Colorado s New Lead Marijuana Monitor Ready for Heavy Lifting westword.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from westword.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Dominique Mendiola named senior director of Marijuana Enforcement Division
Mendiola replaces Jim Burack in the role, who is moving to a more active role in his career with the Marine Reserves. Author: Pat Poblete (Colorado Politics) Published: 9:00 AM MDT May 8, 2021 Updated: 9:00 AM MDT May 8, 2021
COLORADO, USA
The state Marijuana Enforcement Division has tapped Dominique Mendiola as its next senior director, the first Mexican American woman to hold the position since state law began allowing recreational marijuana sales in 2014. The video above is about new marijuana stores and cultivation facilities that won t be allowed to open in some neighborhoods.
Mendiola, the first senior director without a law enforcement background, joined the division in 2014. She most recently served as MED’s deputy director of policy, licensing and communications and has also served as Colorado’s director of Marijuana Co
Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division Director Resigns westword.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from westword.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Gov. Jared Polis signed a landmark bill affecting the cannabis industry on June 29 in front of Simply Pure in Denver. The dispensary was the first in the nation owned by a Black couple.
HB20-1424 creates a new social equity license that is intended to boost minority participation in the cannabis industry. The program goes into effect Jan. 1.
The bill also authorizes the governor to pardon individuals for possession of up to 2 ounces of marijuana â the current legal limit for medical patients â removing a barrier to ownership of marijuana businesses.
âThis month, across our whole state and our whole society, weâve had a long-overdue and renewed conversation about race, about racial inequalities ⦠and cannabis is no different than anything else,â Polis said at the bill signing. âThe majority of those in prison for cannabis-related crimes are people of color, while the majority of people that are making money legally on cannabis are white.â
Coloradans found many ways to bide their time during the COVID-19 pandemic: exploring the mountains, taking up baking, learning to roller skate, adopting dogs, and, yes, getting high. Perhaps not surprisingly, the mind-altering, stress-relieving, and boredom-busting qualities of cannabis proved even more enticing to locals in 2020, at least according to Colorado Department of Revenue data that shows from January to October alone, potheads spent more money on marijuana ($1,829,603,225) than they did in all of 2019.
That was a relief for people like Christopher York, the general manager of retail operations at Denver’s Verde Natural marijuana dispensary. “During the initial lockdown, we were incredibly stressed out here,” he says, “but our revenue and traffic shot through the roof.” In March as people prepared to hunker down for the foreseeable future and stocked up on, um,