SOUTHERN COLORADO
THE NEW NORMAL
9.2019
Your next favorite wine is from Colorado
Higher Ed
Colleges add cannabis courses to the curriculum
The Art of Fashion
A must-see exhibition in Colorado Springs
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ISSUE 9 //VOLUME 3 //9.2019
FEATURES 26
SP EC IAL R EP OR T
Higher Ed
A college degree in cannabis is a real thing. And it’s a big sign the industry is legitimate.
32 Off the Road Again
Tales of an accidental RVer.
38 Life Near the Fast Lane
I spent 25 years as a rock critter. Was it worth it?
DRIVE IT HOME Life lessons learned on the road
32
every issue ASPEN’S MAROON BELLS There’s gold in them there hills this month
16
9 Editor’s Note 11 The Buzz 16 AroundTown
FALLIN’ FOR COLORADO
20 TasteBuds
WALK ON THE WINE SIDE
48 The Scene
SENSI NIGHT IN MANITOU
50 HereWeGo
DOG DAYS OF SUMMER
Sensi magazine is published monthly by Sensi Media Group LLC. © 2019 SENSI MEDIA GROUP LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 7
sensi magazine ISSUE 9 / VOLUME 3 / 9.2019
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editor’s
NOTE
OF IT ALL
Welcome to September, everyone. It’s harvest time in Colorado wine country, and if the expert sources in our cover feature are to be believed, your new favorite wine just may be from Colorado. I’ll cheers to that. This month is a time of transition, as summer is ushered out
Faragosi Farms //
by fall and parents usher their kids back to school where it’s a
RECREATIONAL DISPENSARY
whole new year. The special report this month focuses on “high-
Greenhouse Payment Solutions //
er learning”—colleges across the country are adding cannabis
PAYMENT PROCESSING
courses and degrees to the curriculum to meet the growing de-
Herbal Healing // COMPLIANCE
mand from industry employers who have jobs to fill but no qual-
Incredibles // WELLNESS Industrial Hemp Recycling //
MMJ & HEMP WASTE MANAGEMENT
Lux Leaf // EDUCATION marQaha // SUBLINGUALS AND BEVERAGES Monte Fiore Farms //
RECREATIONAL CULTIVATION
Next Frontier Biosciences // BIOSCIENCES NuVue // LIVE RESIN The PAT Pen // CO2 VAPE PEN Pyramid // DISTILLATES Sharp Solutions // TRANSPORTATION Third Day Apothecary // MEDICAL CULTIVATION
ified candidates to hire. Give it a few years, and the first students with four-year undergraduate degrees in the subject will be graduating. In the meantime, wherever you matriculate, there are options. That includes if you matriculate nowhere but your couch—institutions across the country offer online courses. And right in our backyard, CU Pueblo is one of the first bastions of higher education to offer a cannabis minor program. This is also our annual arts & culture issue—a celebration of acquired tastes and refined activities. Summer is on its last legs, football is back in season, the aspens up north are starting to get that golden glow. Take the time to go explore. Learn something new. Appreciate the art that surrounds you. You’re literally covered in it. Fashion is a wearable art form (and there’s a museum exhibit in town to prove it), and it’s just one of many forms we cover in this issue. The issue is an ode to the creative class, to the people who make the things that make our lives better. It’s a celebration of the art of living, and a guide to doing that well. To living a life of substance and style. And ultimately, it’s meant to be a motivating reminder that beautiful things can emerge if you give yourself space to create. In living color,
Stephanie Wilson E D I TO R I N C H I E F SENSI MAGAZINE
sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 9
10 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
Mantilla, Fenella Fenton and Jeff Thomson, New Zealand
Skin, Marjolein Dallinga, Canada
PHOTOS BY WORLD OF WEARABLEART™
Going Out of Style You’re fashionably late to the World of WearableArt exhibition at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center at Colorado College. If you wait much longer, you’ll be a fashion victim; it closes on Sept. 22, so put on your fancy pants and make a day of it. The 32 award-winning garments presented in this special exhibition represent some of the most original, provocative, and unorthodox objects in the World of WearableArt Historic Collection, demonstrating what designers from a wide variety of occupations can imagine when they are released from the constraints of “fashion” and are encouraged to see the human body as a blank canvas. Now in its 31st year, the New Zealand-based World of WearableArt combines an international wearable art competition with a spectacular stage show where dance, the-
Noor Reverie, Rebecca Maxwell, Massey University, New Zealand
atre, fashion, music, and art are combined. The international traveling exhibition showcases the breadth of its mission to take art off the wall and adorn onto the human body. It’s here in Colorado Springs as part of the 100th anniversary of Broadmoor Art Academy. –Stephanie Wilson Learn more: FAC.COLORADOCOLLEGE.EDU .
"In difficult times, fashion is always outrageous." —Elsa Schiaparelli sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 11
Culture Adjustment It’s a turbulent time in America. In the second half of this decade, we—our collective society— have gone off the rails. Mass shootings, kids in cages, and all the other “how is this real life” news items piling up in our unread notifications, distracting us with sheer abundance. We lost sight of where we are, forgot where we were going. Not sure if that place even exists anymore—or if we want it to. The old American Dream of 2.5 kids and a golden retriever, a house in the suburbs, a stable 9–5 job at the same company you’ll retire from in 30 years when you’re a decade or so away from hitting the average American lifespan: I’d pray to wake up screaming from that nightmare. I’d bet most of my millennial brethren would. But not that long ago, that would have been a life well-lived. Culture evolves. The idea of a universal American Dream is long gone, and the pressure to conform left with it. With no goalposts to guide us, it can feel like everything is chaos. But from a different perspective, it feels like freedom. It’s a blank slate to shape our futures. To affect change by creating what we want to see. 12 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
Chuck Palahniuk, best-selling author of 17 works of fiction but best known for Fight Club, puts it better than I can: “The first step—especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money— the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.”– Chuck Palahniuk And take the time to appreciate what others are creating. Go to museums and galleries, attend shows, put in your headphones and dance down the street. Read something every single day. Start by picking up Palahniuk’s new book, Adjustment Day, a dark comedy in which “geriatric politicians bring the nation to the brink of a third world war to control the burgeoning population of young males, while working-class men dream of burying the elites.” Or as one review put it: “A dystopian nightmare that takes all the fractures of our modern society and escalates them to a perverted climax.” Biting satire or visionary prediction? Time will tell. –SW
A Trusted Voice of the Industry Every weekday J and Paul bring you the latest news and info on the cannabis industry locally and globally. Tune in to hear from industry leaders and take advantage of The Daily Dose deals on our webpage. Broadcast live on Gnarly 101.3 FM Monday-Friday, 6-7am and 6-7pm So... tune in to the only cannabis talk show on the radio in Southern Colorado to get the 411 on the 420!
