a year the Springs might have gotten via taxes, fees - to fund its Pioneers Museum - will now go to neighboring Manitou Springs which has recently allowed retail pot, wisely noting COS' negative is Manitou's gain. Sadly, the City Council will have to continue to beg for $ for its daffy museum, but most of us will have no sympathy for them - given they already "made their bed".

The Lies and the Lows:

Yes, there were lies and lows that emerged over the year. First, some of the lows:

- The death of an African college student from Wyoming who - after eating an MJ cookie and not attending to the warning dose- jumped off a building

- A father of two, shooting and killing his wife after he ate several MJ candies and began hallucinating.

- Incidents of MJ edibles ingestion by children rushed to ERs

- NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd comes to Colo. and eats an MJ cookie without noting the dose, then writes a crap column about her "psychotic" experience.

Since these transpired, Colorado MJ regulators and the businesses have gone all out to more properly assay THC content in each product, including cannabis oil.  They have also packaged edibles more securely with  more prominent warning messages and the THC doses in edibles such as cookies, candies.   Of course, as many in the MJ business have pointed out, parents are also expected to do their part in minding what their kids are doing.

The lies:

- You can openly buy MJ on the street (only in the black market- not the regulated one!)

- If an adult purchases marijuana edibles only he or she can transport them across state lines. (Absolutely not!)

- People who purchase marijuana at a retail outlet can then smoke it  -like a cigarette- on the street. (No you may not, you are expected to take it back to your domicile to use it)

- Any kid can just grab an MJ edible off the shelf of a pot retail shop. (Fact: No kid is even allowed close to an MJ shop and no kid would be permitted entry!)

- MJ businesses can openly advertise their wares in newspapers, magazines and on billboards. (Absolutely not - any marketing has to be via word of mouth!)

- MJ edible candies look exactly like name brand candies such as Tootsie Rolls, M & Ms, Snickers bars.

- More people have been busted for driving under MJ influence than for alcohol.

Meanwhile, the Denver Post in its editorial yesterday, did correctly note that with the implementation of the new law, marijuana use by Colorado citizens has increased. But this would be expected if any new business had opened up, in any state, and it sought growth. After all, to survive a business must grow which means building a customer base. And many of these will be people who are curious about the product, and have never tried it before.

As the owner of the Pot retail chain Euflora observed on MSNBC's series 'The Pot Barons of Colorado', many of her customers are trying it for the first time, largely in the form of the edibles. As word spreads on how good the edibles are, and their mellow effects - taken in the proper dose - then many more new customers sign on. Basically, their numbers are only limited by the types, amounts of product they desire.

But as the earlier stat cited from the Post showed, that still means only 485,000 people using even once per month. That is barely 9 percent of Colorado's population, so it's not as if the whole state is under the influence of pot or even a tenth of the state's populace.  This is important so that outsiders keep it in perspective.

There is still much to be done, and the next year may well show if the pot business is here to stay or if it turns out to be merely a temporary craze. My bet is that - having seen the MSNBC series and the Post's review - it is likely to stay and become a credible model for responsible MJ businesses for other states.

There will always be naysayers, of course, and this is to be expected with the end of any era of prohibition, look at the 1930s with alcohol. But in the end, the fewer laws on the books which can put people away - take away their freedom for an individual choice - the better. And the more the states can regulate and tax the more likely they are to be able to fund such things as education and pensions - when other sources are collapsing.  It is certainly to be preferred over casinos!

Denver MJ ''Smokeout' Is Mellow - No Riots or Mass Murders!

As most of us expected, the 4/20 annual marijuana smokeout occurred uneventfully yesterday with thousands gathered peacefully in a sun-drenched Denver Park, to the rhythms of trip-hop music played through booming speakers. Perhaps a third or more were tourist MJ users, who made the pilgrimage to Denver to partake of legalized weed (though, technically, it isn't supposed to be used out in the open - only in your little domicile.).  

As of 5 p.m. Sunday, Denver police had written only  47 marijuana-consumption citations. On Saturday, they issued 22 pot tickets. Though signs warned against smoking out in the open and organizers instructed people not to puff up, the predictable cloud of marijuana smoke arose like clockwork at 4:20 p.m Sunday.  Clearly, the laws that specifically forbid pot smoking in the park were not being enforced, and even the normally staid Denver Post proclaimed: "And that is how it should be at a pot rally with tens of thousands of people."  Indeed!

