Tag: Colorado

11/2/19--Authorities in Eagle County arrested three men last week after finding 82 pounds of marijuana in their car. D’Trevion Turner, 20, Tryce Jackson, 19, and Latravion Briggs, 20, were charged with distribution of marijuana — more than 50 pounds, and conspiracy to commit distribution of marijuana — more than 50 pounds. The three suspects were arrested and booked into the Eagle County Detentions facility. Read

10/30/19--Denver recently conducted random tests of more than two dozen local dispensaries to learn more about potential yeast and mold issues with marijuana, and the results weren't good. Of the reports filed between September 9 and September 11, twenty listed at least one or more hold and quarantine orders for cannabis flower, shake or pre-rolled joints, an 80 percent failure rate. Each of those disciplinary actions was tied to plant matter testing above the maximum allowed for total yeast and mold. Read

9/30/19--Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is conducting a study of terpenes, the organic compounds that make the cannabis plant smell so strong. The study will be the most robust of its kind and builds on the research of William Vizuete, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. His study found cannabis grows could contribute anywhere from 66 to 657 tons of emissions per year. Compared to the total VOCs found in the state, that’s about a half a percent to 3.5 percent increase. Read

10/2/19--Prominent Denver attorney Robert Corry was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence last week, his third arrest since June. Corry, who represents the Texas truck driver charged in April’s deadly Interstate 70 crash, was also cited for failing to report an accident, careless driving and leaving the scene of an accident involving injury, according to a Denver police probable cause statement. Read

9/17/19--According to a new report by the United Health Foundation, Colorado had the highest increase in the teen suicide rate in the U.S. since 2016. Dr. Linda Genen, the group’s chief medical officer for women’s health, said Colorado's teen suicide rate increased 58 percent from 2016 to 2019, but the reason is unclear. In the past three years, teen suicide in Colorado rose from 12.9 to 20.4 deaths per 100,000 adolescents ages 15-19, according to the report. Overall, that rate put Colorado as the sixth worst state. Read

8/23/19--It is increasingly becoming a more common case of confusion in Colorado involving two types of cannabis plants, marijuana and hemp. Hemp and marijuana are both cannabis plants but hemp contains a much lower level of the psychoactive ingredient THC. Read

7/12/19--During the 10th annual Western Conservative Summit, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis extended a hand to his political rivals by stating, “our state of Colorado is big enough for all of us to live our lives according to our values” even as his critics responded with shouts for a “recall.” Polis is a prominent advocate for “Medicare for All.” He signed legislation this year to expand access to marijuana. Read

7/9/19--The 11 states with legal recreational pot are grappling with how to handle public and social consumption. In Massachusetts, regulators are moving cautiously on pot cafes after health and law enforcement officials in Governor Charlie Baker’s administration mounted opposition last year over concerns about increased cannabis consumption and stoned driving. Read

6/30/19--There are ripple effects after five years of legal marijuana in Colorado. The state's first-in-the-nation experiment has reshaped health, politics, rural culture, and criminal justice in surprising ways that often defy both the worst warnings of critics and blue-sky rhetoric of the marijuana industry, giving a glimpse of what the future may hold as more and more states adopt and debate full legalization. Read

7/1/19--After years of requests to obtain GMP certification, a requirement set forth by the FDA for all consumable products manufactured for commercial distribution in the United States, Haleigh's Hope, Inc. announces that the company's efforts finally paid off on May 9, 2019. After several lawsuits and successful policy changes, GMP certification is now possible for state and federally compliant cannabis manufacturing facilities. Read

6/17/19--Colorado is among the wealthiest, healthiest states in the nation but has a higher teen and child death rate than the national average, a rate that has grown worse over the past two decades. The reason is suicide, which reached an all-time high in 2017 and is the leading cause of death for Coloradans ages 10-24. Read

