Article April 7, 2014 Issue

A 'Rocky Mountain high'

Annette Dutenhoffer

This article originally appeared in The Christian Science Monitor.

Ahhh, beautiful Colorado! The other day I was driving home from a nearby state, and as I left the flat and barren wintry countryside of Wyoming and caught a glimpse of the snowcapped and majestic peaks of the Colorado Rockies, my thought was naturally uplifted.

I thought of John Denver’s ’70s folk hit, “Rocky Mountain High.” His lyrics speak of breathtaking scenery, much like the gorgeous view I was taking in. He describes meteor showers that rain “fire in the sky,” along with cathedral mountains, silver clouds, serene lakes, and the quiet solitude of the forest. From his house in Aspen decades ago when he wrote those lyrics, the beauty made him feel so high, he thought he could touch the sun.

A different kind of “high” has been in the spotlight in Colorado lately. A new law went into effect at the beginning of the year that legalizes the sale and use of recreational marijuana. The Christian Science Monitor reported long lines of Coloradoans waiting for hours to buy the locally grown cannabis. The story pointed out that the main glitch in those first days was that there was only a handful of marijuana dispensaries to handle the enormous demand for the drug (see Amanda Paulson, “Legal Marijuana in Colorado: Was Rollout a Success?” January 7, 2014).

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