With the new year comes a new legislative session, and there’s already talk about a potential effort to repeal the death penalty in Colorado. And John Morse, a Democrat and the new president of the Senate, says he is likely to support a repeal. This would be a major shift…
Dear Stoner: My retired parents want to try marijuana now that Amendment 64 has passed. I don’t know what I should do about that since they used to bust me for smoking back in the day. Kind Kid Dear KK: Don’t bogart that stuff, man. If your parents want to…
The world didn’t end on December 21, but it sure felt like it had at other times in 2012, especially as Colorado was subjected to shootings, murder, madmen, wildfires and presidential advertisements. This past year also held plenty of signs of the apocalypse for some people as legalized pot, Democrats…
“Bed Check,” Sam Levin, December 6 Home, Sweet Homeless Excellent work on Sam Levin’s piece regarding lack of services for women experiencing homelessness in Denver. Thank you for your expert storytelling and your service to the community. Dennis Kennedy Denver I really appreciated the recent article by Sam Levin. It’s…
Denise “Miki” Spies Miki Spies and her daughter, Sydney, sure love attention. The two got plenty of it in January when Sydney, an aspiring model, submitted a skin-baring photo of herself for the Durango High yearbook. When it was rejected, she submitted a second racy photo, this one showing off…
Time flies when you’re flying high, and this year we’ve managed to stay nice and medicated thanks to more than fifty metro-area medical marijuana dispensaries that we secret-shopped. Here’s a look back at the top ten most delicious, potent and appealing strains (and concentrates) we brought home in 2012. See…
Based on safety concerns and the potential for crashes in a congested corridor, Longmont officials are considering a ban on biking downtown through a so-called “dismount zone” that would require cyclists to get off their wheels and walk their bikes. And while cycling advocates aren’t opposed to encouraging safer behaviors,…
Nothing signals holiday spirit like the scrawled message “I hate black people,” accompanied by a swastika. This was the message that vandals in Colorado Springs left just before Christmas, according to city officials. In an alert, police say they are searching for leads in two cases — one involving a…
Hey, remember Occupy Wall Street? The almost-revolution that rallied Americans to address our ever-widening income gap, yet ultimately splintered into obscurity due to idealistic infighting? Yes, that one. While the movement is mostly behind us, it played a major role in the last election. And that’s why poli-sci lecturer Stephen…
The legalization of marijuana is such a hot topic that even Olivia Culpo, the newly crowned Miss Universe, is weighing in on its merits. Culpo is the first American to win the title in fifteen years — and she’s now representing a country where recreational pot is legal in two…
Uneasy hangs the cowboy-hatted head of the man in charge of one-fifth of the land mass in the United States. The strain of running the Department of the Interior seems to be catching up with Ken Salazar, who offered to “punch out” a reporter last month in response to a…
Neighbors are raising a stink over smells that they say emanate from a dog-snack factory that moved into the River North neighborhood — now the hot-hot RiNo — long before most of them did. This past spring, the city issued an odor citation to Kasel Associates Industries — but the…
It’s 2012 — at least for a few more days. It was the year that recreational pot became legal in Colorado, and people sure do love bragging about their marijuana on social media. Instagram is a particular hotspot for Amendment 64-related picture posts. Continue reading for our ten favorite Colorado…
Latest Word — and all of Westword, in fact — is taking off today and tomorrow (and again January 1). But the web never sleeps, and so during breaks in your holiday activities you can still log in and comment to your heart’s content. Those comments are the gifts that…
It’s been a big year for marijuana in the state of Colorado, and for a few stoners who’ve been nice this year, it’s about to get even better. Have pot lovers on your list and no idea what stocking stuffers they’d like? Forget the malls. Forget even SkyMall. We’ve lined…
After a week of silence since the Sandy Hook massacre, the National Rifle Association today said that more guns need to be part of the strategy to stop this kind of violence. Meanwhile, families of the victims of the Aurora shooting and the Columbine tragedy came together for an emotional…
When he was seventeen years old, people told Gary DeWayne Harris they didn’t expect to see him reach twenty-one. He was running with the wrong crowd, selling drugs, headed for trouble. Harris figured he had the street smarts to make a go of it, but his choices cut short his…
In doing research for our feature on the history of cannabis in Colorado, we came across some amazing old news stories from local papers about marijuana arrests and more. We’ll share the most memorable of them in our quasi-regular feature, Colorado Cannabis Time Capsule. Today’s item, from March 27, 1929:…
On Wednesday, we reported on a disturbing phone call made to Secretary of State Scott Gessler, in which a man said he knew where the Republican lived and wanted to kill him. We now have information about a second violent threat — specific details of which are outlined in Gessler’s…
As we reported earlier this month, the shooting of Chloe, the beloved dog of Gary Branson, has caused quite a stir. The incident was caught on video, and footage showing an officer firing shots at the dog five times has led to an outpouring of support on a petition page…
On December 10, the same day he signed Amendment 64 into law, Governor John Hickenlooper assembled a 24-member task force charged with developing policy recommendations. One of its members? “Addiction” expert Dr. Christian Thurstone. “I was personally sad for kids about the passing of 64,” Thurstone told Sam Levin. “But…
Last Friday, Stephen Barton, a survivor of the Aurora theater shooting and now a vocal advocate for stronger gun policies, was back in Colorado, doing outreach work. While in Denver, he heard the news about the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. It was hard to comprehend,…