4/10/2019--Colorado Sun investigation to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1999 Columbine shooting found the number of threat assessments at Colorado school districts has surged in recent years, multiplying more than tenfold in some districts. School officials say they are a necessary step to prevent student violence of all types, including the worst-case scenario, a mass shooting like Columbine, which left 13 victims dead and woke the nation to the possibility that classrooms could become killing grounds. Read

5/8/19--Voters in Denver appeared to have voted down a first-in-the nation plan to decriminalize the use and possession of "magic mushrooms" known for sending users on psychedelic journeys. Unofficial results suggested Measure 301 was on track to fail, with 46.5% in favor and 54.5% opposed. Read

5/7/19--Colorado lawmakers have approved changes to measures opening the state to social pot use and commercial marijuana delivery, as well as approving new medical conditions for medical marijuana. Additional changes could come through that address sunsetting laws in the state's medical marijuana program and pot industry. Read

4/26/19--Although a bill that would impose regulations on social marijuana use is largely supported by the marijuana industry, The Green Solution, Colorado's second-largest dispensary chain, came out in opposition of House Bill 1230 during the bill's first state Senate hearing in a finance committee on Thursday, April 25. Read  

3/13/19--As Colorado’s marijuana industry has grown to top $6 billion in sales in its fifth year of legalization, the cannabis lobby at the Capitol is also growing, in numbers, spending and stature. A Colorado Sun analysis of state level lobbying spending illustrates the rise of the cannabis lobby since July 2012, with spending more than tripling from fiscal 2013 to more than $955,000 in 2018. Spending in the first seven months of fiscal year 2019, almost $670,000, is almost equal to the sum spent in all of 2017. Read

1/9/19--The city of Denver is outlining how thousands of people with low-level marijuana convictions can have those crimes expunged from their records as part of a new city program called Turn Over a New Leaf. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock first announced the plans in December. Because the state legislature has yet to enact laws that would automatically vacate low-level marijuana offenses, individuals can obtain relief only by filing motions in each case. Read

1/9/19--As Colorado began its fifth year of legalized recreational marijuana in 2018, The Denver Post decided it was important to let readers know about the state of the industry as its fifth anniversary loomed, a large part of which hinged on its financial successes. Read

1/1/19--Marijuana has been legal in Colorado for five years. For some it's been a great thing, others don't think so, and the state is still figuring it out.Growth in population and economy have been just one side effect. There has also been an increase in dispensaries on the Western Slope. Furthermore, the state report said tax revenue jumped from a little more than $67 million in 2014 to $247 million in 2017, that's more than a 266 percent jump. Read

12/4/18--Although Garden City is smaller than a square mile and has fewer than 300 residents, it has been transformed by marijuana use. The town could afford to spend $3 million on downtown infrastructure upgrades thanks to its four bustling marijuana retailers. Since pot is now legal for recreational use, as well as medical use, the town raked in over $2 million from sales taxes alone last year — mostly from the sale of bud, pre-rolled joints, edibles, and other pot products. Read

11/18/18--At least a dozen states are considering marijuana legalization. According to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, 60 percent of Americans reportedly support full legalization of marijuana for adults. Full Measure staff visited the very first state to allow retail pot stores: Colorado. They found a lot of happy people, but also some hard lessons for other states considering the same path. Read

11/19/18--A new study from the conservative Centennial Institute claims for every dollar Colorado gains from marijuana legalization $4.50 is spent mitigating the effects. According to Peter Marcus, a spokesman with Terrapin Care Station, a dispensary chain, the report is largely based on assumptions – pointing to a recent state report by the Department of Public Safety that in his opinion mentioned only a handful of negative impacts. Read

10/18/18--Andrew Freedman, a veteran of the marijuana legalization wars, set his sights on helping to enact new laws and perhaps build a better world at it. Although marijuana might seem to be an odd place to start on that quest, Freedman views it through the lens of social justice, economic potential, and public health. He believes the need for more marijuana research is critical and thinks a lot about the welfare of the public. Read

