Colorado County Plans To Open The First National Marijuana Museum

Pueblo County, Colorado has played host to a series of cannabis firsts.

Pueblo County was the first in the world along with Denver to start selling regulated retail cannabisand then all of the sudden we were also the first community to have to face a do-over vote, said Jim Parco, spokesman for the No-on-200 campaign, which advocated against a November 8 ballot measure that would have repealed legislation for the sale, cultivation and processing of recreational cannabis in Pueblo.

When the people of Pueblo came out in droves to defeat Question 200 by 58 percent of voters, to be exact it signified to Parco that Pueblo was ready for another first.

Pueblo has been first on so many levels, Parco told Civilized. It just seemed fitting and appropriate to build the [countrys first] National Marijuana Museum here.

A committee known as Growing Pueblos Future, which includes Parco and a coalition of civic and business leaders, started planning for a museum that would celebrate the rich scientific, anthropological and cultural histories of cannabis back in the summer, but they paused their efforts when Question 200 qualified for the ballot.

Now that Pueblo residents have voiced their support for legalization once and for all, developments are back in full swing, and Parco has never been more certainthat Pueblo is the ideal home for the National Marijuana Museum.

Parco says cannabis boosts local economy

[Since] legalization became a reality unemployment in Pueblo is down around 4.5 percent. It has completely revitalized our community," said Parco of the region that struggled economically for many years due to adiminishingsteel industry. "Winning this vote was wonderful because we thought Now Pueblo has a fighting chance to actually develop an industry here.

Since Colorado legalized cannabis in 2012, Pueblo has benefited from 1,300 new jobs and annual tax revenue of $3.5-million, said Parco.He sees no better way to commemorate this triumph and similar ones taking place across the country than with a designatedspacethat honors them and providescontext for them.

Cannabis has got a really rich history and the problem is that theres really no way for people to learn about it we need to start thinking about educating on a broader scale, he said.

People go to museums to learn, to question, to actually have that lived experience. I think thats really important because cannabis has really only been problematic in this country for the last 80 years and were now actually seeing that arc of progress.

While the folks atGrowing Pueblos Future certainly wouldnt turn their backs tothe possibility of a productive discussion with those who pushed to get cannabis legalization repealed in Pueblo, their focus in developing the museum is on encouraging a more robust public dialogue with everyone wishing to learn more about the history and benefits of the plant.

For Parco, its an endeavour thats all about education.

Cannabis has been around for millions of years and its interacted with human societies for thousands its important that we actually ...