Nebraska and Oklahoma are trying again to overturn marijuana legalization in Colorado, this time by asking to intervene in an ongoing court case.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a proposed lawsuit brought against Colorado by the two states, leaving the states without a court to hear their complaints. Earlier this month, Nebraska and Oklahoma responded by asking to be added to a case at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

That case is the consolidation of two separate appeals filed by legalization opponents whose lawsuits were dismissed by a lower court. Nebraska and Oklahoma's motion means that all of the ongoing challenges against Colorado's legalization of marijuana have, for the moment, merged into a single court case.

[continues 277 words]

This week the Colorado Secretary of State will hold the second hearing to discuss the Marijuana Initiative. Issues to be discussed are the potency, child proofing, labeling of potency of marijuana, and others.

When we ask two questions: What will happen if these marijuana products are unregulated and what may happen if they are regulated?

We see the answer to the first question as the marijuana industry brings us ever stronger and stronger products. The THC levels had an average of 12.6 percent THC in 2013 according to the National Drug Control Strategy. Post legalization of marijuana has brought us concentrates of 62.1 percent THC. Concentrates of marijuana in Colorado varies between 60-80 percent and rates as high as 95 percent has been observed. These unregulated potencies have and are now contributing to costly emergency room visits, hospitalization and traffic accidents and deaths.

[continues 172 words]

"Councilman Don Knight told News 5 last month as the council voted for the ban that he didn't think the city was responsible for providing marijuana users a place to light up." Paging earth to Don Knight! No one requested the city to provide places for users to light up.

That entire initiative was brought through private enterprise by citizens of our city. No city funding or interference is required.

Robert Wheeler

Colorado Springs

[end]

Colorado kids are not smoking more pot since the drug became legal - but their older siblings and parents certainly are, according to a long-awaited report giving the most comprehensive data yet on the effects of the state's 2012 recreational-marijuana law.

The state released a report Monday detailing changes in everything from pot arrests to tax collections to calls to Poison Control. Surveys given to middle-schoolers and high-schoolers indicate that youth marijuana use didn't rise significantly in the years after the 2012 vote.

[continues 68 words]

Councilor Don Knight says military perceptions influence his strategy.

City Councilor Don Knight says a phone call in September really put cannabis clubs on his radar. His constituent was complaining about My Club 420, which had moved into the Rockrimmon shopping center.

"I found out through research there was no avenue at all for neighbors to have a voice on whether a club should go in their neighborhood or not," Knight told the Independent. "So I wanted to do something about that."

[continues 565 words]

Steve DeFino is remarkably mellow for a guy with shrapnel still lodged in his body and memories of war on his mind.

At the Dab Lounge on Circle Drive near Palmer Park Boulevard, a light haze drifts above the booths, about half of which are occupied on this weekday afternoon. A few dogs roam around, as do some pool balls on the newish table. "A year ago I couldn't do this," DeFino says, sitting on a stool in the back of the place where the arcade machines' bleeps and bloops weave into a soundtrack of '90s R&B.

[continues 1931 words]

Hospitals and treatment centers in Colorado have seen an increase in marijuana use among patients since recreational pot became legal in January 2014, while weed-related arrests have predictably plummeted significantly, a report reveals.

While the author of an 147-page study released by the Colorado Department of Public Safety on Monday cautions that it's too soon to measure perfectly the impact of the state's first-in-the-nation recreational marijuana laws, statistics suggest that facilities have seen a surge with respect to patients who were hospitalized after consuming cannabis.

[continues 655 words]

A Report Is the State's First Try at Measuring Impact of Legalization.

Colorado's treatment centers have seen a trend toward heavier marijuana use among patients in the years after the state legalized the drug, according to a new report from the state Department of Public Safety.

The 143-page report released Monday is the state's first comprehensive attempt at measuring and tracking the consequences of legalization.

In 2014, more than a third of patients in treatment reported near-daily use of marijuana, according to the report. In 2007, less than a quarter of patients reported such frequency of use.

[continues 585 words]

We were somewhere north of Denver, not far from the pot farm, when my neighbor on the party bus pulled hard on his pipe and said: "Know what it is I love about this country? Everyone gets stoned."

He was a big, bearded fellow who had come up from his cattle ranch in Kansas, and though he didn't seem like the usual type for a cannabis foodie tour, I felt that he was right. After all, with us on the bus that afternoon was a Whitmanesque array of stoned Americans. There they were, puffing blunts beneath the blinking purple lights: a gay couple from Rhode Island, some multiethnic techies from Atlanta, a rowdy group of white dudes who'd just flown in from Houston for a bachelor party and a 60-year-old Boston mother with a beach house in the Hamptons. Everyone gets stoned.

[continues 3195 words]

Illicit Pot Increasingly Is Being Grown in Homes and Shipped Out of State.

