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Vail Daily letter: Where will the tourists smoke?

Several Eagle County towns and our Board of County Commissioners will soon be passing ordinances and proposing local ballot propositions in November to allow retail marijuana establishments in our county after Jan. 1.

My question to our officials is how will you inform the tourists from Netherlands, Japan, Spain, France, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, etc., where recreational marijuana is “illegal” that they cannot smoke marijuana in public places, on lift lines, on federal ski resort runs, and in our local lodging facilities? Many of them do not speak English but are being told marijuana is “legal” in Colorado for all winter tourists in the New Year.

Will the Vail and Avon police during the 2015 FIS World Alpine Ski Championships just arrest all these tourists to enforce the laws? Will the yellow shirts report them to law enforcement, or just let them smoke marijuana at their discretion and influence the other thousands of visitors to the championships? What about marijuana-impaired tourists driving rental cars on county roads and not understanding our new state DUID law, impaired limit of 5 nanograms of THC from marijuana in a blood test?



And, of real importance, where will the tourists be directed to smoke our “legal” marijuana that continues being “illegal” under the U.S. Controlled Substance Act? Will we have designated marijuana smoking areas in Vail and Avon and in unincorporated Eagle County? Before all these ordinances and land use regulations are passed, someone needs to answer these basic questions for the rest of us and the uninformed tourists coming to visit.

Buddy Sims

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