Alden Woods, and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

The Republic | azcentral.com

DENVER — Within sight of the Coors Field ballpark, a half-dozen marijuana dispensaries turn on the lights, unlock their doors and open for the first customers of the day.

There’s nothing about the ballpark district in particular that draws the shops. There’s a retailer within walking distance of pretty much anywhere in downtown Denver.

One of the largest and longest-running is Ballpark Holistic Dispensary. A banner just inside the front door lists the store’s awards: winner of the 2015 Munchie Cup, third place in the 2014 Cannabis Cup.

Televisions behind the counters show a series of rotating warnings about addiction and health hazards. Approved “budtenders” are stationed to help customers sort through it all.

Past the locked door that separates sales floors from the lobbies, the dispensary is built like a deli counter, with glass cases filled with products: flowers, THC-infused soda and coffee, brownies and cookies, hard candy, pipes, lighters and, of course, bottles of Clear Eyes.

Just after 10 a.m., a steady flow of customers starts to stroll in. “Clientele is 21 to, like, 90,” said Stephanie Hopper, Ballpark’s chief operating officer. “It’s literally anyone.”

Businessmen in power ties, still-waking college students, middle-aged parents – and an assortment of tourists.

Some who visit are checking out pot because they happen to be in Denver. Some are checking out Denver because they happen to want pot.

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A young tourist steps in. “Over there are flowers,” a budtender named Gladys tells him, pointing to a few sealed jars. “And over there are our edibles.”

“Whoa,” he says to himself, turning in place to see it all.

Four years after Colorado became one of the first states to enact a law to make marijuana legal, five more states are weighing ballot measures that would legalize recreational marijuana. Twenty-five states allow marijuana for medical uses in some fashion, and more are considering it this election as well.

In Arizona, where medical marijuana is already legal, the measure on the ballot is most often compared with the law in Colorado.

Colorado’s so-called Amendment 64 passed in 2012 and took effect in 2014. Much like Arizona’s Proposition 205, it requires the state to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana.

Activists in Arizona and elsewhere have seized on Colorado’s experience as proof of why other states should vote for — or against — their own states’ measures to legalize the drug.

Prop. 205 asks voters to allow adults 21 and older to carry, use and grow marijuana.

The measure would allow stores licensed by the state, starting with existing medical dispensaries, to sell marijuana. Sales would be taxed and the revenue would help fund a new state department to oversee the program. Any excess funds would go to education, among other things. The measure provides for more lenient penalties for certain marijuana violations, like consuming in public.

Backers say the social impacts in Colorado have been minimal, the retail operations are far better than drug cartels, and the sales generate tax revenue.

Opponents say legalization removed a barrier to addiction, created a confusing and ineffective system for regulation, and grew tax revenue that's too small to justify the hassle. They warn of a pot-scented apocalypse that would leave in its wake overdosed patients, children exposed to pot-laced candies, and drugged drivers.

In some ways, a visit to Colorado proves both sides right, or maybe both sides wrong.

In Denver, it’s easy to find a problem-free pot economy. It’s also easy to find people who are having problems because of it.

So for Arizona voters, the biggest problem with Prop. 205 may be this: Even Colorado, which is living with the consequences, is no good gauge for what will happen if Arizona legalizes pot.

Several experts said there won't be a definitive verdict on the full impact of legalization for at least five years.

Mark Kleiman, director of the crime and justice program at New York University's Marron Institute of Urban Management, studied legalization in Colorado and Washington for a paper for the Brookings Institution.

“There is, so far, less to this event than meets the eye,” he wrote, “and neither state to date provides any strong basis for claims about the hazards or benefits of making cannabis commercially available."

In an interview with The Republic, he added: “It has not been successful and it has not been a disaster. It’s just too early to tell.”

Will it make the state money?

Since Toni Savage Fox rang up Denver’s first sale of recreational marijuana at the 3D Dispensary in January 2014, she says, she’s seen no evidence of dire social or economic consequences.

Instead, she said, tourism has risen, marijuana usage hasn’t drastically changed, and the state’s economy rose last year at the fourth-fastest rate of any U.S. state.

The haters will say you “can’t go anywhere without smelling pot,” she said.

Her biggest complaint? The industry is “taxed to death.” Her bottom line on making marijuana mainstream: “It has been a huge windfall for the state.”

Since legalization, 1,303 licenses have been issued to stores, grow sites, product manufacturers and testing facilities.

Colorado charges state and local sales taxes on retail pot sales, and an excise tax on wholesale transactions. In Denver, the total tax rate a customer would pay on a retail purchase is about 21 percent.

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Last year, revenue from taxes, licenses and fees was $135 million, up from $76 million in 2014, according to a March report released by the Colorado Department of Public Safety.

Although that’s more than Colorado made before legalized pot, it’s still less than 1 percent of all tax revenue the state collects.