10/5/18--The El Paso County Sheriff's Office seized about $1.5 million worth of processed illegal marijuana and $1.6 million illegal marijuana plants from July 1 to September 30. New numbers were made public on Friday for the office's third-quarter statistics on illegal and black market marijuana enforcement efforts. Read

10/6/18--Pueblo City Schools is looking at its policy when it comes to marijuana for medical use in the schools. Since 2016, District 60 has abided by the state law and allowed parents or primary caretakers to administer medicinal marijuana products to students on campuses. Read

9/28/18--All forms of violent crime in Colorado steadily increased over the past five years, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s latest annual report on statewide crime statistics. In 2017, 23,098 violent crimes were reported, a 25 percent increase from 2013, according to the report released Thursday. Read

9/29/18--The U.S. Attorney's Office in Denver says it's shifting its marijuana enforcement from bustling illegal grow operations to targeting dispensaries that use their licensed businesses and legal grows as fronts for more lucrative illegal drug trade. Read

9/29/18--Colorado Department of Public Safety reports statistics for the number of DUI cases, drug narcotics violations, and drug narcotics equipment violations. Read

4/18/18--Marijuana for medical use is now permitted in most states, but it is not clear whether primary care physicians (PCPs) are aware of or recommend its use in their patients. A study was conducted to to assess the frequency of patient marijuana use and communication with PCPs about use. Although many have embraced the idea of marijuana as a medicine, this study suggests there is rarely an ongoing relationship between patients and the physicians recommending marijuana for medical use. Read

8/25/18--The owners of Vape and Play, a vaping bar and lounge, plan to open the 21-and-over social lounge and entertainment venue in November or sooner, depending on the timing of a renovation of the building. The approval of its license by Ashley Kilroy, executive director of the city’s Department of Excise and Licenses, follows the granting of the first license to The Coffee Joint in February. Read

8/9/18--Retail marijuana sales and projected marijuana tax revenue are up, and marijuana-related crime continues to drop. Those are a few of the key statistics released by  Denver in the City's 2018 Annual Marijuana Report. According to Denver's Mayor Michael B. Hancock, this new report demonstrates Denver’s coordinated approach between multiple agencies to manage marijuana is working. Read

7/5/18--Dominique Mendiola has been named the state’s new director of marijuana coordination. Mendiola, who has worked with the state Department of Revenue’s Marijuana Enforcement Division since 2014, serving as the deputy director, replaces Mark Bolton. As director, Mendiola will manage marijuana policy issues for the state, including interaction between Colorado and the federal government. Read

7/3/18--A new study suggests that more than one-third of homeless jail inmates who have come to the state since 2012 have come, at least in part, because of legal marijuana. The survey of 507 mostly homeless inmates housed in seven city and county jails was aiming to shed light on the claim made largely by law enforcement: that legal marijuana is attracting transient homeless people to Colorado. Read

3/13/18--The Colorado Legislature is considering allowing school nurses to administer doses of medical marijuana to students. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Dylan Roberts, D-Eagle, said he believes there would be no negative consequences of allowing school nurses to administer the medical marijuana. Roberts’ amendment would give school nurses the authority to possess and administer cannabis in a “nonsmokeable form” to students with a prescription from a doctor. Read

2/24/18--The impact of marijuana legalization has been the subject of three recent university studies: "Borders Up in Smoke"conducted by The University of Nebraska at Omaha found that marijuana possession arrests have nearly tripled in seven counties that border Colorado. "Cross-Border Spillover Effects" conducted by Washington State University found that counties bordering Colorado and Washington saw possession arrests jump by an average of 30 percent. And, "Drug Trafficking Under Partial Prohibition" conducted by The University of Oregon found that nearly 12 percent of Washington State's recreational marijuana sales went to out-of-state consumers before Oregon legalized recreation sales in 2014. Read  

2/24/18--By numbers compiled by Colorado marijuana regulators, Trinidad is the most stoned city in the Rockies and possibly the planet, with nearly $300 in monthly recreational marijuana sales for every man, woman, and child in Las Animas County. While the city of 8,100 residents is selling marijuana at 15 times the clip of Boulder County, most of the weed is heading south on Interstate 25. It's part of a phenomenon that has drawn the ire of Colorado's neighboring states and has become the subject of a string of recent academic studies - legal marijuana illegally crossing state borders. Read

