Street marijuana dealers face the same risks and penalties if they were selling crack cocaine or other schedule 1 substances. Because they take the same risk, it is likely that the street dealer will also carry drugs other than marijuana.

The illegal street pusher takes no more risk offering more dangerous and addictive substances and therefore offers the gateway to purchase them.

Recreational cannabis is clean, controlled, monitored by law enforcement, regulated and tested. No other product is dispensed and no gateways are offered within these law-abiding establishments.

Let's keep our recreational systems in place and keep our Pueblo residents out of jeopardy. Let's keep educating and put our efforts into preventing illegal street marijuana gateway sales from occurring.

Peter Mutty

Pueblo West

[end]

The Littleton City Council's crushing 5-1 vote this week against allowing recreational marijuana sales is the latest evidence that Coloradans remain deeply divided over this state's ongoing experiment with legal pot.

Even after more than two years of extensive retail sales next door in Denver, Littleton leaders believe such commerce could do more harm to their community than it is worth.

Which is their prerogative, of course. Amendment 64 provides for a local option and that's what the city just exercised.

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Dear Stoner: I'm thinking about quitting smoking flower. I'll probably eat edibles, but I want my lungs to stay healthy. Will they heal themselves if I quit?

J.R. Huff 'n' Stuff

Dear J.R.: Good for you, man. As much as I love consuming cannabis and all that it does, there's no way around the effects of smoke on lungs after years of use, so I commend you for even considering the idea. According to the American Lung Association, the dangers of marijuana smoke include chronic cough, phlegm production, wheezing and acute bronchitis. The first three are likely to gradually disappear in the weeks, months and years after you quit smoking, but if you get chronic bronchitis or emphysema, then you're stuck for life. If your lungs and the air sacs in them aren't completely forsaken, though, they could slowly regenerate and eventually filter out all of the tar - so don't be surprised if you continue to cough for a little after quitting.

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Recently in The Pueblo Chieftain I read a group of medical professionals united to sign a document in favor of the current (misguided) petition in favor of outlawing marijuana establishments, etc.; within Pueblo County.

Currently, another voter issue would allow wine, full-strength beers and even spirits in grocery stores. I see none of the righteous indignation of these groups over the alcohol issue.

The hypocrisy is astonishing, ROTFLOL (Rolling on the floor laughing out loud). Alcohol is much worse than marijuana. But marijuana is so much more emotional than alcohol.

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I am writing in response to a recent article published on May 3 titled, "At the State Capitol: Marijuana bill headed to the governor." I understand this is a sensitive subject with many pros and cons; however, I feel that HB 1373 is a solid start to allowing children with various diseases or disorders to get there medical marijuana (nonsmokeable) medicine administered in school by a parent or guardian.

I realize this bill may come under some scrutiny from other student's parents and or teachers due to the risk of having marijuana on the premises, thus giving the impression that drugs are allowed at school. I feel that school staff and parents may communicate regularly that these adults will control this policy with sternness and follow the rules set forth by the government.

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Heroin use is such a huge issue in our country; it seems to be the drug of choice for most people in today's world.

In Pueblo alone, we had seven deaths as a result of overdoses on heroin in 2014; in 2015, we had nine deaths on top of the 13 homicides in our city.

When will we see that we cannot treat addicts like hardened criminals? Addiction should be treated like a disease.

Our main focus should be the rehabilitation of people who have been led astray. When someone is rehabilitated, they can take back their life, everything the drug has taken away. We have all seen how addiction tears families apart. Everyone hurts when someone they love abuses drugs.

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Steamboat Springs - Armed with a stack of photos, research, statistics and zoning maps, the operators of a local marijuana business on Tuesday will try to convince at least one more Steamboat Springs City Council member to let them move into a more visible spot between a restaurant and a liquor store.

The hearing on Natural Choice's proposal to move to Curve Plaza in west Steamboat is a do-over for council.

Whatever the council decides is poised to be controversial.

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The fines levied against marijuana businesses through the county's enforcement division are helping homeless people who have become stranded in Pueblo.

In an effort to help homeless get back to their places of origin, the Pueblo County commissioners voted Wednesday to give the Pueblo Area Law Enforcement Chaplains Corp. a $25,000 grant that would be used to help benefit homeless individuals without support in Pueblo County.

Commissioner Sal Pace said the money for the grant comes from funding that the county has set aside from marijuana fine money to address homelessness and youth drug prevention.

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Home groan

Clint and Rebecca Lockwood rushed to City Hall when they heard Colorado Springs City Council was about to limit home grows to 12 plants, but Council had already adopted the ordinance. So they went home worried sick about their son, Calvin, who's severely autistic and relies on homemade CBD oil to keep his aggression under control.

Without it, their home is hell. The Lockwoods say that, unmedicated, Calvin won't sleep, sweats, shakes, eats furniture, attacks his younger brother and bashes his head into the wall until he bleeds.

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Colorado pot smokers are helping send 25 students to college, the first scholarships in the U.S. funded with taxes on legal marijuana.

The awards offered by Pueblo County, in southern Colorado, are the latest windfall from legal Colorado marijuana sales that are also helping build schools and aid the homeless - and in one county, providing 8% raises to municipal workers.

Pueblo County is granting $1,000 each to the students; recipients will be announced later this month.

"It's incredible," said Beverly Duran, the executive director of the Pueblo Hispanic Education Foundation, which is overseeing the scholarships. "Every year we get a nice pool of students ... but we can always only award to a small percentage. This for us expands that to extraordinary lengths."

