I’m sitting with a 40-something marketing manager for a large hotel. I show her this issue’s cover mock-up with the med-pot coverline (See “High Times,” page 18). She tells me she wouldn’t want to advertise in this issue because of the medical marijuana (MMJ) article. Of course I worried that I’d made a mistake in choosing to cover Colorado’s voyage into uncharted herbal frontiers. Perhaps I’d alienate other advertisers. As it was too late to change course, I cruised ahead and found a rich story full of intrigue, thugs, gold rushes, anecdotes of healing, ethical challenges and lots and lots of Nexus-y language: Like “herbal medicine, holistic health, abundant healing, organic, locally-grown, and wellness centers.”

My early research into this hot new holistic medicine included attending the first ever Colorado Cannabis Convention at the Convention Center downtown in April. I asked 5 dispensary owners who advertised their holistic/wellness/alternative-healing offerings if they were familiar with Nexus. None were. Since we’ve been the alternative healing magazine for Denver for 30 years, free in 500 locations, they would have seen Nexus if they really cared about holistic healing. I wondered about their real interests. Are some med-pot-shop owners donning a holistic cloak to increase their legitimacy? Imagine, the adjective “holistic” bestowing legitimacy! Not long ago, when I started in this business (well, 30 years ago) holistic healing and alternative medicine were regularly attacked as quackery!

I told Bruce Granger, co-owner of Herbal Connections-Cherry Creek this story (again, see p 18). He said the new law that regulates MMJ, medical marijuana, HB 1284, drove many of the less-genuine opportunists out of the business. Still, questions persist. I am certainly not alone in wondering what’s really going on in Rocky Mountain high country.

Let’s go back for a moment to the Cannabis Convention. I noticed a wild west “wow, can you believe this!” atmosphere. This was partly because of the four buxom young barely-uniformed “nurses,” and many other sexy dispensary representatives, enhancing their brand’s qualities. In the case of the nurses, the brand was “Doctor’s Orders.” And the wild frontier feeling also wafted from many booths that looked thrown-together yesterday (perhaps because the convention was cancelled and then resurrected at the last minute by California’s Kush Magazine).

Here was an industry truly in its infancy, bouncy and exuberant, creative and optimistic, barely out of the legal birth canal and dried off. Of course they are groping about for legitimacy and an identity, and even survival. Let’s remember that United States law still classifies marijuana with heroin, as highly addictive (it isn’t), as having no medicinal value (lots of users say it does, see below) and as liable to get you arrested. Prisons are overflowing with people convicted of marijuana offenses. (To put MMJ’s new somewhat-legal status in perspective, we offer you a time line of marijuana’s march out of infamy on page 20.)

Unlike complementary and alternative medicine’s long odyssey toward acceptance, medical marijuana has been put to a vote. 14 states have legalized MMJ, either through a general referendum, as in Colorado in 2000, or via state legislatures. Also in Colorado 100,000 people have voted with their pocket books and have obtained medical marijuana cards by paying physicians to examine them and recommend MMJ, and then by paying the State $90 per year. Around 120,000 others have applications pending. In a poll taken in April by the Pew Research Center, 73% of all Americans were in favor of the legalized sale and use of MMJ. Even among conservative Republicans, 54% favor legalization.

Step back for a moment and consider how big a deal this is: MMJ is nearly always presented by its marketers as an herbal medicine. A psychoactive one, true (although some strains are said to not get you high). It’s certainly not like ginger or chamomile. But still, it’s a plant that you can grow (I grew it as a kid). When you eat it or smoke the flowering parts of the female plant, taa-daa! You feel different. You may be changed in ways you find unpleasant. Or you may like it, even love it. But please notice how many people think you should have, if you are 18 or older and have undergone an application process, the right to consume this medicinal herb. Nothing like this has happened in my 30 years of publishing.

Sure questions remain, such as those I raise above. Another concern of many is whether MMJ legalization will lead to more widespread recreational pot smoking, especially among young people. These questions beg for objective un-politicized answers.

But I am no longer embarrassed as I was in that hotel. I am proud of our coverage of Medical Marijuana in this issue. And I am proud of Nexus’ staff who helped create it: Editor Lisa Turner, Designer Steve Sedam, and Production Assistant Stacey Dykema.

Goodbye 30th anniversary
This issue, sadly, ends our celebration of our three decades of stories and interviews. (see “Gems,” page 23.) But we are excited to embark into the next 30 with an awesome new look in our January-February issue.