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An after-Christmas chat on Denver's 16th Street Mall with a 58-year-old out-of-town husband "patiently" waiting for his shopping wife revealed he first smoked marijuana 44 years ago in Michigan. This veteran pot smoker with beautiful curly salt and pepper hair confessed he was great in finding the best "hiding" places.
He manifested excitement that Colorado will be legal for recreational pot smoking on Jan. 1, especially that it would blow out the illegal Colorado pot market.
I shared that my lips had never held a joint, but that, with two older brothers murdered due to alcohol and tobacco rendering me fatherless at age 11, I would be more favorable for weed than alcohol and tobacco.
Also, I told him that legalizing pot would reduce the number of children removed from parents' custody due to pot possession arrests. He hadn't thought of that collateral damage.
We laughed when his wife joined us as she encouraged me to try pot.
Mike Sawyer
Denver, Colo.