For more information or to listen LIVE, visit our website www.TheDailyDoseTalkShow.com sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 13
Spice Up Your Life
In some places, the sight of falling leaves is synonymous with fall. In Pueblo, the savory aroma of roasting chilies signals summer’s end. The annual Chile & Frijoles Festival, held each year the third weekend after Labor Day, is Pueblo’s harvest celebration. The festival is hosted by the Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce. Every year, thousands pay homage to Pueblo’s bestloved crop: green chilies, particularly Pueblo Chile. The event features live entertainment, street vendors, cooking competitions, and chilies, chilies, chilies! Held downtown along Union Avenue, the festival draws Pueblo residents as well as people from across the state and around the nation. 14 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
–SW
Sensibility
"Great art picks up where nature ends."—Marc Chagall
PUEBLO CHILE PHOTOS COURTESY OF VISIT COLORADO
On Sept. 20–22, celebrate a quarter-century of sweet heat in Pueblo. // FESTIVAL.PUEBLOCHAMBER.ORG
sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 15
{aroundtown } by L E L A N D R U C K E R
FALLIN’ FOR COLORADO This time of year is perfect for exploring some of the state’s celebrated spots.
selves, there are trails to take you into the forest, over rushing streams and into the pure, dank smell of wet pine. Then have lunch or dinner at the nearby Woody Creek Tavern. Once the watering hole where gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson, who lived nearby, once held court, it’s known today for its outrageously good Mexican fare. Located next to a trailer park just south of the place where Woody Creek joins up with the Roaring Fork River, the tavern practically straddles the bike path that connects As-
Two principles have always guided my travels. The first
pen with Glenwood Springs, so it now caters to the cyclist
is to always go somewhere to learn something. The sec-
crowd. Given its iconoclastic history, I find that very funny.
ond is to avoid doing it in summer; it’s much easier to travel
You can book a hotel in Aspen, but it’s no problem (and
in the shoulder seasons: spring, yes, but especially the fall.
probably cheaper) to find a room in Glenwood Springs for
Keeping the second principle in mind increases the chances for the first to happen. There are more opportunities for reflection—something that didn’t really occur to me until
the night, where the hot springs always await.
Carousel of Happiness/Caribou Ranch Trail
I got stuck in a traffic jam on a sweltering July day in Yel-
No doubt about it. Nederland is its own place. Nothing
lowstone National Park—and at least some solitude can be
like it anywhere else. Just slightly out of step with the rest
an important component of learned traveling. Besides the
of the world. And the Carousel of Happiness might be the
chance to really enjoy something without the distraction of
village at its most whimsical. Sitting in the town’s shop-
selfie-taking tourists, autumn’s colors are deeper and more
ping center parking lot, the carousel reflects another time.
intense, and the general feel is more cool and calm than hot
If you have children and haven’t hit it yet, this should be
and sultry. Traveling in such pleasant conditions is a nice
high on your bucket list. Local artist Scott Harrison hauled
way to ease yourself into the colder months.
an original carousel made by Charles Looff to town and
With that in mind, I’ve compiled two trip suggestions
then carved more than 50 imaginative figures for chil-
for you this month. There’s one on either side of the Con-
dren—and adults, too. Music is provided by a 1913 Wur-
tinental Divide, but both are in the mountains where the
litzer organ, and there’s a puppet theater and a story booth
aspen groves go through their annual glow-up this month,
for those inspired by the experience. And don’t be afraid.
turning panoramic vistas in the photo-op gold mines you
Let your inner child loose with a spin on the merry-go-
don’t want to miss.
round with your favorite carved animal. You can’t go wrong. Pair it with a hike in the Caribou Ranch Open Space north
Maroon Bells/Woody Creek Tavern
of town. Several loop trails of varying intensity lead to the
Starting with the one farther away, the Maroon Bells are
Blue Bird Mine complex and the old DeLonde Homestead.
among Colorado’s most iconic and photographed locations.
There’s also a barn that, in the 1970s and early ’80s,
They’re located at the end of a 12-mile drive (or bike ride)
housed a “destination” studio that attracted world-class
near Aspen, and fall is a great time to visit. In autumn, the
recording artists, John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, U2, Billy
gold-plated aspen groves contrast sharply with the green
Joel, Chicago, Elton John, and Rod Stewart among them,
pines and grass. Besides the grandeur of the Bells them-
before it was closed after a disastrous fire in 1985.
16 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
THE MAROON BELLS Fall foliage near Aspen peaks at the end of September, and photos don't do the stunning scenery justice. But that doesn't stop anyone from trying; the Maroon Bells are touted as the most photographed peaks in North America. If you go, prepare to contend with the crowds.
sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 17
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sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 19
{tastebuds } by J O H N L E H N D O R F F
Take an IPA break and embrace Colorado’s chill vine culture.
