Pot votes in Colorado, Washington raise specter of weed tourism

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"Colorado’s brand will be damaged, and we may attract fewer conventions and see a decline in leisure travel," Visit Denver CEO Richard Scharf said in a statement before the vote.

Colorado’s governor opposed the measure but said after its passage that he didn’t envision marijuana tourism materializing.

"I don’t think that’s going to happen," Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper said. "They’re going to flock here to buy marijuana as if they’re going to take it back? On an airplane? That seems unlikely to me."

Colorado’s measure specifically bans public use of the drug. But guidelines for commercial sales are still to be worked out. The state’s 536 medical marijuana dispensaries are banned from allowing on-site consumption, but lawmakers could set different rules for recreational marijuana shops.

Marijuana backers downplayed the impact on tourism. Aldworth pointed out that pot-smoking tourists wouldn’t exactly be new. Colorado ski slopes already are dotted with "smoke shacks," old mining cabins that have been illicitly repurposed as places to smoke pot out of the cold. And the ski resort town of Breckenridge dropped criminal penalties for marijuana use two years ago.

"Some folks come to Colorado and enjoy some marijuana while they are here today," Aldworth said.

The sheriff of the county including Aspen was sanguine about the prospects of pot-smoking visitors.

"For me, it’s going to be live and let live. If people want to come to Colorado because pot is legal — and that’s the sole reason — it’s up to them," Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo told The Aspen Times. "I am not the lifestyle police."

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Associated Press reporter Manuel Valdes in Seattle contributed to this report.

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