Hickenlooper: I hate this experiment
In Durango, governor talks marijuana and business
Gov.
John Hickenlooper answered questions about airport issues and
attracting business investment during a visit Friday to the Durango
Discovery Museum.
By Chuck Slothower
Herald staff writer
As
legal recreational marijuana settles in across Colorado, Gov. John
Hickenlooper said he isn’t about to lead the way in promoting marijuana
business.
“I hate Colorado having to be the experiment,” he said Friday in an interview with The Durango Herald editorial board.
Colorado
has gained international attention for legalizing recreational
marijuana sales Jan. 1. Some communities, including Durango, have
moratoriums or bans in place.
Hickenlooper
said he wants to reduce youth marijuana use, an ambitious goal in a
time of greater availability. Hickenlooper pointed to evidence that
smoking marijuana harms long-term memory.
“We should not try to get people to do more of what is not a healthy thing,” he said.
Hickenlooper
opposed Amendment 64, which legalized recreational marijuana in the
state. Now that it’s on the books, Hickenlooper said he’s committed to
regulating it more strenuously than alcohol.
“We are going to regulate the living daylights out of it,” he said.
Hickenlooper nevertheless called the war on drugs a “dismal failure.”
The
Democrat from Denver, entering the final year of his four-year term,
covered a range of topics in his visit to Durango fresh off delivering
the State of the State address to the Legislature on Thursday. He toured
StoneAge Waterblast Tools and met with local business and government
officials at the Durango Discovery Museum.
Hickenlooper touted the ability of state agencies to cut through red tape for businesses.
“Our goal here is to make sure we support the business community,” he said.
Julie
Westendorff, chairwoman of the Board of County Commissioners, asked
Hickenlooper for help improving air service into Durango-La Plata County
Airport.
“We can’t control that,
but we can probably influence it,” Hickenlooper told her. Saying “the
squeaky wheel gets the attention,” the governor urged local officials to
continue to lobby for more flights.
Matt Taylor, CEO of Mercury, asked Hickenlooper how Colorado companies can get more attention from investors in other states.
“It’s
a bigger challenge here to find money if you’re not in one of those
areas where big money is” such as New York or San Francisco, Taylor
said.
Hickenlooper said the state has worked to brand itself, and officials have reached out to venture capitalists in other states.
On
education, Hickenlooper said he’ll work with the Legislature to pass
education reform in “small bites” after voters trounced Amendment 66,
which aimed to raise money for schools.
Hickenlooper
mentioned measures such as posting school financial data online to
provide transparency and boost confidence in education spending.
“People don’t trust the money in education is being spent wisely,” he said.
Hickenlooper
also explored ideas for improving the state’s response to wildfires. He
has asked the Western Governors Association, of which he is chairman,
to study the feasibility of a regional air fleet.
Touching
on the controversy over “fracking,” or hydraulic fracturing, a common
drilling technique, Hickenlooper said there needs to be a way for local
communities to negotiate with drillers to ensure the best possible
environmental mitigation.
Anti-fracking activists are planning to bring a statewide ban to the ballot in 2014.
Hickenlooper will be on the ballot himself, running for re-election against one of a cast of several early Republican hopefuls.