Despite the rising MJ mushroom puff cloud, the world didn't stop, the crowd didn't suddenly become a riotous mass of stoners, nor did they mutate into mass murdering zombies - as some hysterical voices predicted. (This, after a father of three shot and killed his wife in a tony Denver suburb three days ago, after consuming marijuana candy. More on this below). Nor did masses of the stoned climb up to the top of  buildings and dive off. (This was forecast after an African college student consumed a whole MJ cookie a few weeks ago and jumped off a four story landing.)

 Short of mayhem and suicide, the Nervous Nellies  fretted that the  nation's press would flock to the rally and photos from the big smoke-out would become the iconic image of Denver as they circulated around the web and the 24/7 cable world.. But lo and behold, Denver did not become a laughingstock and police didn't barge into the crowd to write $150 citations to anyone and everyone they could nab.

By all accounts this first major smoke out since Amendment 64 passed went even better than the most optimistic could forecast. The event, originally heralded as a rally for marijuana rights,   was really a celebration. Activists numbered among the crowd and they still believe there are matters to protest surrounding pot, even with legalization (such as whether Colo. employers can fire workers who smoke MJ on their own time, and whether landlords can prohibit it). But few who came to the park on Saturday and Sunday seemed to have activism in mind. This was a victory dance and one that will be taken note of in other U.S. cities.

"Give us this one day," said Lily Berryman, 18, of Fort Collins, who sported marijuana leaf sunglasses.

"Weed smokers aren't the type to get up all in your face," she said. "We do it at home or behind closed doors. So we just want this one day to smoke and have fun."

 This may well be so but issues still need to be dealt with in terms of MJ  content standardization, especially of edibles like cookies and candies. Also, more high profile warnings need to be made about mixing pot edibles with prescription drugs.  This came to light after a 44 year old mother of three was shot in the head several days ago even while she was on the phone to 911 reporting her husband's aberrant behavior.

Her husband had not long before purchased a bag of MJ candies and gobbled them down, despite having taken a powerful pain killer earlier.  Suddenly he went into hallucination mode - thought he saw "demons", and begged his wife to take the gun from his hand and shoot him. We don't know exactly what he saw but it's a good bet the mixture of drugs, THC and his weapon didn't add up to anything pleasant. Suddenly, as his wife reported to 911 he was pointing the gun at her, and he fired it. Since that incident, shrill warnings have erupted about MJ's dangers ....and maybe legalization wasn't such a great idea after all.

Which, of course, is nonsense, since the same thing could have occurred had the guy downed a fifth of Bourbon and mixed it with the same drugs. But when these alcohol-related incidents occur you barely hear about them,

The other aspect that needs to be addressed is the matter of standardizing potency of all edibles, in terms of the active MJ component, THC.  For example, the African college student had come to Colorado to partake of an edible MJ cookie, with his mates. He (and they) were warned by the store proprietor that each cookie contained 6 1/2 servings - based on the active component, THC. Hence, they were advised to break each cookie into six pieces and consume only one piece at a time. The college student instead took the whole cookie back to his room and gobbled it. (He had claimed he felt no effects, so kept on eating  -not waiting for the effects to surface).  He was unable to sleep properly and then at some point, awakened and jumped out his fourth floor hotel window.

Both these incidents are sad, and never should have happened. But they don't prove that Amendment 64 was a bad law, or that MJ stores ought to now be shuttered and banned. What they do show is that people need to show more discretion in their consumption of these products, and those who make them need to take more care to ensure the same amount of THC in an MJ cookie, is also disclosed in an MJ candy, and that proper lab tests have been conducted to ensure the quality is the same. Something is amiss if a person is left hallucinating after taking a half an MJ candy with 10 mg THC, but his bud has nothing happen to him having consumed the same. (In some recent press reports proprietors have admitted that the potency can and does vary wildly.)

New users, especially, have been advised to take it easy, especially with edibles.

Meanwhile, both wifey and I have agreed we've no intention to try anything "out of curiosity" or "to see what it's like".  We have our own 'drugs' of choice, namely ice cream and biscotti nibbles - with our coffee each morning.

That is about as radical as we plan to get, though we do wish the state's MJ experiment the best in proving to the nation it can work.