WALK ON THE WINE SIDE 20 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
Which kind of Colorado tasting room—beer or wine— do you associate with the following: Cornhole? Live music? Food trucks? Shorts and T-shirts? If you’re being honest, beer pitches a 4–0 shutout. Maybe familiarity plays a part. Along the Front Range, there are hundreds of tasting rooms for breweries, cideries, meaderies, and distilleries and even the state’s first hard seltzer-y, but only a handful of winery tasting rooms. Pinot noir has a perception problem, i.e., we perceive wine as this super-elite, snooty activity with a steep learning curve and a special dialect denoting terroir and “aromas of violet, rhubarb, and rich forest floor.” If you grew up in a family where wine was always on the table, you know how down-to-earth and entertaining wine can be. To the uninitiated, wine culture doesn’t exactly scream “FUN!” Luckily, the corkscrew is being passed to a new generation of wine drinkers. Unfortunately, some millennials don’t know what a corkscrew is. Some people see the typical wine bottle, label, and cork as a wasteful vestige, not a “tradition.” That’s just fine with a new generation of Colorado winemakers who are upturning traditional ways of serving, making, and appreciating wine. As was the case with the craft beer, cider, and cannabis, Colorado does things a little differently when it comes to craft wine culture.
SUSTAINABLE MEANS LOCAL You know where your eggs came from, you patronize a local coffee roaster, and when it comes to beer, you try not to quaff any stout or IPA brewed outside the city limits. Yet for some reason, when picking a wine, you grab a bottle shipped from California, Oregon, Italy, France, Australia, and Chile—in fact, anywhere but Colorado. You are excused if you haven’t thought much about Colorado wines. While the state had a booming wine industry before Prohibition, by 1990, there were only five wineries in the state. Now there are more than 150 Colorado wineries, including a slew along the Front Range producing some award-winning vintages. Wine Enthusiast, Vogue and other magazines have named Colorado’s Grand Valley as one of America’s up-andcoming wine-growing regions worth visiting. sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 21
WHERE TO FIND COLORADO WINE Most local liquor stores carry at least a couple of Colorado wines, but a few focus on the state’s wineries and feature the widest selection. According to local wine experts, the best places include Downtown Wine & Spirits in Colorado Springs and Big Bear Wine in Pueblo.
If you need to get all nerdy and study wine and become a master sommelier, more power to you. Most of us just want to have something tasty to drink that goes with food and the independent Colorado way of life, which includes doing stuff outdoors…where you don’t want to bring along a corkscrew.
CANNED, COTTLED, BOXED, AND CASKED In 2002, there was canned beer, but not great canned American beer. Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons took the leap and started craft-canning its Dale’s Pale Ale, sparking the ongoing US canned-beer renaissance. There was canned wine in 2011, but Denver’s Infinite Monkey Theorem made it cool by canning its highly drinkable craft wine, albeit made with California grapes. Now, the award-winning Colterris Winery, based in Palisade, cans some delightful wines, including “Canterris” Rose of Cabernet made with Grand Valley-grown grapes. Cans make wine unpretentious and accessible—and slightly bubbly. Meanwhile, Denver’s Kingman Big Hat Wines offers a thoroughly drinkable upgrade on boxed wine, including a Colorado cabernet. Bigsby’s Folly is packing Colorado craft wine, including Rosé of Grenache, in a groundbreaking aluminum “cottle”—a can-bottle hybrid. The most sustainable answer is to have zero packaging to recycle. Instead of selling only by the bottle, many Colorado wineries such as Denver’s Bonacquisti Wine Co. also offer their wine in refillable glass “growlers” or special wine kegs. It introduces the wonderful concept of drinking fresh wine—like you get fresh juice and fresh bread. Bringing a wine bottle to the table may soon be a ritual reserved solely for high-end eateries now that great casked wine is commonly available. In Denver, Berkeley Untapped has two wine blends from western Colorado’s Jack Rabbit Hill Farm on tap. The cask house wine at Boulder’s award-winning Black Cat Farm Table Bistro is a meritage blend produced by the local BookCliff Vineyards.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FOOD WITH WINE As with brewpubs, a few local destinations bring wine and food together in a big way. The 20-year-old Creekside Cellars winery and restaurant in Evergreen 22 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
features casual dining and notable wines from Colorado grapes overseen by winemaker Michelle Cleveland. Look for Creekside’s 2016 cabernet franc, an ideal match for spicy grilled chicken. As celebrated food critic John Mariani once noted: “One might as well test out a Ferrari by running it in a garage as taste wines on their own without food. You’d never know how it handles the curves.” That’s one of the things that makes Colorado Uncorked a cool encounter with the state’s best wines. Professional judges choose the top dozen wines of the year from the hundreds submitted for the Colorado Wine Governor’s Cup Competition. Attendees at Colorado Uncorked, Nov. 15 at the History Colorado Center, sample those wines accompanied by fare designed to complement it from chefs at Julep, Narrative. Sazza, Postino, Ocean Prime, and River and Woods. The state’s major wine festival, the Colorado Mountain Winefest (Sept. 19–22 in Palisade), has grown so popular that tickets to the big gathering, the Festival in the Park, are sold out. Head to the Palisade area anyway that week BIGSBY’S FOLLY Craft Winery & Restaurant in Denver
for tons of tastings, bicycle winery tours, winemaker dinners, seminars, and cocktails and yoga. Look for them at COLORADOWINEFEST.COM . If that’s not enough, trek to Alamosa for the Colorado Wine Train, which offers white linen dining with small plates and Cottonwood Cellars wines while rolling through the San Luis Valley this fall.