Of that, about $35 million went to schools — short of the $40 million proponents promised during the Amendment 64 campaign. Other tax revenue helped fund the marijuana regulation program, public-safety efforts and substance abuse prevention programs.

“It has not proven to be a huge windfall of money; it’s like walking down the street and finding a $20 bill,” said Tim Hoover, spokesman for the nonpartisan, non-profit Colorado Fiscal Institute. While money tax revenue has been generated, he added, “People have had very unrealistic expectations, and very serious misunderstandings about how much money was going to be generated.”

Some of that money came from so-called narco-tourists who have flocked to Colorado since pot was legalized. A study found tourism in the state increased by 9 percent in 2015 from the year before.

Not all that increase, however, can be attributed to legal marijuana. The state was already seeing increases in tourism before legalization. And only 23 percent of the tourists surveyed said the availability of legal pot positively influenced their decision to traveled to Colorado.

Will it hurt people?

When people check in to Arapahoe House, Colorado’s largest substance-abuse center, counselors sit them down for an entrance interview centered on one question: What’s your favorite drug?

Since legalization, Arapahoe House says the number of patients reporting a problem with marijuana has risen by 60 percent, though the center didn’t provide more detail on how the numbers have changed since legalization.

“The accessibility has increased, therefore the use has increased,” said Amy Lowe, Arapahoe House’s outpatient program manager. “Inevitably, use leads to problems.”

In a treatment center in one of Denver’s northern suburbs, the waiting room was full. “I’m here to get my shot,” most patients say, waiting for a drug-treatment injection, and then calling family to assure them they had shown up.

People like this, recovering from an addiction to meth or heroin, often downgrade to marijuana. It’s become the replacement drug of choice, both natural and legal.

Arapahoe House didn’t publicly express an opinion on Amendment 64. Four years later, the organization still hasn’t. Lowe keeps her head down and voice steady as she ticks off what she sees as its effects: 70 percent more teenagers in marijuana-treatment programs, a jump in marijuana-related ER visits, a generation of kids with issues handling stress and emotions.

State officials who deal with the issue on a daily basis don’t paint nearly as dire of a picture, though. Neither do state-commissioned surveys on marijuana use.

One released earlier this year, the 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado survey, found 21.2 percent of teens had used marijuana in the past month, compared with a national average of 21.7 percent.

Larry Wolk, the Colorado health director, told The Republic the Healthy Kids results are credible. But Prop. 205 foes criticize the survey’s participation rate and point to a national survey that shows increasing use of the drug since legalization, and ranked Colorado No. 1 for youth marijuana use.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Survey on Drug Use and Health did rank Colorado No. 1 for youth marijuana use nationwide in its most recent survey. But the state ranked in the top five in recent years — dating to before legalization.

Colorado’s director of marijuana coordination, Andrew Freedman, said the biggest effect is the lack of an effect.

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“Most of the data we show is that Colorado looks much like it did before we legalized recreational marijuana,” he told The Republic. “Generally, people who used marijuana before use marijuana now. I would say we have not yet seen statistics that raises the public safety or public health concerns” that were predicted would occur.

In Arizona, a state analysis of Prop. 205 concluded nearly 588,000 Arizona residents 21 and older used marijuana in 2013, based on data from a federal survey on drug use. About 100,000 people are already legally using marijuana through the medical program.

Outside Ballpark Holistic Dispensary, David Sykes left two friends and walked in with $23 in cash. While he was gone, his friends kneeled beside a tree and picked cigarette butts out of the mulch, hoping for a bit of unsmoked tobacco.

Sykes, 32, says he moved to Denver a couple years ago, after a job search in Alabama came up empty. Without a car or a place to live, he couldn’t find work here either. He has a spot on a waiting list for subsidized housing, he says. Until that comes through, he’ll be sleeping in parks and on sidewalks, huddling in a shredded camo jacket.

“I am trying, man,” he says. “I smoke weed, but that’s not why I came out here. I didn’t come out here to smoke pot.

“That’s not why I came here,” he repeated, and he and his friends walked off, in search of somewhere private to smoke.

But the effect on users is just one worry for opponents. They also worry about how legalization affects everyone else.

Public smoking is one concern, though it’s not technically legal in Denver and would be banned under Prop. 205. Arizona’s proposed law would allow marijuana use only on private property.

Another concern is that dispensaries will attract crime.

Will it cause crime and disruption?

There’s a story Denver police Commander James Henning likes to tell now about the early days, 2013, when Amendment 64 was new.

Henning had just finished speaking at a community event when a woman approached.

“You’re welcome,” she told him.

“What are you saying?” he asked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I voted for it,” she said, looking up at him. “Because now you don’t have to spend your time chasing around all these people for marijuana. You can concentrate on other stuff.”

That's a misconception, Henning says. Denver police never spent much time chasing people who smoked pot.

Along the city’s popular 16th Street Mall, just a short walk from the City and County Building, people had long smoked in the open.

