DeBEQUE, Colo. - When the oil and gas industry tanked and plans for gambling crapped out, this conservative town of ranchers and roughnecks found salvation in an unlikely place. Weed. "We are going to survive by it," said Darrel Kuhn, who owns the local liquor store, "because we sure as hell can't survive without it." He may be right. Colorado's billion-dollar marijuana industry has boosted the economies of many struggling towns. Empire, Trinidad and Parachute have all benefited from infusions of pot money. But DeBeque, on Colorado's Western Slope, owes its very existence to the cannabis trade.

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Just north of the New Mexico state line, developers plan to turn Trinidad, Colo., center into a one-stop shop for pot tourism

On the first day the state of Colorado allowed the sale of recreational marijuana, Chris Elkins waited two hours in the freezing cold to buy weed.

"The line was down the stairwells, down the sidewalks, around the buildings, down the street," Elkins, who had traveled to Colorado from Arkansas for a long-planned ski trip, recalled about that New Year's Day in 2014.

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A veteran Denver police officer has resigned amid an internal investigation into allegations that he provided security services to a marijuana business.

Officer Lewis Padilla, who joined the Denver Police Department in 1994, resigned Wednesday.

"He resigned during an ongoing internal investigation," said Sonny Jackson, a department spokesman.

An internal complaint was filed Oct. 2 regarding Padilla's alleged operation of a "business in violation of department policies and municipal ordinances."

The complaint was filed after a Sept. 23 incident. A Denver detective inspecting a legal marijuana cultivation operation encountered two security guards who told the detective that they worked for Padilla, according to police investigative documents.

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Dear Stoner: Why do dispensaries have shitty weed for $20 a gram and the really good stuff on sale sometimes? I got an eighth for $25 yesterday that was way better than the top-shelf stuff.

Dear D.J.: Beauty is in the eye of the nug-holder. Maybe you didn't think whatever was on that shelf smelled great, but not everyone enjoys the same scents. My roommate hates the musty smells of OGs and the funk of UK Cheese, while I absolutely adore them. Hard to believe that a pothead doesn't like the smell of OGs, I know, but they're out there, man.

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A marathon session at City Hall on March 22 featured Council dissenters of all stripes: those who pushed back against Councilor Andy Pico's resolution opposing refugee resettlement; those with a petition demanding repeal of the recently enacted Pedestrian Access Act; those who bemoaned the proposed land-swap deal with The Broadmoor; and finally, those pleading, once again, for Council to leave cannabis clubs unshuttered. None of that was resolved except for the club issue (but not in the way most urged).

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Proposed Cap Could Send Users of Pot Back to the Black Market.

A proposed ballot initiative and an amendment to a bill in the state House would cap the THC potency of recreational cannabis and marijuana products at a percentage below most of those products' current averages.

The initiative would limit the potency of "marijuana and marijuana products" to 15 percent or 16 percent THC. The average potencies of Colorado pot products are already higher - 17.1 percent for cannabis flowers and 62.1 percent for marijuana extracts, according to a state study.

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Re: "Waking up to opioid addiction," March 21 editorial (reprinted from The Washington Post).

The editorial supporting the Centers for Disease Control's recommendations for a sensible approach to combat opioid addiction was welcome news. Most surprising, lawmakers were able to work across the aisle on what they agreed was a public health issue, rather than a "law enforcement matter." In 2010, in the early days of medical cannabis in Colorado, my wife and I started our small Colorado business and first began researching cannabis as a natural, non-addictive remedy. Colorado is ahead of the curve on this issue and I'm proud to be part of the industry that is at the forefront of finding alternative solutions.

Ralph Morgan, Denver

The writer is CEO of O.Pen VAPE.

[end]

Denver No Longer Will Have Tests Done

More than a year after Denver started actively policing the marijuana industry's use of pesticides, the city's health department is changing its enforcement procedures.

Starting April 15, the Denver Department of Environmental Health will no longer test marijuana and pot products in a privately owned cannabis testing facility, the city wrote in an industry bulletin e- mailed Friday. Instead it will place marijuana products suspected of being contaminated with banned pesticides on hold, notify the state agencies that have picked up the recall process initially started by DEH and possibly order the plants or products to be destroyed, the bulletin said.

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Re: "Pot laws stand; Court won't take case," March 22 news story.

Had the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Nebraska and Oklahoma suing Colorado for a marijuana law they did not like, then the door would be open for any state to sue any other state for any law they did not like - such as abortion, gun control, and voting rights.

States' rights would be a thing of the past.

Bill Butler, Longmont

[end]

HOTCHKISS, COLO. - This mountain town of coal miners and organic farmers wasted no time in saying no to marijuana. After Colorado's 2012 vote legalizing marijuana, local leaders concerned about crime and the character of their tranquil downtown twice voted to ban the recreational and medical pot shops springing up in other towns.

But then coal crumbled. One mine here in the North Fork Valley has shut down amid a wave of coal bankruptcies and slowdowns, and another has announced that it will go dark.

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As Colorado Coal Declines, Leaders Look to Pot Revenue

HOTCHKISS, Colo. - This mountain town of coal miners and organic farmers wasted no time in saying no to marijuana. After Colorado's 2012 vote legalizing marijuana, local leaders concerned about crime and the character of their tranquil downtown twice voted to ban the recreational and medical pot shops springing up in other towns.

But then coal crumbled. One mine here in the North Fork Valley has shut down amid a wave of coal bankruptcies and slowdowns, and another has announced that it will go dark. The closings added to a landscape of layoffs and economic woes concussing mining-dependent towns from West Virginia to Wyoming. And as Hotchkiss searches for a new economic lifeline, some people are asking: What about marijuana?