TASTING ROOMS WITH AN ALTITUDE Colorado’s current crop of wine tasting rooms provide a wide range of fun. Denver’s Infinite Monkey Theorem gets the credit for shifting the paradigm with Colorado’s first and hippest urban winery. With every scintilla of pretensensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 23
5
COLORADO WINES TO TRY Monkshood Cellars Colorado Chenin Blanc Origin: Minturn
Whitewater Hill Icewine
Origin: Palisade
Augustina’s Winery Bredo’s Blue Diamond Origin: Nederland
Carboy Winery 2017 Colorado Cabernet Franc
Origin: Littleton, Breckenridge
Aspen Peak Cellars Sparkling Wine Origin: Bailey
24 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
sion missing, it has become an entertainment destination despite being a winery that produces some of the state’s best wines. Across town in an industrial area near I-70, Balistreri Vineyards is the state’s unlikeliest wine oasis. Pull up and it’s a modern tasting room and garden that serves tapas paired with John Balistreri’s Italian-style wines made mostly with Western Slope grapes. Balistreri also hosts the annual grape stomping party. Children ages 12 and under can stomp grapes during the annual Festival Italiano on Sept. 7 and 8 at Lakewood’s Belmar center. Months later, the juice ends up in bottles of Balistreri’s highly regarded Little Feet Merlot. Other tasting rooms have their discrete charms. Carlson Vineyards’ room in Palisade is exceptionally welcoming—there’s nothing like sipping tart cherry wine in a chocolate-rimmed glass. Azura Cellars in Paonia boasts the most majestic mountain backdrop in the state for sipping wine, and Alma’s Continental Divide Winery is touted as the world’s highest elevation winery. The Wines of Colorado near Pikes Peak in Cascade boasts stunning views, casual dining and one of the largest Colorado wine selections in the state.
A CHANGE OF GRAPES AND FRUITS Sure, there is plenty of cabernet sauvignon growing in the Grand Valley, but the state’s winemakers are also turning to formerly obscure grape varieties like chambourcin and traminette. They suit the state’s changing climate, according to the Colorado Wine Development Board. Local wine fans seem open to sipping something new over the big, popular varieties just as they choose unusual heirloom tomato varieties over standard Beefsteaks. When the wine is as tasty as the 2016 Teroldego from Palisade’s Red Fox Cellars, it’s easy to skip the pinot and merlot. Some Colorado winemakers skip the grapes entirely. Carlson Vineyards bottles an outstanding Colorado plum wine, St. Kathryn Cellars has a refreshing strawberry rhubarb wine, and Vino Colorado Winery in Old Colorado City makes a dessert-worthy palisade peach wine. Our big (wine) tent even includes Colorado Sake Co. (made from rice) and a bunch of meaderies creating honey wine, not all of them are sweet. Wine may need to draw the line at Skier Pee from Evergood Elixirs in Palmer. The lemon wine (best served over ice) is brewed from organic lemons, water, yeast, and sugar. They say it has a Gewurztraminer-like aroma, but it’s not made with Colorado produce. Is it possible that Colorado is tired of beer? Not likely, but after all these years of craft beer, lots of folks are weary of the increasing bitterness, especially the ubiquitous IPAs. It’s OK to admit to hops fatigue. Even the breweries are coming over to the wine side. Odell’s Fort Collins brewery is planning to open the Odell Wine Project next year next door with a wine cellar, tasting room and facility for serving wine on tap and in cans. JOHN LEHNDORFF is the former dining critic of the Rocky Mountain News. He hosts Radio Nibbles on KGNU, streaming at KGNU.ORG .
sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 25
SPEC IAL REPORT
Higher Education A college degree in cannabis is a real thing. And it’s a big sign the industry is legitimate. by S T E P H A N I E W I L S O N
26 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
Full disclosure: WHEN I WAS GETTING MY DEGREE IN JOURNALISM FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST, I NEVER ONCE IMAGINED THAT I’D PUT IT TO USE ONE DAY IN THE LEGAL CANNABIS INDUSTRY. ALTHOUGH, TECHNICALLY, I’M NOT IN THAT INDUSTRY TODAY. As the editor in chief of this magazine, I oversee a team
job market for the cannabis industry. The research found
of editors making a series of city lifestyle magazines
that between December 2017 and December 2018, the
covering markets across the country. Those magazines,
number of job listings increased by 76 percent, covering
like the one you’re reading now, appeal to advertisers in
highly diverse roles, from marketing to retail to research
the cannabis industry—companies eager to reach you,
to agriculture to technology, logistics, and law. It con-
dear reader, and introduce you to their newly legal and
cludes that “workers with higher education and skills in
therefore probably newly launched brand.
fields as varied as marketing, horticulture, and logistics
But technically, I don’t work in cannabis. My job is
will only be more desirable as the industry grows.”
indirectly related, my company ancillary. But it’s still
Even now, those skills are in high demand. Cannabis
part of a growing stat, a field that just a few years ago
industry employers struggle to find qualified applicants
didn’t exist but now is the fastest growing industry in
to fill specific roles that require specialized knowledge—
the US. There are more than 211,000 Americans working
broad-based understanding and highly specific skills.
There are now more legal cannabis industry workers than dental hygienists in the United States. full-time in the booming industry, directly employed in
Reacting to that employer demand, schools in the US
cannabis. When ancillary jobs such as mine are taken
are stepping up, introducing cannabis curriculum to
into account, that becomes 296,000.
help prepare students to enter the $14-billion-and-rising
That means in the US there are now more legal can-
global industry as trained professionals. From certifi-
nabis industry workers than dental hygienists. Than
cate programs to master’s degrees, with everything in
brewery workers (69,000) and coal miners (52,000) and
between, higher learning is here.
textile manufacturers (112,000). These figures come from
The first four-year undergraduate degree dedicated to
a March 2019 special report by cannabis website Leafly
teaching students about the cannabis industry was intro-
with consultancy Whitney Economics, which looked at
duced fall 2017 at Northern Michigan University, under
the stats the US Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t touch,
the innocuously titled Medicinal Plant Chemistry. Derek
given that cannabis is still illegal on a federal level. But
Hall, a spokesperson for NMU, says Professor Brandon
that isn’t stopping it from booming growth, decreased
Canfield suggested the idea for a medicinal plant chem-
stigma, and skyrocketing interest from all sides.
istry degree program after attending a conference. “He
As of September 2019, 11 states and Washington, DC have
came back thinking it was a place for us to step in. On
legalized cannabis for adult-use, and 34 more have legalized
the one side, you have the growers, and on the other side
medical use in some capacity. Legal cannabis sales in 2018
you have the users. In between, you have a chemistry lab
topped $10.8 billion. The job market is heating up, and the
measuring compounds—how much and what is being
demand for educated employees grows higher every day.
used. Those are the people we are interested in.”
