A former NFL player, a twelve-year-old medical marijuana patient and three other plaintiffs are suing Jeff Sessions and the Drug Enforcement Administration over the federal government’s classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug.
Republicans in the state Senate want to be clear about one thing: they are not anti-civil rights. Even though they clearly voted 3-3 along party lines in the powerful Joint Budget Committee to defund the Colorado Civil Rights Division and its commission, Republicans say not to worry; they intend to revisit the issue. But that’s of course after they have their way with the state agency. Here are the reforms they are calling for in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court case against Lakewood baker Jack Phillips.
After months of heated debates and public meetings, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission finalized new industry regulations on flowlines in the wake of the Firestone tragedy. Local governments called for a complex mapping database hosted by the state.
While advocating for a bill to create a safe-injection site pilot program, Representative Leslie Herod, a vocal backer of the measure, told us, “We already have a safe-use site in Denver. It’s operated illegally, and it’s operating because of need. That’s our Denver Public Library” — specifically the central branch at 10 West 14th Avenue Parkway, where six people overdosed during the first three months of 2017 alone — “and it’s a huge problem. We need to move that population away from the library, and away from the bathrooms in coffee shops and restaurants, and move them to a place where they can get connected with services.” But that’s not going to happen now, because the legislation is officially dead.
Reporters and anchors covering yesterday’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, frequently mentioned the disturbing similarity between images from the latest tragic event, during which seventeen people died, and those from the April 20, 1999 attack on Columbine High School in Littleton. But Columbine’s terrible legacy has been felt consistently over the intervening eighteen-plus years. As documented below, the Parkland incident was at least the 208th school shooting to take place in Columbine’s wake.
If you keep a cartridge filled with butane hash oil around long enough without using it, you’ll notice that it turns darker and thicker and has a bitter taste with less potency.
A Denver Police Department commander says that the cop at the center of an officer-involved shooting on the 2200 block of South Clermont Street, east of the DU campus, late on Tuesday, February 13, would have been justified in immediately shooting the suspect he encountered, since he was threatening his aged father with both a gun and a knife. Instead, the officer tried to convince the man to give up peacefully and only fired after the man shot his dad in the head. Both father and son died shortly thereafter.
As we’ve reported, many workers in Denver and beyond are finding it hard to make a living despite Colorado’s sustained economic boom. A new report provides insight about this apparent paradox by turning the spotlight on Coloradans struggling to make ends meet thanks in part to high housing costs, expensive child care and wages that have barely increased in real dollars during the past two decades.
I desperately tried to tiptoe around the flu bug that just swept through Denver, popping vitamin C and obsessively washing my hands for weeks. Didn’t matter. Within twelve hours of feeling a tickle in my throat, fluids were exiting my body as though I were a Civil War soldier stricken…
Our post yesterday about The Fan’s Darren “D-Mac” McKee calling out Fox31 anchor Jeremy Hubbard amid a hilarious rant about a contest to choose new voices for Denver International Airport train announcements helped launch a highly entertaining Twitter war. Amid the mayhem, Hubbard called D-Mac a “nimrod” and said the radio host was so unmemorable that he couldn’t recall meeting him, while D-Mac ripped into DIA for botching the competition concept even though it’s generating more attention than the airport’s PR staff could ever have imagined.
At this hour, investigators are at the scene of an officer-involved shooting on the 2200 block of South Clermont Street, in a neighborhood not far from the University of Denver. At last report, the person shot by a member of the Denver Police Department is in critical condition. The incident marks the fifteenth officer-involved shooting along Colorado’s Front Range since New Year’s Eve, as well as the sixth in nine days. It’s also the second DPD officer-involved shooting since February 5.
Even though Coloradans voted to legalize medical marijuana use in 2000 and recreational pot sales in 2012, employers in the state can still legally sack workers who score positive for cannabis on drug tests. But the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws’ local branch is trying to change that. Denver NORML executive director Jordan Person says the organization is currently looking for Colorado legislators to sponsor a bill that would prevent businesses from, in her words, “firing people on Wednesday for performing a lawful activity on Saturday.”
Most hot hemp crops occur when farmers are working with a new seed, according to the Colorado Department Agriculture, but other factors can cause a THC spike in hemp plants, such as the growing environment and overly long flowering periods.
The Three a Light app is based on the book of the same name that aims to teach regular people how to increase their yields from their cannabis plants.
The Hancock administration decided in January to fold the office of HOPE under the Office of Economic Development. That came along with a job posting for a new “Chief Housing Officer” that will oversee HOPE, a $20 million budget and up to twenty employees dedicated to housing issues. The job posting closed yesterday, February 12, the same day HOPE head Erik Soliván resigned.
Colorado has seen sustained growth in cannabis sales revenue since introducing retail sales, increasing over 120 percent from 2014 to 2017.
Republicans on the powerful joint-budget committee voted on Thursday to withhold funding from the Colorado Civil Rights Division, which is charged with investigating and enforcing anti-discrimination cases across the state. With the agency facing a sunset review this year, Republicans are keen on holding agency funding hostage to restructure the agency. This comes right in the midst of a U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit between a same-sex couple and a Colorado baker who refused to make their wedding cake.
One of Denver’s poorest neighborhoods is about to undergo a renaissance that could see it become a cultural and entertainment hub in the heart of the city over the next decade.
Since November, several sexual harassment claims have surfaced against sitting members of the Colorado General Assembly on both sides of the political aisle. This time, Denver House Democrat Susan Lontine has publicly accused Senate colleague Larry Crowder of pinching her butt and making inappropriate comments.
Last night, Arielle Gold, who we introduced you to in our post about Colorado women taking part in the 2018 Winter Olympics at Pyeongchang, South Korea, earned a bronze medal in snowboarding, sharing the podium with gold medalist/instant superstar Chloe Kim. She’s the second Coloradan to medal in the games thus far, following Red Gerard, highlighted in our Colorado men at the 2018 Winter Olympics roundup, who took the gold in snowboard slopestyle. At this writing, if Colorado was a country, it would have won more medals than 81 of 93 countries, territories or entities taking part in the competition.
The NCIA Seed to Sale Show, held in Denver for the last two years, will move to Boston in 2019, according to an announcement from the NCIA.
As our Patricia Calhoun has reported, the search for new voices to announce stops on the Denver International Airport trains has turned into a highly unusual and kinda awkward contest in which travelers and other interested parties can vote for their favorites among five women and five men in local media. But last night, one prominent personality not on the finals list made himself heard loud and clear. During his regular afternoon-drive show on 104.3 The Fan, Darren “D-Mac” McKee, a recent Westword profile subject, went off on a hilarious rant about his exclusion and the continued participation of Fox31 anchor Jeremy Hubbard, whose voice, he believes, isn’t nearly as memorable as his hair.
