Do a lot of people in CO smoke pot? Should MJ be legal? (Denver: lawyers, home)

[CarsonCityKid]

I have gotten the feeling that a lot of people in Colorado smoke pot. I feel that pot smoking has become a widely accepted activity.

I personally am against all illegal drug use. So these questions are specific to illegal pot use.
Are there a lot of pot heads in Colorado?
Are there a lot of casual pot smokers?

Regarding legal pot use...
Do you feel it is abused?

And how does this compare around the state from the small towns to the big cities?

Thanks

[Scott5280]

Put it this way.. Don't move to Aspen, Breckenridge, Boulder, Ward, Nederland,Telluride, or most of the winter resort towns and much of Denver because there are many of these pot smoking subversives just waiting to attack you and any other decent red blooded American. Side bar..their temples are fast food drive though windows. 420 is a religion in Boulder. http://chebahut.com/new/ On a more serious note yes Colorado has always been a place where all types of people invibe, that said people are generally not in your face about it. You even have quite a few high end pot shops in Denver's most upscale hood, Cherry Creek North.

[jim9251]

I've only lived here for a few years, but sometimes I think I'm the ONLY person who doesn't.

[zenkonami]

A LOT of people do, but I've never had anyone push it on me or make a big deal about it. It's generally a privacy of your home / with friends thing, though don't be surprised if you're walking down 16th Street in Denver and catch a big whiff of it.

[proveick]

It's a form of currency in the "high" country, no kidding. RP

[VenusAllen]

OP, I welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue so thanks for the thread. Bear with me, but it's important that I ask if you feel the same about alcohol? If so, then I'm assuming that you feel any mind altering substance is taboo and I'll just be spinning my wheels. It's not my intent to change your mind, as that is nearly impossible concerning this issue, I just hope to show you that weed use does not signal the apocalypse.
Surely you recall, and not in the too-distant past, that eggs were "bad" for us? But then something changed and they are now considered okay- what happened? I'll tell you what happened, someone told us to change our thinking and we did. I still question eggs to this day, simply because someone ONCE told me to. It doesn't matter what the truth was, I was told something and I believed it and forgetting what was once presented as FACT is hard to shake from my conscience. Now that I've laid the groundwork, back to weed.
If I'm off-base I apologize but would it be fair to say that you have little DIRECT experience with weed? Not studies, family, radio personalities, or the religious ranting against "illegal" drug use, but personal experience? I say that, not contentiously, but because I can relate. My father's generation was told pot was evil and he passed that thinking on to me. No amount of data will ever change his mind because he never dared run in "weed circles" to see if what he was told was accurate, but I did and am much more informed than he will ever be. But make no mistake, I still harbor internal demons because I feel that I'm doing something "illegal" and I don't want to disappoint my parents and I feel shame, and I'm 48! Never mind that we drink beer at all family functions, that's different (violent eye roll). Many years before his time someone decided weed was bad, and that was the end of the story for him, no changing his mind. Millions have grown up thinking that simply because an entity said that weed, and all who use it, are bad, that it must be so...balderdash. My dad is a beer-drinker of the tallest order yet if prohibition were still in order I have no doubt he would consider alcohol a taboo, just as he does now with weed. How crazy is that? The point being, too many of us allow someone else, in this case an outdated government witch hunt, to decide FOR US what is right or wrong. Too few bother to question what they are told, they just swallow the lure. Many will disagree with me, calling pot a gateway drug that leads to personal destruction, but that certainly hasn't been my experience.
I have a very close, near middle-aged, family member who has suffered from severe anxiety, depression, and social phobia her entire life and weed has proven to be the ONLY panacea, for her. She has been prescribed numerous medications through "legitimate" sources, none of which worked and most of which exacerbated her problems. Doctors can't cure her, a plant can, yet we are stigmatized and expected to feel shame? Not gonna happen. She never drives or works while under the influence so what's the harm? Could it be that this is a control issue? Here is a "drug" that cures her conditions, doesn't infringe on anyone else, and yet she is a criminal...go figure.
The next angry pothead I run into will be my first, but I can point to hundreds of angry alcohol drinkers I've met, and there are reasons for that. Potheads eat everything in sight, are generally calm and there has never been an instance of a pot "overdose". As a rule, we aren't involved in violent acts because we are simply too mellow after getting high. Again, it's hard to change the stain that was thrust on marijuana many moons ago, I only ask that you try to see the other side. If you're anti anything mind altering we'll just have to agree to disagree, but if you're singling out marijuana I only ask that you question your reasons for doing so. Leave those of us who will NEVER affect your life to our safe, sometimes therapeutic, vice.

[proveick]

I have an aunt that lives in Aspen and has smoked daily since moving to CO back in 1981. She's in her late 60's and doing just fine. RP

[DurangoJoe]

Weed is such a benign substance, it never ceases to amaze me how many people have bought all of the government lies hook line & sinker. I like to remind people that the prohibition on Marijuana is the US was racially motivated. Yes, racially motivated. It was prohibited as a means to control the rising population of hispanics coming into the country from Mexico early in the 20th century. It was thought at the time that if we outlawed it, we could use it as a way to arrest, prosecute, and otherwise harass hard working but unwanted foreigners & minorities. The nation's first drug Czar, Harry Anslinger (a former bigwig in the bureau of alcohol prohibition Harry J. Anslinger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) latched onto Marijuana as a means to job security and thus started a campaign to demonize the "killer weed". Up until 1937, Marijuana was part of the official AMA Pharmacopeia of medicines in the US. During the congressional hearings on outlawing this relatively harmless weed, doctors that attended and tried to speak positively about marijuana were told to shut up unless they had something to add to the argument to outlaw the killer weed. Unfortunately, these pernicious lies & falsehoods persist today in different forms. It is not a laughing matter that 800,000+ people are arrested every year for offenses involving marijuana and have have contributed greatly to making the US the most highly imprisoned nation in the world today. We have 5% of the world population and 25% of it's prisoners.... primarily because of the war on drugs. And the private prison industry lobbies congress for tougher laws so that they can build more prisons, imprison more users, and make more profits..... on the backs of otherwise law abiding citizens. So many young lives are ruined today because of arrests for marijuana. In fact, the most dangerous aspect of marijuana prohibition is the prohibition itself. The consequences of the laws surrounding the substance are far worse than any consequences of the substance itself!

Probably the most famous Anslinger quotes:

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."


Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.

Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men.

I would ask that anybody who continues to buy into the hysteria that surrounds modern day marijuana usage to do some homework, understand the history & reasoning behind the current prohibition, and not just swallow the propaganda that is disseminated by our government and it's parasite agencies in their continuing efforts to justify their continued employment (NIDA, ONDCP, etc). So many of us laugh at the stoner & pothead stereotypes that are just that... stereotypes. In today's society, many doctors, lawyers, professionals of all stripes choose to relax with pot at the end of the day rather than alcohol.

We all have brains, let's use them to think critically about this issue.

[BarryK123]

Originally Posted by SoButCounty

Weed is such a benign substance

Like tobacco?

[CarsonCityKid]

I personally don't like to be around high people, I feel they act funny and it just makes me uncomfortable. I enjoy drinking but i hate being drunk and I hate being around drunks. I just generally love my mindset the way it is and prefer not to alter it too much.
Why do people smoke so much? It seems like a religion to some people.
I just feel that sitting on a mountain and breathing in the fresh air is the greatest high there is.