It’s a wide-ranging industry, and there are a lot of career
The degree program offers two different tracks: bio-an-
paths one could take within it. Beyond the obvious—dis-
alytical and entrepreneurial. The program description
pensary manager, budtender, grower, trimmer—there are
mentions that the additional focus means graduates will
a ton of opportunities in the field. Career website Glass-
not only be qualified to perform the instrumental analy-
door released a report earlier this year on the state of the
sis in a laboratory, but “will also be empowered to build sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 27
28 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
their own testing laboratory, dispensary, and growing
up for the program in the fall of 2017, when it opened
operation from the ground up.”
to grads and undergrads. A year later, there were 225.
When the school announced the program, it wasn’t ex-
“We’re pulling in students from all over the country.”
pecting much interest, but it proved to be quite a viral
Minot State in North Dakota introduced a similar pro-
topic. Hall says a lot of people were looking for a cre-
gram this year, making it only the second college to offer
dential to help them get into the cannabis industry. “We
a four-year degree program specializing in cannabis. In
fielded a ton of calls from people who were serious about
the Rocky Mountain region, Colorado State University,
it. One interesting thing is we had a lot of students who
Pueblo, offers a minor in Cannabis Studies, with courses
said, ‘My parents suggested it.’ A lot of others said they
focused on cannabis and its social, legal, historical, po-
knew people who had benefited from the medicine.”
litical, and health-related impact on society. The degree
It’s a very demanding program. “The heavy chemistry
brochure mentions that “as part of a Hispanic Serving
requirements are mind-boggling. Kids who are there are
Institution, there is an emphasis on understanding and
very, very serious,” Hall says. About 20 people signed
appreciating the impact cannabis has had on the Chicano/Chicana community and other regional populations of the Southwestern United States.” In New York, SUNY Morrisville is introducing a Cannabis Industry minor this fall semester that combines courses in agricultural science, horticulture, and business programs. It also includes hands-on instruction in cultivating cannabis plants with less than 0.3 percent THC, thanks to the school’s license to grow hemp. In June 2019, University of Maryland announced the
“On the one side, you have the growers, and on the other side you have the users. In between, you have a chemistry lab measuring compounds… Those are the people we are interested in.”
country’s first postgraduate program in the field, a mas-
—Derek Hall, Northern Michigan University
ational and/or medical purposes.” The university, along
ter’s of science in Cannabis Science and Therapeutics. Associate degrees in the field are offered at Stockton University in New Jersey and at Philadelphia’s University of Sciences, where students can earn an associate degree in Cannabis Health Therapy. Even the Ivy League is getting into the field. Cornell launches “Cannabis: Biology, Society, Industry” course this fall, with plans to introduce a master’s in cannabis next year. That program is said to have an emphasis on oral and written communication skills with media and industry stakeholders, according to reports from Quartz. At Harvard, law students in a Cannabis Law class last spring considered “criminal law enforcement, land use, civil rights, banking, and other issues arising from the cultivation, distribution and use of marijuana for recrewith MIT, received a $9 million alumni donation this summer earmarked for independent research on the influence of cannabis on brain health and behavior. The University of Vermont’s pharmacology course in Medical Cannabis is considered the first of its kind at a US academic institution, and the medical school is also the first to offer a professional certificate in cannabis and medicine. And it’s fully online, led by faculty from the college, geared toward teaching doctors, pharmacists, nurses, PAs—medical professionals—what wasn’t on the course lists whenever and wherever they earned their degrees. sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 29
30 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
Cannabis courses are popping up in undergrad and grad-
To create the curriculum, Seaborn had to start from
uate programs at schools coast to coast, from UConn (Hor-
scratch. “When you teach a course, you use standard
ticulture of Cannabis: From Seed to Harvest) to UC, Davis
materials. In this area, there is no road map. You have to
(Cannabis sativa: The Plant and its Impact on People). Even
figure it out on your own.” Seaborn drew on people work-
more institutions have launched certificate programs cov-
ing in the new Colorado industry as guest speakers, and
ering a range of topics. Clark University in Worcester, MA,
found many eager to help. Business Insider reports that
introduced the country’s first certificate program in can-
the semester culminates with a field trip to Sweet Grass
nabis control regulation. University of Las Vegas runs the
Kitchen, where students tour the facility and hear from
Cannabis Academy through its continuing education divi-
management, including marketing director Jesse Burns.
sion, with classes in cannabis and the opioids epidemic, cannabis professionals, and pets and cannabis.
Burns has an MBA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. “It’s been the foundation that I’ve built my career
Professor Paul Seaborn has taught a class titled the
on,” Burns says. “The skills I acquired helped me do the
Business of Marijuana at University of Denver’s Daniels
best and become successful and achieve goals. Having
College of Business for a few years now. Seaborn says af-
that formal education helped me see the bigger picture
ter legalization in Colorado in 2012, it seemed like a good
and helped give me the confidence to make the best deci-
idea to approach the topic from an entrepreneurial point
sions.” And as the manager, he does a lot of the hiring. He
of view. He offered the first class in 2017, and it was the
is so very excited to see more qualified applicants enter
only accredited business school offering a class in can-
the field—ones with an education specific to the industry.
nabis at the time, open to undergrads and grads. “I’ve never had as many different people—alumni, staff members, parents, students—who showed interest.” The cannabis industry needs people who have general
“A lot of students are ready,” says Seaborn. “It’s a question of universities catching up to them.” Leland Rucker contributed reporting to this article.
business skills to help those who don’t. “A student might have a marketing or finance or accounting major, but we’re adding on to that with history and regulation, so we can get the best candidates who can hit the ground running,” says Seaborn. “It’s a steep learning curve, and the competition has gotten more fierce. It’s not guaranteed success. The bar keeps rising, and the more you can be prepared, the better.”
