The Denver Post has been aggressive in covering the marijuana legalization scene since the beginning of legal sales and consumption in January of 2014.
I recommend looking at denverpost.com/marijuana to read a week-long series of articles as a look back over the progress and issues Colorado has experienced over the last two years.
The gist of the articles coming up this week are that while the bulk of the “experiment” with legal growing and retail sales seems to be working fairly well, there are still issues that need more work. But be careful here: as The Post points out over and over again, reliable and thorough data about what is really happening ranges from non-existent to barely useful. You’ve heard me say many times that the poor data on cannabis use and sales stymied regulators in Washington and only now are useful numbers becoming available. The answer to just about any serious question of what is actually going on in Washington and Colorado is “Too soon to tell.”
I’ve been reading the Post faithfully ever since they assigned an editor and staff to cannabis coverage, something that other news outlets haven’t stepped up to yet, though the Oregonian has recently expanded staff and contributors for that state.
Additionally, the Post added a weekly TV program, Thecannabist.co hosted by the editor, Ricardo Baca, which is informative, entertaining, and sometimes silly. The first year of Ricardo’s efforts as an editor covering the new stuff was filmed for a documentary being released in February.
For now, the Denver Post is one of the best serious outlet working full time on decent news coverage in the west. I recommend watching the articles due out this week.