Petition supporters are fighting for community health, but county officials close to the numbers say the bigger impact would be on the economy.

Pueblo County Commissioner Sal Pace said the county won’t run any sort of campaign to counter an anti-recreational marijuana petition, which is circulating to place a question on the November ballot prompting voters to decide whether to continue the recreational marijuana industry in the county or scrap it all together.

But that doesn’t mean the commissioner will remain silent on the issue — he has already taken a strong public stance.

Shortly after the petition’s announcement, Pace joined dozens of cannabis industry supporters at the Colorado State Fairgrounds to denounce arguments that the industry is harmful to Pueblo.

“I wear different hats as a county commissioner. The county will not be taking a position or campaigning on the issue,” Pace told PULP. “I’ll be speaking about hard facts and numbers in the capacity as a county commissioner. As a private citizen, and as an individual outside my role as a commissioner, I will be campaigning to save jobs and save tax revenue and to keep access to medical marijuana available.”

The facts, Pace added, reveal that recreational cannabis shops and grows have positively impacted the county’s economy. In 2015, the county reported 39 percent of building permits were related to the cannabis industry and there was more than $14 million changing hands in marijuana-related business expenditures.

Pace was a major proponent of the marijuana grow excise tax that created a scholarship for Pueblo high school students and an infusion of money to several county infrastructure projects. Both would disappear if the petition made the ballot and passed.

Statistics and data, media attention and rhetoric will expectedly play into a fireball that may take the petition all the way to the ballot if it receives signatures from 5 percent of registered county voters.

So far, it’s hard to tell where the two sides will clash. While the county holds tight to economic arguments and cold hard numbers, supporters of the petition preach personal and community health and the right to vote.

Pueblo for a Positive Impact, the Facebook group attached to supporting the petition, tends to focus on two major points of concern with the industry, both of which have little to do with how the industry impacts the economy.

First, through studies from partisan-backed groups, Pueblo for a Positive Impact says marijuana is hazardous to health and that regulations aren’t working.

The group has hyped up recent reporting that shows high school and middle school students in Pueblo use marijuana more frequently than any other county in the state. However, the report, released by the Colorado Department of Public Safety, only reported 2013 numbers, which was before recreational cannabis was first sold in the state. The first sales in the state took place January 1, 2014.

“As a private citizen, and as an individual outside my role as a commissioner, I will be campaigning to save jobs and save tax revenue and to keep access to medical marijuana available.” — Sal Pace, Pueblo County Commissioner

Second, the group says voters in Pueblo County should have a choice in opting out of Amendment 64, as a majority of Colorado counties have since 2012.

PULP reached out to Pueblo for a Positive Impact, which also goes by Citizens for a Healthy Pueblo, and received only one statement, despite multiple requests for follow up questions.

“We believe the health and safety of our community is more important than the marijuana industry. Since 2012, over 70 percent of Colorado communities have opted out of the retail market,” group organizer Paula McPheters wrote in an email. “We believe Pueblo County voters should have the same choice. We look forward to gathering the signatures needed to place this question on the ballot for both the city and the county.”

It has been mostly local government bodies, rather than citizens voting directly to opt out of 64, however. Cities had until October 1, 2013, to decide if they were going to be dry municipalities once legal stores opened the following January.

Colorado Springs residents, for instance, supported legalization, but city council members voted to opt out. It was the same story for Alamosa, where 56 percent of voters were in favor of 64, but city council voted 5–1 to remain dry.

Municipalities can still create ordinances that ban recreational marijuana facilities, but those questions must appear on general election ballots during even-numbered years. 2016 is the first year a municipality is able to do so.

The city of Pueblo was reminded of the wording, buried on page 9 of the measure, last year when city council member Chris Nicoll said he wanted city voters to decide whether to allow recreational marijuana shops in the city during the 2015 election.

Nicoll is now running for a county commissioner seat.

During a town hall last May, Nicoll told opponents of expanding recreational shops into the city that if a measure ever allowed it, they could circulate a petition forcing council to repeal the ordinance or put another question on the ballot.

But since the industry has been established in Pueblo County, Pace said the impact of a prohibition could create even bigger problems than what the petition group points to now.

“The arguments for keeping the current system in place, I would say, are three-fold,” Pace said.

“One, it’s economic. The jobs are going to exist somewhere,” he said, so “let’s keep them in Pueblo.”

“Two, the tax revenue. Let’s keep the tax revenue in Pueblo instead of sending it to El Paso County or Denver. And three, this would have a significant impact on the medical market as well. And although it wouldn’t ban medical marijuana, these stores typically have dual-operating premises, and it would essentially shut down a lot of these business. It would end access for a folks who use medical marijuana.”

Pace said it would also put more burden on an already-strained police force with more movement on the black market, adding that Pueblo County has been a pioneer in marijuana-related regulation.

The commissioner jumped head-first into marijuana regulation and policy, serving on the Marijuana Enforcement Division Rule-making Committee and the Marijuana Tax Legislation Interim Committee, which produced two state bills.

But even being at the forefront of the cannabis industry conversation, there is still uncertainty on the exact impact legal marijuana has on Pueblo County. Officials are in the process of figuring how much money is generated from property tax related to cannabis businesses, and the county doesn’t keep any data on tourism.