Pubdate: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 Source: Denver Post (CO) Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post Corp Contact: http://www.denverpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122 Author: John Ingold IT'S STILL ILLEGAL IN DENVER, BUT IT'S RARELY PUNISHED Denver police have written more tickets for public marijuana use so far this year than in all of 2012, but the crime is rarely punished, according to new statistics from the city. Though Colorado voters in November legalized marijuana use by adults, consuming marijuana in public remains illegal, under both state law and Denver municipal ordinance. It brings a $100 fine under the state law. According to figures provided by the Denver Department of Safety, police in the city wrote just 20 tickets for public marijuana consumption during the first half of 2013. Fifteen of those tickets came in May and June. Officers wrote only eight tickets in all of 2012, all but one of those pre-legalization. "Nothing has changed for us policy-wise," Denver police spokesman John White said. "If individuals are observed consuming marijuana in public, they will be cited." It's difficult to determine whether public pot use has actually increased. There have been no scientific studies about public marijuana use in Denver, either pre-or post-legalization. But people concerned about the impacts of marijuana legalization say, anecdotally, they have noticed a significant increase in open marijuana consumption. "We've heard from a lot of people in the community that they're seeing more and more of that," said Diane Carlson, an organizer for the group Smart Colorado. Carlson said she saw people smoking marijuana at the Denver Zoo's Zoo Lights event in December as children walked nearby. Some visitors to the city also say public marijuana use is a problem in Denver, with one Chicago resident writing in a letter to The Denver Post that he and his family observed pot smoking "literally every block" on the 16th Street Mall. Visit Denver spokesman Rich Grant said the tourism office has received several letters from visitors dismayed at the public pot smoking they saw in the city. But Grant said the number of those letters isn't any more than letters Visit Denver receives on other topics. The office even receives letters from people concerned that-with bans on public consumption and prohibitions on marijuana use at many hotels-they won't have a place to puff. "At this point, nobody really knows what it's going to be like or a lot of the details," Grant said. Public marijuana smoking, especially downtown, wasn't rare before legalization, though. Comments on the review website Yelp's entry for the 16th Street Mall make that clear; one reviewer in 2010 wrote that the mall was a place to watch people "just finishing toking their medical marijuana." Mason Tvert, one of the proponents of marijuana legalization in Colorado, said the ticket statistics aren't an effective way to measure increases or decreases in public use. Police in previous years might have punished public consumption by writing a ticket for possession, Tvert said. And tickets written for marijuana possession have declined in Denver since legalization's passage. In 2012, police in Denver wrote 1,600 tickets for marijuana possession. In the first half of 2013, with possession of up to an ounce now legal for people 21 and older, officers wrote 423 possession tickets. The number written in June- 34- was the lowest monthly total for at least the previous 18 months. "Nothing strikes me as being different now than it was last year, in terms of what I hear about marijuana use in public," Tvert said. "By keeping the public use of marijuana illegal, it is continuing to deter public use. There's no reason to think that those laws are all of a sudden not going to keep deterring use." Tvert argues that public alcohol consumption is a bigger problem. Numbers from the city show it is certainly punished more frequently. Officers wrote 651 tickets for public consumption of alcohol or possession of alcohol in parks in the first six months of 2013. Most of those- 557- came in May and June. In all of 2012, police wrote 395 tickets. White, the police spokesman, couldn't explain the sudden increase in alcohol tickets this summer. A spokeswoman for Denver's parks department said some increase is possibly because of a combined effort of police and parks employees to address problems in Washington Park. But officers in Denver might have another reason to go after people drinking in public before people puffing in public. A city ordinance- passed as a ballot initiative in 2007 - says officers should make small scale marijuana crimes "the city's lowest law enforcement priority." Though city officials have argued the ordinance has little practical effect, White said officers are often kept busy on more pressing matters. "It is considered a low priority," White said. "But if officers do notice it is occurring, they will take action." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom