I wasn’t truly excited when legal cannabis laws were passed in the state of CO… I made an attempt to fight the drug from being legalized, but more than half of the population voted to approve full legalization of recreational marijuana in 2012.
I was actually concerned that recreational marijuana would turn Denver into a crime-filled area, but it has legitimately had the opposite effect entirely.
Not only are the crime rates substantially lower, but the amount of tourism has doubled in the past five years. Since recreational marijuana was legalized, our sales have been totally through the roof. I never had an immense amount of business & foot traffic, so I was pretty much forced to spend a lot of cash on advertising. All of that changed when a legal recreational dispensary opened up on the corner roughly a block away from our clothing & jewelry boutique. When the dispensary opened, I abruptly was able to get free foot traffic to our shop. People were parked up & down the street to visit cannabis dispensaries & our sales started to increase dramatically. I do not even need to advertise the shop any longer, because I get 50 or 60 visitors each day. For quite some time, I was worried that legalizing marijuana in Denver, CO would lead to a worse crime rate & a trashy city, even though I was totally wrong. Since the laws have changed, our city has seen a healthy amount of tourism. There is also a lot more cash from taxes that repair the roads, parks, traffic signs, & schools. There have not been any downfalls since the state made the decision to legalize the plant for basically everyone.