“It’s a steep learning curve, and the competition has gotten more fierce. The bar keeps rising, and the more you can be prepared, the better.” —Paul Seaborn, University of Denver sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 31
32 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
Last year, after two years
SPENT WHITTLING MY POSSESSIONS DOWN TO WHAT COULD FIT IN AN AIRSTREAM, I CLEARED OUT OF BOULDER, CO, MY HOME FOR THE PAST 25 YEARS. I’D DONE MY TIME, I TOLD EVERYBODY. I WAS TRADING PINE TREES FOR PALM TREES, AND I WASN’T LOOKING BACK. I HIT
a digital nomad, living the dream.
THE ROAD AND HEADED WEST,
My plan was to start out easy with an extended stay at the Chula Vista marina just south of San Diego, watching the sun spill orange into San Diego Bay from my dinner table every evening and waking up to swaying palm trees outside my bedroom window every morning. I’d spent the previous winter there, and I was counting on many more—but that wasn’t meant to be. Rock stars write songs about it. Even long-haul truckers can’t endure it forever. The road. It’s hard. And crowded. And lonely.
Tales of an accidental RVer. by R O BY N G R I G G S L AW R E N C E
“WHEN IT GETS TOO FAMILIAR, I’LL BE GONE.” —Fastball, “Airstream”
On February 1, the Chula Vista RV Resort was closed to make way for a billion-dollar mega-development. After a bittersweet month of reunions and goodbyes as longtimers who had been wintering there for decades swung by one last time, I rode with the Chula Vista diaspora off into the sunset. I made plans with my then-sweetheart (and driver) to spend a couple months exploring Baja, but I changed my mind at the last minute, and we parted ways. It probably wouldn’t have been the greatest trip, anyway. I had a lot of anxiety about hauling my one-and-only home through Mexico, where I’m sure it’s completely safe but some of my friends and most of my family members kept telling me it wasn’t. That left me in southern California with a 27-foot-long Airstream I’d towed only once (on an empty state highway) and no parking reservations. sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 33
34 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
“DON’T LET THE SOUND OF YOUR OWN WHEELS DRIVE YOU CRAZY.”
state and national parks) need to be made half a year in
—The Eagles, “Take It Easy”
advance, and it’s damn near impossible to find a spot
(three months at most private resorts and two weeks at
without reservations if you stay on the road past cocktail With the help of friends I met in Chula Vista, I learned
hour—which pretty much kills the whole freedom-of-the-
how to haul my own rig. I can’t say it’s something I love,
road, drive-til-you’re-done vibe that was key to this dream
and I still can’t back in, but towing is now something I
for me. I spent too many nights in Motel 6 rooms (which
do—an accomplishment I’m proud of because I stepped
are actually cheaper than the nicer RV parks).
through extreme fear. Hauling a 9,000-pound trailer
Securing parking became a full-time job—which was
down the kind of steep grades that have runaway truck
problematic, because I have a full-time job, and promised
ramps and signs warning truckers they’re not down yet
my colleagues and clients everything would flow seam-
PHOTO BY AIRSTREAM INC. VIA UNSPLASH
is one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.
lessly while I was chasing the dream in my Airstream.
What I did not see coming was the parking situation for
They loved to hear about my adventures, but they didn’t
RVs in southern California, which is akin to, and proba-
love to hear that unhooking sewer and electric lines, pack-
bly worse than, the parking situation for cars in its major
ing up and securing an Airstream (and everything in it),
cities. As the economy has soared over the past decade,
hitching it to a truck, hauling it to a new spot, unhitching,
anyone and everyone who ever wanted an RV (myself
plugging in and setting up a sewer line, then unpacking
included) bought one. RV parks are packed to capacity
and unsecuring everything again took the better part of a
with shiny new Tiffins and Jaycos, a decent number of
day, leaving little time for their projects.
Airstreams, and a good smattering of Prevosts—the rock
I learned why digital nomads steer clear of KOA Camp-
star buses that can be had for well over a million. Most
grounds, which cater to families, sometimes with groups
of the towering motorhomes are owned by baby boomers,
so large you can’t imagine how or where everyone sleeps
some of whom traded in their homes (like I did) to live
inside that Prowler. It’s great to see kids riding their bikes
the dream on the road. A lot of the Winnebagos and Lanc-
in the streets while their parents drink beers and listen to
es are driven by millennials, some of whom are living the
’80s metal, until you have a conference call or a deadline.
dream because they can’t afford to buy houses.
I stopped making friends because I got tired of having
All those folks living the dream need a place to park. And
to say goodbye a couple days later—and I don’t have the
in southern California, at least, infrastructure isn’t keep-
capacity to follow even one more living-the-dream jour-
ing up with demand. Reservations for long-term parking
ney on YouTube and Instagram. sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 35
36 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
“WHAT A LONG, STRANGE TRIP IT’S BEEN.”
for that month, and when it came time to think about
—The Grateful Dead, “Truckin’”
traversing mountain passes and metro areas on the way
I was happy and grounded in my one-and-only home
to the next place—wherever that might be—I felt very There were, of course, experiences that made the dream worth living. Walking on sand made from fish skeletons
PHOTO BY AIRSTREAM INC. VIA UNSPLASH
along the banks of the churning Salton Sea as low char-
tired. I dreaded the road. I wanted, maybe even needed, a soft spot to land in for a while. And so it ended. I dragged my Airstream over the Rock-
coal-colored clouds moved over the Chocolate Mountains
ies and back to Boulder, feeling my heart sink at the smell
in February is one I’ll never forget. I finally got to see Slab
of pine trees, then soar with every welcoming hug from my
City, an anarchist squatter RV community on a former
kids and friends. I went to practice with my favorite yoga
military base that’s known as “the last free place on earth.”
teacher and signed a lease with my bestie. I came home.