“It’s not like we were running around, spending a lot of time worrying about somebody with less than an ounce of marijuana before,” Henning says.

Legalization has left places like Denver with an overworked enforcement system, one without clear guidelines for issues like DUI enforcement.

“Marijuana is not alcohol,” Henning says, rapping his wedding ring on the table in a room at police headquarters. To regulate it in the same way is impractical.

With alcohol, it’s simple: An officer gives a breath or blood test, and if a driver tests above a number, that’s a DUI. That system doesn’t transition to marijuana. The same level of THC, an active component of marijuana, can affect different people in vastly different ways, and an easy way to test for marijuana impairment hasn’t yet been developed.

While Henning is frustrated with the vagaries of the system, statistics are equally vague on whether making marijuana legal will breed crime.

One obvious change? Exactly what the woman at Henning’s community meeting was talking about: Marijuana arrests decreased by nearly 46 percent from 2012 to 2014 — from 12,894 to 7,004, according to a Colorado DPS report. As a share of all arrests in Colorado, marijuana was responsible for 3 percent in 2014 compared with 6 percent in 2012.

While the state’s traffic-safety data is limited, the report said the number of summonses issued for driving under the influence where marijuana was present decreased 1 percent between 2015 and 2014, to 665 from 674. But instances in which marijuana was identified as the “impairing substance” increased to 15 percent of all DUIs in 2015, from 12 percent the year before.

Fatalities involving drivers with THC in their system increased 44 percent to 79 in 2014 from 55 the year before. But the detection of THC does not indicate impairment, the report said.

In Denver, marijuana-related crimes accounted for less than 1 percent of overall crime, virtually unchanged since legalization. At the same time "industry-related" crime represented less than 0.5 percent of crimes in Denver, including burglaries and larceny.

Those are some of Henning's chief policing concerns: burglaries, robberies, and smuggling.

Most retail pot purchases are made in cash, although some dispensaries process credit cards. Some banks and financial institutions refuse to handle money that has crossed paths with marijuana, fearing punishment from the federal government. Although federal authorities have said they won't interfere with state marijuana programs, the drug remains illegal under federal law.

Despite the statistically small crime numbers, it seems many in the Colorado industry have a story about somebody being robbed.

Hopper, the Ballpark COO, has a friend who was robbed at another store — the thieves bound her friend with zip ties and put a gun in her friend’s mouth before taking off.

A pair of recent illegal-grow robberies ended in shootings. And the black market did not disappear with legalization. A quick Craigslist search for marijuana brings up more than a thousand results. People still grow illegal plants and sell pot out of their homes, or on the street, or around the country.

It’s created a reversal that police departments including Henning’s are still navigating: For decades, the role of police was to keep marijuana out of the community. Now, Henning’s team is struggling to keep it in.

Within state lines, a pound of Colorado marijuana sells for about $2,000. Take that same pound to the East Coast, and the price can triple. The market for illegal marijuana hasn’t been wiped out of the state, it’s now being exported across the country.

“We’re supplying the black market across the United States,” Henning said. “We are the border state now.”

Is it really sold everywhere?

Toni Savage Fox, who made Denver’s first legal sale back in 2014, has sold the dispensary she owned then. She runs another in Salida, a mountain town west of Colorado Springs.

Salida has welcomed dispensaries, while neighboring Colorado Springs opted out of allowing recreational marijuana to be sold within city limits.

Colorado Springs' mayor traveled to Phoenix last month to warn of the potential harms of legalization in Arizona.

"What government legalizes and taxes it ultimately promotes, and do you really want to promote getting high for fun? That's we're talking about here — that's what we're telling our children," John Suthers told The Republic after a news conference hosted by opponents of Prop. 205.

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Colorado Springs underscores a key difference between Colorado's law and Prop. 205.

Colorado did not cap the number of licensed retailers but gave cities and towns the chance to decide if they wanted retail stores in their boundaries.

In Arizona, cities could block future stores, but only through an election, and couldn’t block existing dispensaries from selling. The state would initially cap the number of stores at about 147 – 10 percent of the number of Series 9 liquor stores. Medical pot dispensaries would get the first shot at retail licenses. Local governments could not block existing medical dispensaries from getting retail licenses at their current locations. Most Arizona counties have at least one medical dispensary and many more in urban areas.

So Arizona would be locked in to a lot of stores that already exist, making pot easy to get in most places – just as it is in Colorado.

Back inside the Ballpark shop, the young tourist leans over a case of edibles, unsure of himself.

Packages with names like Peanut Budda Buddha, Blueberry Bliss and Mile High Mint stared back at him. “So it tastes like sugar?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says Gladys the budtender. She recommends starting with hard candies with the same amount of THC. “I wouldn’t put it all in your mouth.”

After a couple minutes of deliberation, the man settles on a Cheeba Chew and a Zen Garden chocolate bar and rifles through his wallet for some cash.

Thirty-three dollars cash later, he’s out the door, a brown paper bag crumpled in his hand.