Colorado voters were “reckless” for legalizing retail marijuana, Gov. John Hickenlooper said Monday, during a pair of debates marked by candidates who dealt with uneasy positions and pivots. “I’m not saying it was reckless because I’ll get quoted everywhere, but if it was up to me, I wouldn’t have done it, right?” he said during the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce debates. “I opposed it from the very beginning. Oh, what the hell, I’ll say it was reckless.”

The lunchtime debates between Hickenlooper and his gubernatorial challenger Bob Beauprez, and later Sen. Mark Udall and his Senate challenger Rep. Cory Gardner, were meant to focus on economic issues.

The governor explained that he believed Coloradans lacked enough data about health effects in voting for retail pot, and suggested other states should take heed.

Questions regarding immigration reform played a big role in both debates, which saw both Republicans pivot from past hard-line stances.

Beauprez — who has long said he doesn’t support amnesty-style solutions — said Monday he did not support requiring people in the United States who are here illegally to go back to their home countries before re-entering legally.

“I don’t think that’s necessary at all in the era we live in today,” he said.

That, however, conflicts with what Beauprez wrote on his blog, A Line of Sight, in 2007, when he called sending immigrants home a “cleansing process.”

Gardner said Monday he supports the DREAM Act, federal legislation that would grant permanent residency to qualified children of immigrants here illegally for the purpose of attending college or joining the military, as part of immigration reform.

He also was asked whether he believed in “a pathway to citizenship.”

“I believe some form of work status is going to be the ultimate solution that we come to,” said Gardner, who has long held he doesn’t support providing amnesty to those here illegally. “I believe earned status is going to be eligible to be part of the solution.”

Sen. Mark Udall twice ignored a question from Gardner about how much people should pay to help reduce greenhouse gases.

“We’re prepared to put a price on carbon,” Udall said. “The last time we put a price on pollutants was under the leadership of the first President Bush. … We developed new technologies and we moved this country forward. We have the lowest energy prices in the country right now in Colorado. We’re up to this challenge.”

Though public safety was not originally part of the business-focused debate, Beauprez raised the issue in reply to a question about regulating marijuana. He cited a Denver Post story published Monday about violent prison inmates being released without notice to the public, even though those released have vowed to murder others.

“It’s happened on his watch,” Beauprez said.

Hickenlooper responded, “This has been a problem in every state and all over the country: When someone serves their time, you can’t keep them, but we tried to pass a law last year where you could have civil commitment of people who have mental illness and those deemed a real threat to others, and we couldn’t get it through.”

Beauprez’s campaign accused the governor of “passing the buck” on public safety.

Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174, jbunch@denverpost.com or twitter.com/joeybunch