DENVER (AP) – Legal marijuana is giving Colorado a stinky conundrum. Visitors can buy the drug, but they can’t use it in public. Or in a rental car. Or in most hotel rooms.
The result is something marijuana advocates and opponents feared – people toking up on sidewalks, in city parks and in alleys behind bars and restaurants – despite laws against doing so. And they’re getting dinged with public marijuana consumption tickets.
From the capital city of Denver to mountain resorts like Aspen and Breckenridge, police wrote nearly 800 citations in for the new crime of public consumption in 2014, the first year recreational sales began.
Some legalization advocates believe they have a solution – pot clubs. Denver voters may consider a ballot measure this fall to make the city the most populous place in the nation to expressly allow pot clubs.
“People need a place to go,” said Teresa Wright of the Denver suburb of Lafayette. Wright was volunteering in Denver recently to gather signatures to ask voters this fall about allowing private pot clubs in the city.