Colorado county used as cautionary tale.
PUEBLO, Colo. — Four years ago, this town in the plains of southern Colorado happily joined with the rest of the state in legalizing recreational use of marijuana. In a land of plentiful sunshine, rolling farmland and underused industrial space, one of the state’s most cannabisfriendly communities bloomed.
Too friendly, some people think. With more than 200 marijuana-related businesses having opened in and around Pueblo, there’s a backlash against the economic and cultural changes that have come with being what supporters envision as Colorado’s Wine Country of weed.
It’s a preview, perhaps, of what could happen in California if voters approve Proposition 64 on Nov. 8. Legalizing recreational marijuana is a state issue, but the nuts and bolts of how it’s implemented — how many pot businesses are allowed, and where they’re allowed — is very much up to the locals.
Pueblo County backed legalized marijuana in 2012 with 55 percent of the vote. But after seeing how it played out, some dismayed residents qualified a county ballot measure that would ban new recreational cannabis businesses and growing operations and close existing ones. Home-growing and medical marijuana operations would still be legal.
Prop. 64 would allow local jurisdictions in California to ban cannabis businesses. So did Colorado’s legalization — and roughly two-thirds of its 64 counties and about threequarters of its cities have some sort of prohibition on recreational sales.
Jim Parco, a Colorado College economics professor and Pueblo dispensary owner at the forefront of the pro-legalization group Growing Pueblo’s Future, says bringing prohibition back to Pueblo would have national implications — and put a lot of his neighbors out of work.
“This is the domino. We are the first domino,” said Parco, whose new dispensary sits on 2 acres next to the family farm where he grew up. “If they could be successful (in overturning legalization) here in Pueblo County, this becomes a very deliberate strategy they could use — not just in other counties in Colorado, but throughout the country.”
Many in Pueblo saw the weed business as a way to bring back jobs to the region. This was a steel-making hub until the recession of the early 1980s, when well-paying manufacturing jobs began to leave.
Local leaders welcomed the new industry, with one envisioning Pueblo as “the Napa Valley of cannabis.” With 202
dispensaries and other operations, Pueblo County had the third-highest number of licensed marijuana-related businesses in the state at the end of last year — even more than Boulder County, hipster home of the main campus of the University of Colorado.
A third of the new commercial building projects in Pueblo County involved marijuana businesses in 2014, and industrial vacancies have dropped. Pot-related excise taxes brought $3.5 million in new revenue to the county last year.
The Southern Colorado Growers Association — an industry group that helps to place workers — says the weed business generated 1,300 new jobs in 2014.
“It puts food on the table,” said Dave Bernal, a 24-year-old Pueblo resident who was laid off as a railroad switchman a year ago. Since then, he has been working in a local dispensary, where the money has been “OK.”
Weed entrepreneurs flocked to Pueblo, where it is cheaper to set up shop than in increasingly pricey Denver. Among them was Karson Bechstrom, a 27-year-old who moved to Colorado several years ago after receiving a degree in horticulture in his native
South Dakota. He raised more than $1 million to open a cultivation business here.
“They were very welcoming to having cannabis-related businesses here, and it was affordable. It was an easy place to start,” Bechstrom said.
If the ban passes on Nov. 8, he said, “I would be devastated. I would lose everything. I would probably end up on the street.”
Proponents of the ban say Pueblo didn’t know what it was getting when it backed legalization.
Paula McPheeters, a 45year-old Pueblo native and budget analyst for the local community college, opposed legalization four years ago. Soon after recreational pot got the green light, she started to notice changes in the more exurban part of the county where she lives — Pueblo West, which narrowly voted against legalization.
Several marijuana businesses opened up, taking advantage of lax zoning laws. Homeless people started to appear, something McPheeters says she never saw before in Pueblo West.
One day while driving her son home from school — where he had recently completed the required drug education class — the boy looked out the window and asked, “Mom, is that a marijuana store? How did that get there?”
She explained that “just because something’s legal doesn’t make it safe.”
Then her son asked, “What are you doing to about it?” she recalled. She accepted the challenge and helped form Citizens for a Healthy Pueblo, which got the ban on the November ballot.
McPheeters is dubious about statistics touting marijuana-related job growth.
“They count the guy who put in the lightbulb as a job,” McPheeters said. “OK, fine. Is that base-building employment? I don’t think so. Is that a career for the future — bud tender? Not in my world. I think Pueblo can strive to be better.”
She added, “I don’t see it as economic driver as a much as social decliner — a drag on our community. We are the test case as to whether this works or not.”
And pot opponents have their own statistics: Pueblo County had the highest number of high school students reporting that they had used marijuana in the past 30 days (32 percent) in the state, according to a March report from the Colorado Department of Public Safety.
In April, three Pueblo-area hospitals came out in favor of the commercial marijuana ban. After noting an increase in teenage pregnancies and suicide attempts, one hospital executive said, “While it is not clear that marijuana is directly the cause of all these problems, one might conclude that this surge is the result of this highrisk culture that commercialization of marijuana helps to promote.”
Parco, the Pueblo dispensary owner, never touched marijuana in his life until two years ago. But when he saw his uncle suffering from shingles, he bought some medicinal cannabis for him and saw the relief it brought. He and his wife, who also grew up in town, moved back to open a dispensary.
Their fight is financial as well as personal. He has $1.5 million invested in his business.
“This is epic,” Parco said. “As goes Pueblo, so goes the rest of the country.”