(The residents there aren’t actually all that thrilled with
I lasted less than nine months on the road. I could eas-
looky-loos hanging around, but it’s worth a drive through.)
ily consider my truncated journey a failure. But I don’t. I
I went on epic bike rides around Mission Bay and Corona-
did something I didn’t think I could do and learned some
do, and I never stopped appreciating palm trees.
big lessons—about the road, about myself, and about life.
I met new friends who let me park for a month behind their paddleboard shop in Page, Arizona, on the banks of Lake Powell, one of the most spectacular places on earth. It rained a lot, but it didn’t matter. Settling into one place— especially one so beautiful—felt like the ultimate luxury.
I know, without a doubt, that people matter more than palm trees. ROBYN GRIGGS LAWRENCE, author of the bestselling Cannabis Kitchen Cookbook and the recently released Pot in Pans: A History of Eating Cannabis, is thrilled to be growing her own cannabis again.
I dragged my Airstream back home, feeling my heart sink with the smell of pine trees, then soar with every welcoming hug from my kids and friends.
sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 37
38 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
Life Near the Fast Lane
I spent 25 years as a rock critter. Was it worth it? by L E L A N D R U CK E R MAKE NO MISTAKE: I LOVE MY JOB. BEING ABLE TO REPORT ON THE EARLY YEARS OF THE FIRST STATE TO DEFY THE WORLD AND LEGALIZE CANNABIS IS ENDLESSLY FASCINATING AND SATISFYING—I COULD NEVER HAVE DREAMED IT IN A MILLION YEARS. Yet somehow I don’t think it would be quite the same had I not spent 25 years as a rock critic. There are so many parallels. I mean, the obvious: Marijuana and music go along together like Keith Richards and cigarettes. People who make music like marijuana, and people who listen to music like marijuana. I wasn’t that interested in trying cannabis until friends insisted that “it makes music sound better.” Damn, were they right, and I’ve never looked back—from either music or marijuana.
Rock critic. Just thinking about those two words today sounds pretty funny. I find out about new music today from friends, social media, Spotify, YouTube, and the radio station where I volunteer, but for a brief period newspapers and magazines actually paid people to cover popular music. Fun? You bet. Could there be a better way to arrest your development and remain in a state of almost perpetual adolescence well into your 50s? I’m kinda proud of that. sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 39
40 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
We gobbled up the packaging, as album titles, cover art, and liner notes begged listeners to know what was inside.
I don’t miss the hassle of going to concerts today, or stand-
period, roughly from sometime in the 1960s to sometime in
ing in a pool of spilt beer in some dank-smelling club waiting
the 1990s. It was like no other time—an era when music was
for the next act to come out, just like I don’t miss meeting
created, marketed, and sold in the form of long-playing vinyl
some suspicious stranger to buy illegal Mexican weed. I’m
records, each carrying roughly 40 minutes of music, or about
not in awe of the rich and famous, who—no surprise—are just
12 three-minute songs, on a two-sided disc packaged in card-
like the rest of us, equal parts mensches and assholes.
board and wrapped in plastic. Call us the Vinyl Generation.
But back then, the opportunity to get all the new releas-
The LP, or long player, was introduced in 1948, and it
es, go to all the concerts you wanted, meet your heroes,
took awhile for the concept to catch on. In the 1950s, peo-
and choose records you wanted to cover was pretty thrill-
ple still bought more singles than LPs, which also began to
ing. The rock critic—or rock critter, as I was once more apt-
be called albums. Oh, there were some—Frank Sinatra
ly called—was the one with access to something most peo-
comes to mind—who realized the possibilities of the LP as
ple didn’t have. I could turn people on to obscure and
something more than a collection of singles, but it wasn’t
little-known artists they might not otherwise hear about,
until the perfect market arrived—the post-war baby boom-
something that probably doesn’t even make sense today
ers, the largest generation of youth in American history—
to someone using a streaming service.
that everything came into focus.
I find the cannabis industry and the people in it inter-
And oh, were we ready for it. Singles were cool, but LPs
esting and entertaining these days for many of the same
were a whole new world, especially for younger listeners: a
reasons I enjoyed covering the music beat. I’m easily
way to filter everything—life experiences, world events,
amused, and writing about rock and roll, which changed
romance, religious beliefs, you name it. We all knew the
my life when it came along, was nothing if not amusing. I
language. Phrases and lyrics—“You don't need a weather-
could obsess about a song or album or artist, write about it,
man to know which way the wind blows;” “Tear down the
see a live show, and go on to the next obsession. Today, I’m
walls;” “When you ain't got nothin’, you got nothin' to lose;”
doing much the same thing with cannabis, which, like
“All you need is love;” “Tin soldiers and Nixon coming”—
music, changed my life in profound ways for the better.
became part of the zeitgeist.
Music and marijuana just kinda go together, you know.
