Legal recreational marijuana in Colorado has caused a lot of interesting situations. We have TV ads reminding people to not carry it over state lines, stick around and enjoy it in Colorado. The state highway department has a different set of ads reminding people about not driving while impaired from smoking pot (drinking not mentioned).

I was watching an online town meeting where at least three of the citizens who made comments via the microphone were stoned. I kept thinking 'what's wrong with that man?' and later realized he was high. All three of them were middle-aged, not long-haired counter-culture types like in the 1970s. I'm wondering if those folks looked at themselves via the recorded session and realize how stupid they were acting.

It has been very difficult for a lot of folks to find jobs because they can't pass the drug test, and conversely it's hard for employers to find workers because the ideal younger guys who the county wants to hire for its road teams spend their down time smoking pot. Recently, the county was talking about how they were going to loosen their rules for the younger workers, and I wondered how the older workers felt about having different requirements just because of their age or longevity with that employer. I doubt the looser rules included leniency about drug use, so will keep an ear out for what else they could loosen up. Seems like if some issue was important enough to create an employee policy, it must have been there for a reason.

The motels in the area who advertise as being weed-friendly - there is a vacation rental website for that - are doing a good business because even local people who don't want to have a smoky weekend at home like to get away to the mountains and light up. The owner of a place downstream from me told me this is the best year for bookings that she's ever had.

I've had weed smokers rent from me - it wasn't discussed ahead of time, same as when people show up with their dogs without asking. I'd rather have stoners than dogs, though, as long as they don't smoke inside the house - same as with cigarettes.

Meanwhile, sheriffs from neighboring states Nebraska and Oklahoma are suing Colorado because of all the pot that makes it way across their borders. I saw a news piece about a small Nebraska town with a pot shop 13 miles away in Colorado. Their jail is full and they spend all their time pulling over suspicious cars and searching them. Note that 'suspicious' is often any car with Colorado plates.

And the sheriff of the county I live in has joined in that lawsuit because regardless of what the citizens of Colorado voted for, using pot is still a federal crime.

When recreational pot first became available, a lot of people on food stamps used those debit cards to buy the edibles, and I cringe to think how many children went hungry, or were fed pot brownies. A couple of them, little kids, made the news for innocently bringing pot edibles to school. The state has been unable to close this loophole in an effective manner.

Where there has been some tightening on the use of debit cards in pot shops, the workaround is to use the debit card in the ATM there at the shop to get cash to pay for the pot, and then it's not limited to so-called food items.

We've had legalized medical marijuana for several years, and that's a good thing, it's just when the recreational use was legalized that all hell broke loose.

Not that there is anything wrong with all this, aside from the hungry food stamp children, people driving impaired, and all the slackers who would rather smoke and be on welfare or disability than work, that's just the way it is.