The Gazette, 10 Dec 2012 – Amendment 64 passed by just 10 votes in El Paso County in November, but neighborhood by neighborhood, the vote was anything but close. The center of Colorado Springs said yes to legalizing limited marijuana use by a strong margin, while suburbs and rural areas overwhelmingly said no, according to a Gazette precinct analysis of election results. There are exceptions. Palmer Lake and Ramah, far from the city center, both voted for legalization. And some relatively affluent Colorado Springs neighborhoods, including Rockrimmon and Upper Skyway, voted against it. But in general, the nearer voters were to the urban core, the more likely they were to give marijuana the thumbs up.

The Gazette, 03 Oct 2010 – The ski communities of Summit County, San Miguel County and Pitkin County are some of the youngest, fittest and healthiest counties in Colorado. So it would stand to reason that those counties would have the lowest rates of registered medical marijuana users. After all, use of medical marijuana, approved by voters in 2000, is limited to patients with debilitating medical conditions, including cancer, HIV and glaucoma.

The Gazette, 25 Sep 2010 – RAMAH – For more than 100 years, the only weed that posed an issue to this town was tumbleweed. But the sudden growth of medical marijuana has changed that. Ramah is the smallest town in El Paso County. The tidy clutch of houses anchored in the windswept prairie by mature, shady cottonwoods is home to between 119 and 125 people, depending whom you ask. There are no cafes or gas stations. There are no businesses at all.