Ski-town weed: Deterrent or draw?
By Trevor Hughes, USA Today
BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Chicago-based travel agent and mother-of-four Lynn Farrell represents a kind of worst-case scenario for Colorado’s ski towns and resorts.
“Who really wants to ski where everybody’s stoned?,” asks Farrell, president of Windy City Travel. “It is a concern.”
It’s the second full ski season since Colorado legalized recreational marijuana sales, and the cannabis culture — or at the very least, concerns about the cannabis culture — remains very much top of mind for many out-of-state visitors. Talk to East Coasters, particularly, and you hear worries about pot smokers lighting up in the lift lines or filling gondola cars with pungent smoke, an image at odds with Colorado’s carefully crafted and otherwise well-deserved image as a clean-living destination for families.
And while most Colorado residents would tell you very little has changed since marijuana sales began, the perception this is the Wild West of Weed persists.
