Tag Archives: Pueblo

High-potency pot hurt my son, forced my family from Pueblo

This opinion first appeared in the Pueblo Chieftan newspaper

by Aubree Adams Guest columnist

My family moved to Pueblo in 2005 to be closer to family. We loved the people, weather, beauty and close access to hiking and the mountains.

Many families were moving to what I thought was Colorado’s best-kept secret.

We raised our kids in Pueblo, got involved with community organizations and I worked as a licensed physical therapist assistant at several well known local clinics. I got to know the people and heart of Pueblo through my jobs.

In 2014, the commercialization of THC, the mood-altering chemical in marijuana, changed Pueblo.

Continue reading High-potency pot hurt my son, forced my family from Pueblo

Home Grows Pose a Danger to Neighborhoods, Families

Parents Opposed to Pot asks Virginia and New York to amend their bills to ban homegrown marijuana.

Parents Opposed to Pot asks the states of New York and Virginia to amend their marijuana legalization bills to exclude home grows. Although both states are poised to legalize marijuana, there are two possible changes that could lessen the harms of marijuana legalization:  potency caps and eliminating home grows. Home grows are a major reason the black market does not go away but in fact grows stronger after legalization.

The New York bill, as it stands, allows six plants to be grown at home, and the Virginia bill allows for four. In Denver, a man tried to stop two teens from stealing the marijuana plants in his yard, killing one 14-year-old and paralyzing the other. 

Just last Saturday, March 27, six thieves broke into a home grow in Long Beach, California and two of them were shot by a man who lived at the home. When police executed a searched on the home, they seized “large quantities” of marijuana, firearms and cash.  Thieves consistently target home grows. 

However, law enforcement is generally restrained from doing a home search until after crimes are committed.  As people living in “legal marijuana” states have found, the appearance of drug sales in a home, a neighbor’s complaint of the stench of marijuana or careless overflow into the yards of others is not enough to mandate a search. Police ignore such complaints.

“After legalization, A home grower in my Pueblo, Colorado neighborhood was murdered by two men from out-of-state. They came to purchase marijuana and decided they would rather kill and steal the drugs. We also heard gunfire on our street after legalization,” says Aubree Adams, Assistant Director for Parents Opposed to Pot.

Eliminating home grows can lessen the crime associated with marijuana legalization states. 

New Yorkers should be especially concerned about the harms that will come in high-density living situations.  In the Bronx in 2015, Fire Captain Michael J. Fahy perished at a marijuana home grow. The fire appears to have started in a marijuana lab, a frequent occurrence in the first states to legalize. In Washington state and California, apartment residents lost their homes when their neighbors’ butane hash oil laboratories exploded, and in a few instances lost their lives. A Rancho Cordova explosion displaced 146 residents at once because of a butane hash oil explosion. Usually, the amateurs who make highly concentrated THC at home are trying to undercut the regulated marijuana market.

Home grows lead to more crime and there is no way to get around it.

Summary of Home Grow Dangers:

–Child access increases and it is impossible to keep away from children under age 21.

–Child & dog poisonings are occurring in the home, or at school when youth take the drug or edibles to school.

–Property crimes such as breaking and entering and personal injury/homicide crimes increase.

–Nuisance to neighbors is a problem (odor, people coming and going at all nights, drive by shootings).

–Squatter grows in rented units may make it harder to sell home after the growers leave.

–Landlords will be stuck with huge utility bills and drywall damage due to odor permeating drywall, requires expensive remediation.

–Hash oil manufacturing can cause explosions. At least two children died in hash oil explosions, one in Colorado and one in California.

–Every home grower is a potential drug dealer as they can turn into an illegal black market home-based seller.

— –Energy use is many times the normal household electricity consumption when growing indoors because of the extra lighting required.

Changing this aspect of the laws represents a chance to learn from other states. Colorado and Washington are now trying to put in THC potency caps on what is sold in cannabis shops. 

Parents Opposed to Pot is a 501c3 educational nonprofit based in northern Virginia. Contact at 773-322-7523 or visit the website, poppot.org, Facebook @poppotorg.

 

 

HS teacher tells truth about pot in Colorado schools

Teacher in Pueblo Describes the Problem

Defenders of marijuana such as Governor John Hickenlooper say youth use of pot did not go up after legalization.  When surveys don’t track the state’s largest schools, the information gets distorted. Many counties in the eastern plains and western slopes do not allow marijuana shops.  Interviews with teachers and administrators in Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo and the central part of the state tell another story.

We believe the evidence of teachers, counselors, parents and school administrators reveal more than any survey of students.   Please listen to this video:

Continue reading HS teacher tells truth about pot in Colorado schools

Libby Stuyt at Oregon Mental Health and Law Conference

(An advisor to Parents Opposed to Pot, Dr. Libby Stuyt, an addictions psychiatrist in Colorado, spoke at the Oregon Mental Health and the Law Conference in Portland.  The Mental Health Association of Portland published a blog about it on August 13.) Here it is:

Libby Stuyt, MD spoke at the Oregon Health Forum with Drs. Esther Choo of OHSU and Katrina Hedberg who is the State Epidemiologist and State Health Officer at the Oregon Public Health Division, and at the Oregon Law & Mental Health Conference in June 2017 on the unintended consequences of marijuana legalization. Continue reading Libby Stuyt at Oregon Mental Health and Law Conference