2/26/18--The Coffee Joint in Denver received city approval Monday for the nation’s first business license to allow marijuana use by patrons under a 2016 voter-approved initiative. The shop can soon allow customers age 21 or older to vape or consume edibles they bring to the cafe, but will not allow any smoking, and can’t sell any marijuana products on site. Read

3/6/18--Statistics from over the past decade-plus, including provisional data for 2016, demonstrate that heroin use in Denver is definitely a reason for worry. According to numbers assembled by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, heroin-related fatalities in Denver have increased a staggering 933 percent since 2002. The rise is nearly as steep on a statewide basis. Read

1/10/18--According to an published editorial by the Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board, Gov. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., and Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., don't seem to care much about the toll recreational marijuana imposes on Colorado. Each reacted with righteous indignation to the Trump administration's decision to rescind the Obama administration's lax pot policies. Read

12/28/17--Ten employees arrested earlier this month in a sweep of Sweet Leaf marijuana dispensaries in Denver and Aurora have been formally charged with varying degrees of marijuana distribution. Five of those charged face felony charges of marijuana distribution of more than four ounces, while the other five face misdemeanor charges for distribution of more than one ounce. Read

12/22/17--Inconsistencies that exist in studies has made it difficult to precisely pinpoint just how marijuana is impacting the schools, and information is misleading because so little of it actually exists. According to state officials, part the problem is how the data is reported. Furthermore, critics believe data sources, including the state’s biennial Healthy Kids Colorado survey, and Monitoring the Future in the Journal of American Medical Association Pediatrics are flawed. Read

3/16/18--House Bill 1258 is a fairly conservative approach to the issue of permitting marijuana tasting rooms. It would allow businesses that currently hold licenses to sell retail or medical marijuana to also open an accessory establishment that can sell marijuana products for consumption at the establishment. Smoking will still be prohibited in these “tasting rooms" since lighting up would violate Colorado’s Clean Indoor Air Act. But patrons could buy their cannabis product on site and either eat the edible or use a vaporizer. HB 1258 is scheduled to be considered Monday in the House Finance Committee. Read

12/11/17--Emergency room doctors at St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center in Pueblo are seeing a rise of illnesses due to an excessive intake of marijuana. It's a condition called scromiting, commonly referred as Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome, which results in symptoms like screaming and vomiting. Medical experts believe the symptoms are the result of people consuming heavy amounts of marijuana over extended periods of time. Read  

12/8/17--In an effort to learn how cannabis use affects driving, Colorado's two major universities are studying the change in a driver's balance, movement ability, and reaction time after consuming pot – but to better mirror consumption trends, the study uses subjects who just smoked something much more potent than the schwag our parents grew up with. Read

11/17/17--A case report about the seizure and death of an 11-month old after exposure to cannabis has prompted headlines about “the first marijuana overdose death." Co-authors Thomas Nappe and Christopher Hoyte explained that they are are absolutely not saying that marijuana killed that child. They simply observed the unusual sequence of events, documented it, and alerted the medical community that it is worth studying a possible relationship between cannabis and the child’s cause of death, myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. Read

11/17/17--Two poison control doctors claim to have documented the first known case of death by marijuana overdose, sparking a medical debate over what killed an 11-month-old baby in Colorado two years ago. The doctors behind the case report, Doctors Thomas Nappe and Christopher Hoyte, worked on the baby’s care as part of their duties at the regional poison control center. They claim that damage to the child’s heart muscle was brought on by ingesting marijuana. Read

11/11/17--This week marks the fifth anniversary of Colorado's decision to sanction the world's first anything-goes commercial pot trade. According to a published commentary in the Washington Examiner by The Gazette editorial board, commercial pot's five-year anniversary is an odious occasion for those who want safer streets, healthier kids, and less suffering associated with substance abuse. Experts say the worst effects of widespread pot use will culminate over decades. Read

