Marijuana Measures May Put Dent In Pueblo County's 'Napa Valley Of Weed'

Katelyn Baker

Well-Known Member
Colorado's Steel City is now surrounded by the state's "Napa Valley of Weed."

At least 22 stores, 92 grow sites and 31 manufacturing facilities are licensed in the county, Colorado Department of Revenue records show.

And Pueblo County was the state's highest producer of retail marijuana plants during the third quarter of this year, an agency spokesman said. In all, 11 percent of the state's retail crop was grown there, as of late September.

Bucking a national trend, Pueblo County is considering recoiling from its nascent, if lucrative, marijuana industry. Voters there face ballot measures that aim to limit or outlaw retail businesses earning millions of dollars growing and selling pot.

The question is: Will Tuesday's election dent the growing call for nationwide marijuana legalization, or affirm marijuana's place as an economic force for years to come?

Several other Colorado communities, including Palmer Lake, are considering green-lighting retail shops, and five states will vote on legalizing recreational marijuana sales of their own.

Leading that list is California, the nation's most populous state, followed by Arizona, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine.

Should those measures pass, nearly one in four Americans would live in states where marijuana sales are legal (including Washington D.C., which voted to legalize it in 2014).

For Pueblo voters, the issue isn't as clear cut.

While one initiative proposes scrapping existing recreational marijuana shops and grow sites on county land, another would allow long-stalled recreational sales within Pueblo city limits.

NATIONAL DEBATE

Experts say the election is indicative of a larger movement.

States are increasingly trying to get their share of an industry that generated $2.4 billion in economic activity and 18,000 jobs last year in Colorado. That's led to a case of "keeping up with the Joneses," said Miles Light, a researcher at the University of Colorado and co-founder of the Marijuana Policy Group, LLC. The consulting group advises governments on marijuana policy and regulation, and it does not take positions on legalization ballot measures.

"Colorado was the tipping point in 2012 and 2014," Light said. "And 2016 is the dominoes effect, where now the dominoes are just falling."

Adding to that trend are aging Baby Boomers and the ascendancy of younger voters who are more comfortable with weed. The growing number of states allowing medical marijuana also helped normalize it.

"There really is a sense of inevitability about this," said Peter Reuter, a University of Maryland professor who studies marijuana-related issues.

Gov. John Hickenlooper jumped into the fray last week during a "60 Minutes" interview, urging states to exercise caution. He stressed other states should wait a couple years and learn from Colorado.

"Even with all the problems we have and the challenges, I think we might be able to do this," Hickenlooper told "60 Minutes." "But I'm not so confident that I'm telling the other states, 'Yeah, go for it. This is gonna be - this is a slam dunk.'"

Still, experts say approval of California's Amendment 64 might not lead to federal decriminalization anytime soon. Rather, a stronger voice could emerge on Capitol Hill for finally resolving some banking issues and other federal-state conflicts, said Beau Kilmer, co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. Much of it could depend on who is elected to the White House.

Some wonder whether more states legalizing pot could help alleviate the growing pains behind Pueblo's vote - even if it slows the area's newfound economic growth.

Out of state investors flooded into parts of Colorado, leaving some areas of the state saturated with too many stores for too few smokers, Light said. That meant loads more money in the coffers of local governments, but also frustration for some residents who encountered more marijuana shops than grocery stores in their communities.

"Colorado is sort of a victim of their own success," Light said.

National pro-marijuana forces call the proposed Pueblo County rollback a last-ditch effort by a few disgruntled residents who are upset that marijuana's inevitable legalization is here to stay.

"The clear trend has been they've been lifting those bans," Mason Tvert, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, which advocates for legal retail sales across the nation. "I would say that until those measures pass, it's not anything."

He pointed to the growing number of states voting on legalization as a sign of where the issue is headed.

California's measure is up 58 percent to 37 percent, a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll reported by the paper last week showed. And a recent Gallup poll found 60 percent of respondents favor legalizing the drug.

But opposition groups say Pueblo's election could paint a foreboding picture of what other states could encounter in a few years.

"Pueblo has already shown the country that there's pushback," said Kevin Sabet, co-founder and president of the national anti-pot group Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

SEEKING RETREAT

A few years ago, Pueblo County leaders hailed the marijuana industry as the long-sought economic boon to replace steel mill jobs that left in the 1980s, leaving the area depressed for decades.

But an insurgency now appears afoot.

The most contentious measure, Question 200, aims to outlaw Pueblo County's marijuana industry. It asks to close all retail marijuana shops, testing facilities, cultivation sites and manufacturing facilities by Oct. 31, 2017, and to immediately ban new business licenses.

Two competing measures also ask whether to allow or ban retail shops within Pueblo city limits, which is under a moratorium.

The proposed ban aims to end the problems that accompanied recreational marijuana, said Charlene Graham, chairwoman of Citizens for a Healthy Pueblo.

She said the measure merely tries to do what at least two-thirds of other Colorado counties have already done - ban retail stores.

She welcomes other states moving to legalize retail marijuana sectors of their own, because maybe fewer people will flock to Pueblo.

But others just want the shops gone.

More retail marijuana shops exist than Wal-Mart, McDonald's and Starbucks stores combined, opponents say. They add that marijuana's near-ubiquitous presence only risks worsening already high youth smoking rates. Marijuana use among middle school and high school students ranks among the highest in the state, according to the 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey.

"I would hate to see any other community endure what we have," said Paula McPheeters, also with the group.

Jim Parco, however, said the ballot measures threaten a business he built with his wife with their life savings.

A Colorado College professor and military retiree who spent 24 years in the service, Parco found a third calling running Mesa Organics. The retail store, manufacturing facility and grow site are adjacent to his family's 1900-era farm.

The ballot measures would end that.

"It would destroy us, pure and simple," Parco said.

It also would end an economic blessing that the county has been seeking since the mid-1980s, he said.

The measure would abruptly scrap an industry that created 1,300 jobs, while erasing millions of dollars that get pumped into municipal coffers.

"It's been a huge boom economically, and that's the intent," said Pueblo County Commissioner Sal Pace. "This isn't some social movement that I'm focused on. It's about creating sustainable jobs."

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