A S P E N T I M E S W E E K L Y F Janu ar y 10 - Janu ar y 16 , 20 19 18

peak performance high country

ON NEW YEAR’S EVE, the Aspen Police Department received a staggering 99 phone

calls between the hours of 5:00 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. According to Assistant Police Chief Bill Linn, it wasn’t a record-breaking year, but headline-making enough to make me reach out and ask him, “How many of those

incidents involved cannabis?” My assumption was zero and I

was correct.According to Linn, “Alcohol and

drugs were factors in most of the calls. And until recently, marijuana

was not even broken out separately and fell under the ‘drug’ umbrella. On New Year’s Eve, we were only dealing with strictly hard drugs (with a tragic occurrence resulting in one death) — but now marijuana sort of occupies this no man’s land territory because it’s legal here, yet still considered a ‘drug’ federally.”

“I think the numbers speak for themselves and no matter what the numbers are, on a holiday like New Year’s Eve or otherwise, it’s clear that alcohol incites more unpredictable and more violent behavior in people,” explains Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo.

Linn adds, “I’m not trying to make a demeaning comparison, but (pot users) are a lot more threatening to a bag of Cheetos

than to each other. It’s just not the way the substance affects people in my experience.”

The debate on cannabis and alcohol is nothing new, but in the years since the recreational legalization of marijuana, it has only intensified. While I was catching up on my favorite periodicals over the holidays, a long read in the December issue of 5280 magazine by former Skiing magazine editor Tracy Ross begged the question, “Skiing & Booze: Does Colorado Have A Drinking Problem?”

While official research on the health benefits of consuming marijuana are still largely lacking, there are numerous studies citing the harmful effects of alcohol. Ross referenced a recent one published

in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, “Which stated emphatically that risk of health issues goes up the more alcohol you consume and that the only ‘safe’ level of alcohol consumption is none.”

She also shared that according to the American Journal of Public Health, when it came to American counties with the highest incidence rates of “any type of adult drinking,” Pitkin County ranked third.

However, cannabis isn’t completely in the clear as an issue Pitkin County officials have to deal with year-round. In 2018, Pitkin County made 133 alcohol-related contacts compared with 36 incidents involving marijuana, which ranged from underage possession to the substance simply being present

KATIE SHAPIRO

99 PROBLEMS BUT CANNABIS AIN’T ONE

19A S P E N T I M E S . C OM /W E E K LY

high country peak performance

“Being in the life of the movies, you know, I kind of look through my life through the filter of movies. I find directors and fellow actors all over the place in my life. One guy, he had nothing to do with the movies, but I’ve taken a lot of direction from him. That’s Bucky Fuller. Bucky, he’s most famous for the geodesic dome, but he made a great observation about these oceangoing tankers. And he noticed that the engineers were particularly challenged by how to turn this thing, you know? They got this big rudder, it took too much energy to turn the rudder to turn the ship. So they came up with a brilliant idea. Let’s put a little rudder on the big rudder. The little rudder will turn the big rudder, the big rudder will turn the ship. The little rudder is called a trim tab.

Bucky made the analogy that a trim tab is an example of how the individual is connected to society and how we affect society. And I like to think of myself as a trim tab. All of us are trim tabs. We might seem like we’re not up to the task, but we are, man. We’re alive! We can make a difference! We can turn this ship in the way we wanna go, man! Towards love, creating a healthy planet for all of us.”

— Jeff Bridges concluding his acceptance speech after receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2019 Golden Globes and in turn, setting the pot-smokers of Twitter ablaze with admiration.

HIGHDEAS

P A U L D R I N K W A T E R / N B C

on-property when an officer was responding to another issue. And there have been zero instances of individuals admitted to detox for cannabis in Pitkin County … ever.

DiSalvo and Linn agree that the biggest problem cannabis causes is when tourists and locals alike break the law when it comes to consumption.

“It’s mostly dealt with by issuing a verbal warning. What are we going to do? Force them into a car where there is the risk of an under-the-influence situation? The way marijuana is most commonly consumed is by smoking it and the fact is that there is no place — specifically for tourists — to do that,” Linn says.

DiSalvo says, “I wish (the city of Aspen) would seriously consider

a club type of atmosphere. There hasn’t been much movement on the matter and I do find some level of hypocrisy that during events like Food & Wine, you can walk around town with your merlot and no one says a word. I’m not even sure it’s not encouraged!”

Public and social use still has yet to be regulated at a state level, despite recreational retail sales being legal for more than five years. But now, with notable pot proponent Jared Polis as governor, the industry expects 2019 could finally be the year consumption laws change in Colorado. Here’s hoping …

Katie Shapiro can be reached at katie@katieshapiromedia.com and followed on Twitter @kshapiromedia.