They talked to a wide range of people: a homeless man, a waitress and the Colorado governor’s staff. After three days, many of the Vermonters who went this week to check out the legalized marijuana scene in the Rocky Mountain State found that it’s complicated.
Life on the streets of Denver looked – and smelled – pretty much the same as anywhere, except for one thing. “You can’t throw a stone without hitting a [marijuana] store out there,” said Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Keith Flynn. One of those stores, he said, reported grossing more than $1 million a month.
The impact of those sales on the lives of Colorado residents was harder to determine, the trippers said.
“There’s no reliable data in Colorado. That says to me, Vermont needs to wait,” said Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan, who organized the trip, which ran from Sunday through Wednesday.
Two Vermont lawmakers plan to introduce a bill – likely next week – that would legalize the recreational use and sale of marijuana in the state. Donovan and the others said they wanted to see how Colorado’s law was working a year after legalization there.
“I came away understanding that it’s far more complicated than I thought,” said Mary Alice McKenzie, executive director of the Burlington Boys & Girls Club, who is co-founder of a group opposing legalization in Vermont. “The questions a community needs to wrestle with are many.”
“People are split out there as far as is this a good thing or a bad thing,” said Flynn. “I don’t think there’s a consensus.”
Colorado approved legalization by a public vote.
“I don’t think they expected it would pass,” said Bill Young, executive director of Maple Leaf Treatment Center in Underhill, who went on the trip. “It caught them without a lot of preparation.”
Legalization here would be via the legislature, which could craft a much more detailed law, said David Mickenberg, a Vermont lobbyist who represents the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project. He also went on the trip. “I feel like the legislature has the wherewithal to figure out all the complexities,” Mickenberg said.
Colorado’s law didn’t, for example, keep marijuana shops from setting up next to schools. “They had to revisit that,” Mickenberg said. Vermont, in establishing its medical marijuana dispensaries, included such a restriction, he said.
Donovan said that after touring a Colorado growing facility the first day of the trip, he was impressed at how well-run it was. By the end of the second day, after visiting a marijuana shop, he was more wary. “I had real concerns about edibles, the marketing of edibles,” Donovan said. Colorado has enacted new rules regarding the size of edibles after reports of people inadvertently over-consuming.
The size of the marijuana business struck McKenzie. “This is the creation of an industry that’s big, big cash and marketing strategies. I saw it and went, ‘Wow.’ There’s just a ton to think about,” she said.
Regulating that business is also a sizable enterprise for state and local governments, something Vermont should keep in mind, Young said. “The state, before doing anything, should see a detailed plan of what it would cost and what would be required,” he said. “The advice we got was, ‘Whatever you do, get all the information, and go slow.’”
Donovan said the staff of Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper told the group that it will be five years before Colorado has reliable data about impacts on areas such as health and public safety.
Flynn said police in Colorado reported writing a lot of tickets for public consumption, which is not legal. When he talked to a homeless man on the street, Flynn said, the man told him other drugs were far more of a problem than marijuana.
Donovan, Flynn and law enforcement officials paid their way with asset-forfeiture money. Others traveled on their organizations’ dollar.
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All valid points Mr. Joseph, however I’m fully aware of and have experienced a few of the short term effects of marijuana use which include impaired coordination; skewed sensory and time perception; difficulty with thinking, concentrating and problem solving; shortened attention span and distractibility; decreased alertness; impaired learning and memory, experience anxiety, panic attacks and respiratory illnesses. Additionally, marijuana use can lead to disturbed thoughts and can worsen psychotic symptoms in schizophrenics.
People like to stay away from the data, perhaps due to the fact that they haven’t experienced any of these side effects, until they rear end a car and are tested for high levels of THC, or flunk a mid-term exam they thought they could ace, or apply their brakes too late while driving down an icy hill. Those impairments affect not only the individual but people like you & I. So I would rather tread slowly on this and turn our attention to more important matters such as education reform , creating empowerment zones for new business and maintain our crumbling infrastructure of roads & bridges.
Mr. Hughes: Respectively, the RAND study has already demonstrated that 80,000 Vermonters use marijuana for either medicinal or recreational use, why not have the State of Vermont benefit by taxing and participation in the lawful sale of marijuana? Even if legalization brings in $1 Million, its more than the state is receiving today and it certainly won’t deter those 80,000 from using marijuana in the future. Whatever the revenue sales might be its allot better than no revenue at all.
Its a given that this will get rammed through the legislature primarily as a revenue source, but I find it amusing how people interpret the needed data gathering as a government & big pharma conspiracy to fight against legalization. Im also certain that the dreams of tax revenues will rehabilitate our drunk on spending legislature. Lets face the reality, were a tiny state with very limited resources so to think were going to raise 20, 30 or even 50 million on pot sales is a pipe dream. More analysis is needed.
Why does Vermont’s boost to its economy have to be either military or drug related? I think our “officials” can do a better job of bringing safe, reliable and good paying jobs to Vermont so people will stay in this state. Why don’t they tour New York which is experiencing a boom in employment and economic growth due to their tax cuts and incentives?
This pre-ordained stacked anti-legalization “fact finding” pilgrimage was rigged in advance. It amounts to a loose alignment of top Democratic Party leadership, Big Parma, law enforcement, S.A.M and others to thwart and, hopefully, reverse the ascendant pro-legalization movement. We can’t let this “slow down” manufactured and orchestrated narrative obfuscate and block what’s now the majority sentiment across the country to legalize. Shame on Shumlin, Campbell and Smith
“Colorado’s law didn’t, for example, keep marijuana shops from setting up next to schools. “They had to revisit that,” Mickenberg said. Vermont, in establishing its medical marijuana dispensaries, included such a restriction, he said.” Marijuana is safer than beer and there’s no restrictions about opening a convenience store next to a school.
We should legalize it but do it slowly and carefully. I wrote about this recently in the Addison County Independent: “Toking, Taxes and Vermont Green” – http://bit.ly/1Ewgy5B.
Was this junket funded by taxpayers dollars? Whether or not the legislature recognizes that legalization would immediately help our state’s growing budget shortfall, the RAND study found that 80,000 Vermonters use marijuana and they will continue to use marijuana for medicinal or recreational use whether or not the legislature recognizes reality and passes legalization in the current biennium. These junkets won’t change anything but further erode our state treasury. Everyone should face reality, legalize marijuana and close that budget gap so that we can move on to more pressing issues of concern to all Vermonters.
We need this to pass all over the USA!
The trippers!!?? Good one!