What Denver Mayoral Candidates Think of Marijuana and Psychedelics

With Denver’s mayoral runoff set for Tuesday, June 6, candidates Kelly Brough and Mike Johnston are dishing out opinions on everything from renters’ rights to green chile.

Naturally, Westword also asked them about ‘shrooms and weed.

The first major city to decriminalize marijuana and mushrooms, Denver was also the center of the nation’s first recreational pot industry. And starting later this year or in early 2024, Denver and the rest of Colorado will begin regulating the medical use of psilocybin mushrooms.

Mayor Michael Hancock was already in office when the state’s voters passed Amendment 64 in November 2012, so his administration has been in charge as the city became home to nearly 200 dispensaries and the most growing operations in Colorado. However, the state’s marijuana industry is in the midst of a years-long recession, with record lows in wholesale prices and plummeting dispensary sales…and Denver is at the heart of it.

Hancock will likely be out of office by the time the city adopts substantial psilocybin regulations, leaving the new mayor in charge of how Denver approaches legalized psychedelics. Here’s what we know about each candidate’s approach to each substance:

Mike Johnston

A former state senator, Johnston believes that Denver should look “to other jurisdictions” as well as medical providers and patients while crafting local psychedelics rules.

“This will be uncharted territory for the next mayor, who will have to ensure we are respecting the will of the voters while making sure Denverites are safe. As mayor, I’ll look to other jurisdictions that have taken these steps to learn what’s worked for them and what hasn’t. I’ll also work closely with medical providers and patients to ensure we are regulating it fairly and safely,” he says.

In his response to Westword about potential shifts to the city’s approach toward marijuana, Johnston alludes to “changes to the regulatory structure” and supporting equity among business owners.

“I was chair of the Senate Finance Committee after legalization, and in that role, I did extensive work on the regulatory infrastructure we need to support marijuana legalization. I look forward to continuing to work closely with cannabis businesses right here in Denver to ensure our regulatory structure meets their needs and supports equity among business owners. Making changes to the regulatory structure will require close collaboration with both the business owners and the workers in the cannabis industry. The first priority is ensuring the business is safe, equitable and serves our community well,” he adds.

Denver’s marijuana industry hasn’t been very hot on Johnston, who was the face of a failed Denver ballot initiative last year that proposed raising the dispensary sales tax by 5 percent to fund out-of-school learning. Local dispensaries have been spotted with signs supporting Brough, while the Marijuana Industry Group, one of the state’s largest marijuana trade organizations, has officially endorsed her.

Kelly Brough

Head of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce for almost ten years before she took a job with Metropolitan State University of Denver, Brough says that if she’s elected, it would be her “responsibility to ensure that it is easy to do business in Denver” for marijuana enterprises, though she has “a specific concern about the lack of racial diversity” in the industry.

“Now, more than ten years after the passage of Amendment 64, the cannabis industry is well-established in Colorado and is facing many of the same types of challenges facing other businesses,” she says. “As mayor, it is my responsibility to ensure that it is easy to do business in Denver and my commitment to do all I can to support the economic vitality of our city. I am committed to clearing out the backlogs and improving efficiencies in our city operations, reducing the amount of time it takes to get permits, inspections and licensing completed, so that entrepreneurs and business owners can focus on their employees and customers instead of on red tape.

“With regard to licensing and taxation,” she continues, “I’d welcome further conversation with stakeholders, as I understand there are concerns. That said, I do want to highlight a specific concern about the lack of racial diversity in this industry, and believe it’s important to find solutions that increase the inequities we see. On the taxation front in particular, I think we have to be very careful that we don’t make the safer product that is subject to oversight and regulation so expensive that we drive consumers to a black market where product safety isn’t guaranteed.”

As for psychedelics regulation, “I believe we should use a similar process to what we used in developing regulations for the cannabis industry,” she says. “I would also engage some of the experts who helped oversee those regulations to guide our work.”