Legal marijuana saves town

It was a ghost town that now has a life.

Plunging fuel prices had all but erased the local tax base. Local leaders had exhausted all their emergency options to keep the community operational, and braced themselves to tear up the town charter and be absorbed into surrounding Mesa County. The same recession that threatens to turn North American oil country into a new rust belt seemed likely to dissolve a town that’s been there since white settlers arrived in Ute indian territory in the late 1800s.

But now, DeBeque’s citizens can exhale. After narrowly approving marijuana growing and retail sales operations within their borders in the summer of 2014, the town is gulping down more tax revenue from cannabis alone than it got in pre-bust years from all oil and mineral taxes combined.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.