Legal pot in Pueblo, Colorado will be resisted by those who are affected
The town of Pueblo consisted of 110,000 residents in the grassland of Southern Colorado. The town had many distinctiveness over 175 years. It was known as the frontier trading post, agricultural hub and steel manufacturing capital of the West. The controversial identity given to it was the Marijuana central.
In 2002, when the Colorado residents voted to legalized marijuana, Pueblo turned into a den of more than 100 recreational pot businesses. In addition, Pueblo was the first state that had legalized marijuana. Huge operations increasingly grew where anyone at 21 can just buy to stores and can wander freely along the streets with a handful of weeds. Pueblo's altitude is conducive for growing, as well as the local condition provides friendly atmosphere for marijuana trades according to WebMD.
Despite of the fact that industry brought good results to the town's economy, questions still occurred concerning the health of the people in the community upon legalizing marijuana. A group of citizens concerned about the impact of the legalization has piled a petition to shut down the industry. This group of citizens was solely concerned of its impact on the young adults and overall public health.
On Nov. 8, as stated in The Pueblo Chieftain, a referendum will transpire that would make Pueblo the first locality in Colorado to reverse legalization. It is a remarkable event to date that may be a milestone in the reefer history.
On the other hand, there are five states which are in position to take part of legalizing the use of marijuana for recreation namely: Massachusetts, Arizona, California, Nevada and Maine. Recently, the polls result indicates that it could be successful in all the five states.
Simultaneously, the debate in Pueblo presents an admonishing tale that on the 3 years into its experiment, the board is still out on how Colorado benefitted on the legal recreational weeds.
In 2014, Paula McPheeters, community college administrator and a voter against marijuana legalization drove her son home from school, when suddenly her son asked her regarding the recreational marijuana store that had opened in a mile. At the back of her mind, she asked herself, how a store could sell it, where in fact the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program had taught her child that pot was bad.
The incident motivated McPheeters to do something. She then co-founded Citizens for a Healthy Pueblo. It was the group that gathered signatures to get the ban on the ballot. She said that the health and safety of the community is more essential than the industry of marijuana. She pointed out that recreational cannabis has brought an implicit support of drug use, with the full-page ads for pot use, advertisement and a store less than mile from her child's school.
McPheeters did not believe that anybody voted for that legalization.
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