Pubdate: Thu, 12 Jun 2014
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2014 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/IuiAC7IZ
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Steve Chapman
Page: 23

IN COLORADO, MARIJUANA AND ME

DENVER - It's 8:30 in the morning, I've just left a recreational 
marijuana dispensary, and I'm desperate for my regular fix. Luckily, 
the waiter is quick to deliver it: Coffee. Black. No sugar.

Weed? Never had any interest. I managed to get through four years of 
college in the 1970s without trying it, and I'm a little old to start 
going to Phish concerts.

In the meantime, columnist Maureen Dowd of The New York Times 
recently showed the dangers awaiting middle-aged scribes who sample 
the local specialties. She had a scary paranoid reaction after 
scarfing a cannabis-infused candy bar in her Denver hotel room.

I get my paranoia naturally, from the National Security Agency. So 
even though it's been perfectly legal to buy and consume cannabis 
here in Colorado since Jan. 1, I'll stick to caffeine today.

I traveled to Colorado to indulge a more expensive and pointless 
escape than drugs (fishing), but as a journalist I feel some 
obligation to investigate important developments wherever they occur. 
After an old friend and I arrived in Estes Park one afternoon, we 
looked for a dispensary on our stroll down the main street.

Seeing none, I asked our dinner waitress, who said she didn't expect 
the town to ever get one. Why not? "Estes Park is pretty conservative."

The next evening, in the funky college town of Fort Collins, I 
figured my chances were better. But when I asked a young man on the 
street for directions to the nearest outlet, he regretfully informed 
me, "There aren't any yet. Denver is the closest place you could find one."

Fort Collins, it seems, is in thrall to another mind-altering 
substance. It produces 70 percent of the state's beer.

Not that pot is unavailable even back in Estes Park. After recounting 
my Fort Collins experience to friends over dinner a couple of nights 
later, I was stopped at the salad bar by a bearded guy with a 
resemblance to Johnny Manziel. "I couldn't help overhearing your 
conversation," he said softly, "and I just wanted to let you know I 
can provide whatever you need." Come to think of it, maybe it was 
Johnny Manziel.

But for a legal source, I had to go to Denver, which has dispensaries 
that open at 8 a.m. on Sundays, early enough to let us visit without 
missing our flights home. In Chicago, they don't let liquor stores 
open that early on Sundays.

Once in the door, we got a warm greeting and a request for ID to 
confirm that I am at least 21 years old. "Come on in," said the 
smiling employees. "Take all the pictures you want." Really? People 
have been asked to leave Wal-Mart for doing that.

Inside was a small room with glass cases, where a tall salesman with 
scruffy whiskers brought out jars of cannabis, explained their 
different effects - "This is more of a heady high than a body high," 
whatever that means  and held them up for us to smell. (A sign says, 
"Please do not handle the jars or bud.") A couple of whiffs was 
enough to make my head hurt.

The staffer also showed us a small jar of Blue Kudu Chocolate, whose 
label says, "Semi-sweet chocolate with orange flavoring. Warning: 
Extremely potent. Do not eat all at once." Dowd must be one of those 
people who refuse to read food labels and never comprehend that corn 
chips are high in sodium.

I asked the clerk whether the shop ever has problems with the police.

"The cops are our best friends," he replied. "They want this to 
work." He assured us that people drive better, not worse, when 
they're stoned, and predicted that marijuana will be legal nationally 
in a year. Whatever he was smoking must be really good.

We went out and into the "Garden Viewing Corridor," which afforded a 
view of rooms full of plants under lights that cast a faint lavender glow.

To me, it resembled an ordinary nursery. But of course this is not an 
ordinary establishment. It's a legal outlet for a recreational drug 
that has long been the target of prohibition.

An affable security guard dressed in shorts and a Tshirt told me he 
likes working there. "I worked in a psych ward before, and this is a 
lot easier," he said. Ever have trouble with customers? "The only 
problem we have here is people coming in drunk."

Got that? At the cannabis dispensary, the people you have to watch 
out for are the drinkers.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom