DEBEQUE - Because state lawmakers aren't open to allowing gambling in this struggling western Colorado town, officials here plan to go to pot. DeBeque has become the first municipality in Mesa County to approve recreational marijuana. The town is now taking applications for pot shops in anticipation of offering the first cannabis-for-fun sales in the 117-mile stretch of Interstate 70 from Glenwood to the Utah border. The pot push comes in the wake of a stymied effort to offer the only casino gambling near the I-70 corridor outside of Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek. DeBeque officials earlier this year had pressed the Colorado legislature to add this town to the list of municipalities where gambling is allowed. But there was no support for such an idea. [continues 400 words]
Seizures Spike Across the U.S., and Colorado Rural and Ski Areas Are Especially Hard-Hit. The upswing in heroin use in Colorado has moved beyond cities to snare a new class of victims in rural towns and mountain resorts, according to law enforcement and health authorities. The Roaring Fork Valley in the past year has had three deaths from heroin overdoses. Two young men died within 10 days of each other last year in Durango. A man recently overdosed on New Year's Eve in Crested Butte-the second known overdose in a year. [continues 783 words]
Policy Blocks Use in Subsidized Projects, but Official Says That Could Change Coloradans who live in the nearly 300 federally subsidized housing projects in the state are blocked by federal regulations from using marijuana in their homes in spite of state legalization-but that could be changing at some point. "In the next couple of years, we are probably going to see new policies. This is still so new. We are still trying to see what should happen," said Eric Garcia, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development project manager in Denver "In the meantime, we have to adhere to policy." [continues 455 words]
They can look like nondescript writing pens or asthma inhalers. Some resemble lip-gloss sticks and come in the same hot pink or sparkly purple as teenage girls' smartphone cases. Others are bullet-like cylinders hanging on fat gold neck chains like gangsta bling. Some come boxed in a rainbow of neon colors looking a lot like marking pens. Portable pot vaporizers-called "vapes" or "pocket hookahs" by users - are going hand-in-hand with the proliferation of electronic cigarettes and taking the marijuana world by storm. They are so well disguised and can be used so clandestinely that they are setting off alarm bells with those concerned about keeping legalized pot out of the hands of minors. [continues 445 words]
Since Legalization, Reports of Pot in Middle and High Schools Soar. Grand junction - In two years of work as an undercover officer with a drug task force, Mike Dillon encountered plenty of drugs. But nothing has surprised him as much as what he has seen in schools lately. Dillon, who is now a school resource officer with the Mesa County Sheriff's Department, said he is seeing more and younger kids bringing marijuana to schools, in sometimes-surprising quantities. "When we have middle school kids show up with a half an ounce, that is shocking tome," Dillon said. [continues 520 words]
Several Welcome Marijuana Opportunities They won't have to "hide it up in Telluride" anymore. Glenn Frey sang that famous line in his 1984 "Smuggler's Blues" ode to drug dealing. But at the first of the year, those looking to add reefer to their ski-town recreation experience will be able to stroll intoColorado Avenue stores and legally buy some Bubba Kush or MauiWaui. Colorado's live-and-letlive mountain resort towns, including Telluride, Aspen, Crested Butte, Breckenridge and Steamboat Springs, are jumping on the opportunities opened up by Amendment 64 and are ready to add recreational marijuana outlets to the skitown attractions of moguls and double-blacks. [continues 667 words]
Disabled Who Use Drug in Face Eviction at Federally Subsidized Housing OLATHE -- Bill Hewitt's thrice-daily medicine is laid out on a tiny table in his trailer: a couple of marijuana buds alongside a glass pipe and a Zippo lighter. Hewitt, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, is a card-carrying medical-marijuana user. And he is living in this worn-down travel trailer because he was evicted from federally subsidized housing on account of his marijuana use. The difference between Colorado's legal acceptance of marijuana for medical use and federal law, which categorizes marijuana as an illegal drug, is resulting in a housing quandary for the disabled. [continues 637 words]
Telluride voters decided Tuesday that law enforcement in this high- altitude resort will not turn its attention away from high times. "Question 200," which asked voters to make enforcement of possession of marijuana by adults the lowest enforcement priority for the Telluride Town Marshal's office, failed by a vote of 308 in favor and 332 opposed. Many Telluride officials predicted the marijuana measure would be defeated - not because voters in this live-and-let-live town are uptight about marijuana use, but because the ballot issue was not necessary. Enforcement of marijuana possession laws is already a low priority, they said. [continues 245 words]
Agent's Acquittal, Public Criticisms Injure Agency On March 20, 2000, Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent Gary Koverman was arrested by two of his senior agents as he walked out the door of his Montrose office at the end of a workday. They accused him of taking illegal drugs from the CBI laboratory. A jury this summer decided quickly and unanimously that the 19-year laboratory agent didn't take the drugs. And that verdict did more than hand the CBI a defeat. [continues 2153 words]
CRESTED BUTTE - Bummer. That sentiment echoed from Elk Avenue to Gothic Road this weekend as residents of this live-and let-live town reacted to news that one of their most infamous residents was finally captured after 27 years on the lam. The arrest in New Mexico on Thursday of Richard Gordon Bannister, aka Neal Murdoch, aka Grafton Mahler, on a drug smuggling charge from 1973 was a real downer far many in Crested Butte - even to those who had never met the high-profile community member who called himself Murdoch and kept his past well-hidden for the nearly 25 years he lived here. [continues 728 words]
Aug. 28, 2000 - TELLURIDE - When Bill Masters was just a little towheaded shaver growing up in Los Angeles, he had a curious habit that signaled where he was going in life. Crossing streets, he would clutch his mother with one hand and direct traffic with the other. Some 45 years later, he still puzzles about this. He grew up in a family of academics, not cops. But law enforcement drew Masters and turned him into a county sheriff who breaks out of the box - a sheriff who thinks, and more importantly says, that the war on drugs is ludicrous, the criminal justice system is a farce and the law-making arm of the government has run amok. [continues 1027 words]