11/9/17--Seed & Smith’s Denver grow facility is offering free, full facility tours. The company’s grow facility tours take visitors on a journey through every stage of the production process. Whether the final product is flower or concentrate, the entire life-cycle of cannabis is on display. They’re the first company to give the public such an extensive glimpse into a process that’s usually closely guarded and kept under wraps—a vestige, perhaps, of the era of prohibition. Read

11/10/17--Alexis Bortell is the first Colorado child to sue U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions over the nation's official marijuana policy. The 12-year old sixth-grader said traditional medicine wasn't helping her seizures and doctors in her home state were recommending invasive brain surgery. Yet, a drop of liquid THC in the morning and at night has kept her seizure-free for 2 1/2 years. Read

11/2/17--The CannaVan is a cutting-edge, marijuana research vehicle being used by researchers to drive around federal drug laws, while studying participants who are regular marijuana users. The interdisciplinary lab studies brain science, health, and addiction. In short, when the van shows up, the participants enter sober and run through a battery of tests. Then they go back into their homes, get as high as they want, and return to the van for the same tests. Read

10/31/17--Starting Dec. 1, smokers and vapers on Denver’s 16th Street Mall will need to walk at least 50 feet down a side street before lighting up or puffing. The Denver City Council approved the public smoking ban 9-0, ending a weeks-long debate about how best to ensure that police don’t use the new restrictions to single out the homeless or service workers on their smoke breaks. Read

11/1/17--Colorado aims to establish a state law enforcement unit dedicated to investigating and eradicating illegal marijuana grow operations that have cropped up throughout the state. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s $30.5 billion budget proposal for the 2018-19 fiscal year included the allocation of $1.2 million of marijuana tax revenue toward the assembly of a task force within the Colorado Bureau of Investigation that would “investigate black market marijuana operations across Colorado.” Read

10/26/17--Six weeks after former Fox News host Eric Bolling‘s only child, 19-year-old Eric Chase Bolling, was found dead on Sept. 9, his cause of death has been revealed. The Boulder County Coroner’s report lists the cause of death as “mixed drug intoxication” that included marijuana, cocaine, and opioids, and it has been ruled as an accident. Read

10/21/17--Michael Granados, Jr., 23, of Denver was arrested in Indiana after state police troopers found several packages of marijuana in an SUV during a traffic stop. In total, the packages weighed approximately 33 pounds with an estimated street value of $150,000. Granados faces charges of Dealing Marijuana (over 10 pounds) and Possession of Marijuana (over 10 pounds). Read

10/16/17--Marijuana legalization in Colorado led to a “reversal” of opiate overdose deaths in that state with opioid-related deaths decreasing more than 6% in the following 2 years, according to new research published in the American Journal of Public Health. Authors Melvin D. Livingston, Tracey E. Barnett, Chris Delcher, and Alexander C. Wagenaar stress that their results are preliminary, given that their study encompasses only two years of data after the state’s first recreational marijuana shops opened in 2014. Read

10/16/17--Officials in Colorado are skeptical about a new study that found nearly one fewer person per month died of an opioid overdose in Colorado after the start of legal cannabis sales in 2014 compared to before. The Denver Post reports that the paper’s authors stop short of saying that legalization caused the reversal, instead saying that legalization was “associated” with a decline in opioid deaths. The authors also caution that the study looks only at a small sliver in time because legalization is still relatively new. Read

10/15/17--In Denver, legalization has normalized marijuana so much that even the area’s local public libraries are doing their part to mainstream the once forbidden crop. According to extensive research conducted by reporters at Westword, Denver’s chain of publicly funded Anythink Libraries chain stocks 108 cannabis-related books, 259 e-books, 56 audio books, 140 albums, and 65 movies. Since legalization, officials at the public libraries have made an effort to make sure their palaces of public learning are up to date with the needs of their community. Read