Authorities say organized crime elements with out-of-state ties increasingly are using Colorado homes to grow large amounts of marijuana illegally for transport and sale across the nation. About 30 locations, many of them homes, were targeted in raids on Thursday by authorities searching for illegal marijuana operations.

The uptick in these so-called "pirate grows" has become a priority for federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, who have dedicated resources to quashing the trend.

[continues 937 words]

Dear Stoner: I want to celebrate Denver's biggest unofficial holiday on 4/20. Do you have any advice?

Gone Ganja

Dear Ganja: Our day of gathering is upon us, but 4/20 in Denver has become much more than a simple day of heavy blazing now that Colorado's economy has gone green. While many of us will be enjoying a blunt bigger than Dikembe Mutombo's fingers, it's important to see through the dabs and kush smoke to celebrate responsibility and not forget what it took to get here - and how far we still have to go.

[continues 391 words]

"I wake up every day and I still can't believe I'm selling marijuana," Ieshia Jiron says, reflecting on the past year she's been working at Leaf on the Mesa, a medical and recreational dispensary in downtown Pueblo. She spent nearly two decades working at Target, then some time dabbling in real estate until some friends approached her to help get the new business off the ground.

"We were sitting on buckets then, but business really took off," she says. "It's been amazing."

[continues 667 words]

Schools in Colorado would be required to allow parents to provide medical marijuana treatment to their children on school grounds under a bill that won approval in a state legislative committee Monday.

House Bill 1373 gives school districts the authority to write policies limiting where on campus the treatment could take place or what forms of cannabis can be administered. If the district fails to create a policy, parents or private caregivers would have no limitations on where they could administer the treatment, said state Rep. Jonathan Singer, a Longmont Democrat who is the bill's sponsor.

[continues 117 words]

DENVER (AP) - Schools in Colorado would be forced to allow students to use medical pot under a bill that cleared its first hurdle Monday at the state Legislature.

The bill updates a new law that gives school districts the power to permit medical marijuana treatments for students under certain conditions. Patient advocates call the law useless because none of Colorado's 178 school districts currently allows such use.

The bill cleared a House committee Monday on a vote of 10 to 3 and now awaits a vote by the full House.

[continues 191 words]

It's time for Colorado to have a frank discussion about marijuana potency. In recent years, Colorado's marijuana has become a fundamentally different and harder drug, with unprecedented levels of THC, marijuana's psychoactive ingredient.

Nationally, the potency of marijuana has more than tripled since the mid-1990s, with the average at 12.6 percent THC in 2013, according to the National Drug Control Strategy.

But Colorado's post-legalization pot has reached even higher levels. Here, the average potency of marijuana flowers/buds is 17.1 percent THC and the average potency of concentrates is 62.1 percent THC, according to the Marijuana Equivalency in Portion and Dosage report, prepared for the Colorado Department of Revenue.

[continues 510 words]

Since 55 percent of Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, Colorado has experienced record economic growth, record tourism, and record job creation. In addition, Denver was recently named the best city to live in the United States by U.S. News and World Report based on factors such as quality of life, low crime rate, and job prospects.

The doomsday predictions of the prohibitionists never came to pass. Colorado is experiencing near record low traffic fatalities, and teen marijuana usage has remained relatively stagnant.

[continues 496 words]

But the Effort Will Have Additional Opportunities This Legislative Session.

Colorado lawmakers have rejected an initial effort to cap the potency of marijuana that customers can buy at recreational pot stores.

Rep. Kathleen Conti, R-Littleton, had proposed barring stores from selling marijuana and marijuana products - including concentrates - that contain more than 15 percent THC. That amount is below the average potency of products currently sold in recreational stores.

Late Wednesday, lawmakers on the House Finance Committee voted down the proposal on a 6-5 vote. But that decision may not be the end of the debate - for this year or for next.

[continues 289 words]

Things Looked Bleak When Oil Prices Dropped

DeBEQUE, Colo. - When the oil and gas industry tanked and plans for gambling fizzled 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." Hemay 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.

[continues 692 words]

PUEBLO, Colo. - In the heart of territory run by the gang Los Carnales East Side Dukes - on a corner known as the Devil's Triangle - - a 14-year-old who describes himself as a "baby gangster" explained why he was trying to escape the crew.

"I really didn't want to end up six feet under," said Esai Torres, who joined the Dukes at 12, beating up rivals and following in the footsteps of his father, a leader on the streets.

[continues 1159 words]

This is in regard to the editorial, "Stop overdose deaths" that ran in The Pueblo Chieftain on March 29.

Thanks for drawing attention to the opioid overdose antidote naloxone. It is absolutely crucial that Coloradans are able to obtain this lifesaving medication conveniently at pharmacies and community distribution programs throughout the state. These efforts have gained traction in recent years, but there's more work to do.

In cases of overdoses on opioids like prescription painkillers or heroin, the victim's breathing dangerously slows or stops. If they have naloxone on hand, peers, friends or loved ones who already are on the scene can be the most effective first responders.

[continues 178 words]