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HOTCHKISS, Colo. - This mountain town of coal miners and organic farmers wasted no time in saying no to marijuana. After Colorado's 2012 vote legalizing marijuana, local leaders concerned about crime and the character of their tranquil downtown twice voted to ban the recreational and medical pot shops springing up in other towns.

But then coal crumbled. One mine here in the North Fork Valley has shut down amid a wave of coal bankruptcies and slowdowns, and another has announced that it will go dark. The closings added to a landscape of layoffs and economic woes concussing mining-dependent towns from West Virginia to Wyoming. And as Hotchkiss searches for a new economic lifeline, some people are asking: What about marijuana?

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Dear Stoner: Where can I find house rentals to cultivate marijuana with a landlord who will approve?

Jeannette

Dear Jeannette: It'd take some serious balls to ask if you can cultivate pot in the property owner's basement right before signing the lease - and those big balls would probably get your rental application ripped to pieces. Pot-friendly real-estate websites like potprop.com, weedrentals.com and 420mls.com all have listings of uninhibited homes for sale or rent, and some even list industrial warehouses and greenhouses for grows. As cool as the content is on these sites, though, you're probably best cutting out the middleman if you just want to rent an average home. My quick search using the term "marijuana" on Craigslist's Apartments/Housing Rentals section found a shitload of listings that explicitly said "No marijuana growing," but it also brought up a healthy number that advertised the landlord's acceptance of cultivation - but many of those landlords were charging quite a bit more per month than the rates for similar, more picky properties.

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Of all the questions lingering over Colorado's burgeoning pot industry, perhaps none is weightier than who will control federal drug enforcement as of January 2017. How Americans vote on the top of the ticket in the November election could be make-or-break for the future of legal weed in the Centennial State. And of all the remaining candidates, only one appears a reliable ally to the legalization movement. (Don't bother sitting down, this will not be a shocker.) It's the democratic socialist from Vermont, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

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Dear Stoner: What's the best container for pot? I see all these expensive jars but have yet to find anything that works better than my $2 Mason jar.

Quail

Dear Quail: For some sad reason, many potheads fail to see your wisdom. Maybe people just get bored with Mason jars and want to switch things up after staring at the same container for years, but I really don't get it. Smoke shops and dispensaries alike use fancy jars with "pop and seal" technology, or stackable plastic containers with nothing more than a screw top, and while they might look a little cooler than a boring Mason jar, they don't come close to keeping the air out as well. I've had $20 pop-and-seal jars that let my weed get dry just as fast as a pill bottle, and since then I've stayed true to my mini-sized Mason. Still, it's a lot of fun to walk into a home-goods store like Bed Bath & Beyond or the Container Store and casually say, "I'm looking for something to store my marijuana." Even if you just want Mason jars, it's worth the look on an employee's face.

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On Tuesday, March 8, after a marathon public comment period, Colorado Springs City Council voted to ban cannabis clubs in the city by 2024. The 6-3 vote comes after years of deliberation over how to handle the clubs, which provide a social setting to consume legal cannabis. Though many in attendance testified that the clubs are a place of community, refuge and healing, detractors see the clubs' mere existence as flagrantly defying the previous Council's decision to opt out of recreational sales following statewide legalization.

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Gov. John Hickenlooper on Tuesday cautioned other states about the economic impacts of legalizing marijuana.

At a conference in Dallas on public-private partnerships-like the U. S 36 expansion and toll lanes - Hickenlooper was showing a slide dealing with the boom in the millennial population when he said: "You get all those young people who do certain things that some of us oppose and aren't crazy about, like legalizing marijuana. Let me tell you, if you're trying to encourage businesses to move to your state, some of the larger businesses, think twice about legalizing marijuana."

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The following question was submitted last week, and answered when the Cannabis Cup was still looking at an April event in Pueblo. Earlier this week, it announced that it will instead hold the Cannabis Cup April 15-17 in Southern California. But we're leaving up our Stoner's answer, because it includes other information useful for marijuana tourists who'll be visiting the Front Range next month.

Dear Stoner: I booked my hotel near the old Cannabis Cup venue. Will there be stoner buses going to Pueblo? I'm mad at High Times for moving it - two-hour drive, with cops!

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High Times magazine's flagship event, the U. S. Cannabis Cup, is relocating from Colorado to California next month.

Colorado's first-of-itskind marijuana laws allowed the event to grow into the largest High Times Cannabis Cup in the world, drawing up to 35,000 visitors each day in April 2015 at the Denver Mart in Adams County. But after Adams County commissioners last month rejected High Times' permit for this year's U. S. Cannabis Cup, organizers announced a tentative move to Pueblo-where the Cup ran into regulatory issues and concerns over timing.

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As Colorado Springs city officials ponder the future of cannabis clubs, an argument that's often floated for doing away with them is that they make bad neighbors: Marijuana lures an undesirable crowd that causes a ruckus and disturbs the peace.

Not so, says Phil McDonald, owner of the Springs Bikini Bar, which shares a wall with the Speakeasy Vape Lounge. Another club, The Lazy Lion, which was raided by federal agents late last month, is on the same block.

McDonald, a former marshal with the Colorado Springs Police Department who's involved in local Republican politics, says that it took some prodding before he agreed to take over the bar on East Bijou Street from his sister and brother-in-law. His hands were already pretty full with four other local businesses and two young sons. But the biggest cause for pause was the bar's neighbor.

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