Update below on Colorado’s ski areas.
Once again Arapahoe Basin earns bragging rights as the first ski area to open this year in Colorado, and it’s also the first to deal with a new problem: how to handle skiers and riders who smoke pot in public. The Summit Daily is reporting this weekend that an undisclosed number of passes have already been revoked at Arapahoe Basin due to the public use of marijuana.
Less than a year into Colorado’s landmark recreational marijuana law, there is still a lot of confusion on what is permitted, and who is responsible for enforcement. In case you don’t know, the new law allows adults 21 and older to possess one ounce of the drug, and to consume it in their own homes. It expressly forbids the public consumption of marijuana.
And to make matters more complicated, approximately one-third of ski areas are actually on federal land, and federal law does not permit the use of marijuana. So unbeknownst to local ski bums who want to light up on the slopes, they may be getting sideways with the feds.
From the embarrassing episode at Civic Center Park, to confusion and delays in the roll out of the regulations governing Amendment 64, the uncertainty around this patchwork of regulations and laws is just another area in which big government can hardly get out of its own way.
UPDATE: According to Westword and the Summit Daily, 22 of Colorado’s 25 major ski resorts are either wholly or largely located on federal land.