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John Hickenlooper, Once a Leading Critic, Now Says the Industry Looks 'Like It Might Work.' Here's Why.

DENVER - When Colorado voted to legalize recreational marijuana four years ago, one of the move's chief critics was Gov. John Hickenlooper.

The moderate Democrat said that if he could "wave a magic wand" to reverse the decision, he would. Then he called voters "reckless" for approving it in the first place, a remark he later downgraded to "risky."

"Colorado is known for many great things," Hickenlooper said. "Marijuana should not be one of them."

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State's High- Grade Marijuana Is in Big Demand on Black Market

DENVER - If you can dream up a way to smuggle marijuana out of Colorado, chances are someone else has already tried it: Cars and trucks. Potato chip bags and jars of peanut butter. The U. S. mail.

Not even the sky is the limit: A pilot last year confessed he used his skydiving planes to deliver nearly a ton of pot to buyers in Texas and Minnesota, court records show.

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Colorado's top prosecutors and police officials want a two-year moratorium on new marijuana laws to give officers time to catch up.

In a letter dated last week and sent to lawmakers, leaders of the state's three main groups of law enforcement officials said local police "cannot keep up with the quantity and speed of constantly changing marijuana law."

There have been 81 marijuana-related bills introduced in the Colorado legislature in just the past four years, according to the letter.

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A school district board in El Paso County approved Thursday a policy to allow therapeutic marijuana products at its schools.

The District 49 Board of Education, in Peyton, unanimously, in a five-to-zero vote, approved the "Compassionate Administration of Therapeutic Cannabinoid Products on District Property" policy, the district announced in a media release.

The policy, known as "Jaxs' policy," was approved as part of a regularly scheduled monthly meeting and is the first of its kind in the state, according to the district.

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The three sons of a woman shot to death in 2014 have filed what appears to be the country's first wrongful-death lawsuit against the recreational marijuana industry.

The lawsuit claims that the company that made the marijuana edible and the store that sold the candy to Richard Kirk recklessly and purposefully failed to warn him about the bite-sized candy's potency and possible side effects - including hallucinations and other psychotic behaviors.

Hours after Kirk purchased the marijuana candy April 14, 2014, Kristine Kirk, 44, called 911 terrified of her husband, who was ranting about the end of the world and jumping in and out of windows. All three of the couple's young sons heard the gunshot that killed their mother. Their youngest son, who was 7 at the time, watched his mother die, according to an amended complaint filed Monday night.

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In the first three months of 2016, Colorado pot shops sold more than $270 million of cannabis and related products, according to new figures from the state Department of Revenue.

The state's latest data show that its marijuana shops sold nearly $90 million of cannabis in March.

The licensed stores sold more than $55 million of recreational marijuana and more than $33 million of medical cannabis in March, the latest month for which the department has released tax data for the industry. Totals for retail and medical marijuana dipped slightly in March after a bustling February, which was the state's fifth-most-lucrative month for sales since they began in January 2014, according to the Cannabist's calculations and state data.

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In the week leading up to the end of the Second Regular Session of the State Legislature, two major pieces of marijuana legislation met their fates.

In the first week of May, a proposal to certify organic marijuana at the state level was rejected in a Senate committee by a vote of 4-3, while Jack's Law, a bill requiring Colorado schools to accommodate the use of non-smokeable medical marijuana by students, passed both the House and Senate.

These bills are small, but significant pieces of legislation. They were necessitated by conflicts between state and federal laws concerning the rights of cannabis patients and consumers.

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Dear Stoner: I have a metal pipe that I can unscrew and clean, and the other day I had a great idea: What if I put a nug in there to get nice and sticky after smoking a few bowls? Will it be more potent?

JustBlaze

Dear Blaze: Now I know why natives get so annoyed with transplants, because no one who grew up here would ever think of doing such a stupid thing. No offense. Yes, sticking a nug in a pipe while you smoke can be a jailhouse way of coaxing it to get you a little higher, but it comes at the cost of your tastebuds, lungs and brain cells. That black stuff that covers the inside of your pipe is basically tar with some THC in it. Smoking it gets you high, but it's not worth the damage it does to your lungs or brain cells while you're coughing for five minutes - and it tastes like Bigfoot's dick.

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"The moratorium will not be extended" reads a line in the ordinance that the Colorado Springs City Council passed in late November, establishing a six-month moratorium on marijuana business licensing. Now, with that moratorium due to expire on May 25, Council is considering putting a new one in place - this time for a full year.

"I hear what you're saying, 'It's not an extension; it's a whole new ordinance.' I got you," Speakeasy Vape Lounge owner and City Council hopeful Jaymen Johnson said to Council at its April 26 meeting. "It seems you guys have figured out the loophole thing just as well as the clubs did, so congratulations. Glad we could show you how it's done."

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We are presenting this information in regard to the recent article that stated "Pueblo relies on our industry."

Toward the end of the article, Dr. Richard Rivera stated, "Nothing shows that cannabis is a gateway drug." Most importantly, Dr. Rivera stated the following, "I believe from a health point of view, there are no health issues connected to cannabis use whatsoever."

As health professionals concerned about the people of Pueblo, it is our responsibility to fully educate on risks associated with all drugs and in this case, marijuana. Is marijuana a gateway drug? A national study conducted by Robert Secades-Villa and his colleagues and published in the International Journal of Drug Policy revealed 44.7 percent of individuals with lifetime cannabis use progressed to other illicit drug use.

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