Vinyl Generation
Artists responded favorably to the idea of producing 30 to 40 minutes of music. Creativity went through the roof— double albums, concept albums, themed suites, even rock
When the musical histories are written after my genera-
operas and musicals were soon being produced for the
tion passes on, there will be a chapter focused on a certain
new home stereo market. We gobbled up the packaging, as sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 41
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album titles, cover art, and liner notes begged listeners to know what was inside. And everybody—companies, artists, consumers—bought into it. This growth explosion roughly coincided with a period in American journalism when city newspapers expanded and contracted. By the 1980s, most metro papers had hired their own rock critters, mostly male and white, to write about music, artists, and trends, and the papers became part of the marketing machine. Musicians recorded albums, toured to sell them, and the growing rock press became part of the apparatus, with interviews and reviews showing up in papers all over the country. (It was a treadmill: I once asked Marshall Crenshaw, a popular performer in the 1980s, how many interviews he had done that day, and he answered, “You’re the ninth.”) I grew up in the middle of all that. For me and my gener-
For my generation, that's the way we thought music was created.
ation, that’s the way we thought music was created and dispensed, and that it would be like that forever. Never did we think it would change. The joke was on us.
Rock Critter
least in my case, I tired of writing basically the same stories over and over. After failing on a couple of occasions to chronicle the history of Boulder music in print, I got
I was just the right age for the rock era. I remember see-
the chance to co-write, direct, and produce, with Don
ing Elvis Presley on TV when I was eight, and, more impor-
Chapman, a documentary film titled Sweet Lunacy: A
tantly, I completely lost my mind watching the Beatles on
Brief History of Boulder Rock (still available on Vimeo)
The Ed Sullivan Show just before my 16th birthday. I had
and edited the Blues volume of the MusicHound encyclo-
always loved music—my first obsession was the Kingston
pedia series before moving full time into Internet work.
Trio—but the Fabs, Bob Dylan, and their contemporaries
Today I get my musical thrills as a volunteer host on KGNU,
kicked it into the stratosphere. I started buying albums
Boulder’s community radio station. At this point, actually
and subscribed to Rolling Stone, Creem, and Crawdaddy
sharing the music I love on-air is highly preferable to writing
magazines to keep up with all the activity.
about it. Vinyl Generation was an incredible period, and I feel
It wasn’t until 1975 that my first piece—a review of Bob
extremely fortunate to have been a part of it. I honor the few
Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks—was published in a local Kan-
rock critters who remain in their positions, and I still find
sas City monthly. I soon applied to the Kansas City Times
interesting stories about the new music business today.
(back then, the Times was the morning paper, the Star the
But Vinyl Generation couldn’t last, for so many reasons.
evening), and by 1979 I was working full-time—first as a
Today’s “resurgence” of vinyl is more hype than an actual
clerk, then as obituary editor, while writing “Up and Com-
movement, but it does show the vast appreciation people
ing,” a Saturday column that featured an interview with
still have for album culture in a day when streaming and
somebody coming to town. I was the rock ‘n roll obit editor.
making playlists fulfill the same basic function.
There were a lot of packages addressed to Leland Rocker.
And at least for myself, having music digitally available
I spent four years at the Times, almost a college educa-
is the ultimate dream for someone who started with 45
tion in journalism (imagine having to call a family to ex-
rpm singles, and many times more preferable than albums
plain why you spelled their deceased relative’s name
or compact discs. I hear the complaints about the lack of
wrong to get the picture). When the paper didn’t hire me as
quality in MP3s, and there’s certainly some merit to that
its first rock critter in 1983, my love and I moved to Boulder,
argument, but like most people, I listened to classic albums
where I’ve lived and worked ever since, writing for the Col-
of the 1960s and 70s on shitty stereos, so it’s not that big a
orado Daily, Boulder Weekly, and Blues Access magazine. It
deal. I just want the music streaming in my head.
wasn’t until then, when I struck up friendships with four or five other critters in the area, that I found out I had peers.
And I love listening to people in the cannabis industry talk about their dreams and aspirations, just as I did with those
By the time we started attending the SXSW music con-
musicians all those years ago. We all love to be part of some-
ference in Austin, Texas, the music business had gotten
thing, and I’ve been extremely fortunate to be part of both mu-
even larger as vinyl gave way to compact discs, and, at
sic and marijuana. They just go together, you know. sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 43
44 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
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products in 1:1, 2:1, and 3:1 formulations. “That is one
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of the next big things that is happening for us,” he says.
But all that’s going to change—in a good way.
Pyramid isn’t interested in exploring the entourage
The company just received its licenses to set up shop
effect in its pens. “It’s not going to be much of a thing
in Michigan, and the company is going to build on that
in the recreational market,” he says. “I really think a lot
achievement. “Michigan will be one of our jumping-off
of that stuff will come down to big multibillion-dol-
points,” says Pyramid Pens CEO Jake Berry.
lar pharmaceutical companies that will come in and
He and CFO Coley Walsh met at a dispensary in 2013 and began operations in 2015. Their products are now
throw a lot of cash into synthesizing these products and taking these cannabinoids out.”
available in more than 200 stores across Colorado. “We
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early 2020. With ten different pen and pod products,
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SENSI NIGHT IN MANITOU
The return of Sensi’s summer event PHOTOS BY SHAMUS LAHMAN, PUFCREATIV
in Manitou brought out members of the community on a balmy Thursday evening. To find out about how you can attend the next event in Southern Colorado, follow Sensi Mag on Facebook for updates and details: FB.COM/SENSIMAG .
48 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado
Where: Briarhurst Manor When: Aug. 15, 2019
sensimag.com SEPTEMBER 2019 49
{HereWeGo } by L E L A N D R U C K E R
DOG DAYS OF SUMMER Local swimming pools offer pooches one last fling before autumn.
We’re getting to the point of no return for summertime in Colorado. Certainly, the warm days aren’t all gone yet, but you can notice the change in the air from a month ago at this time. Let your dog in on the end-of-summer fun swimming pool in the the Springs—both Colorado and Manitou—as well as Cañon City, Castle Rock, Falcon (Woodmen Hills residents only) and Fort Carson (DOD ID card holders) welcome pups to doggy paddle to heart’s content for a few hours. Wherever you go, just make sure you go: there is nothing like seeing your pooch plunging into a pool with complete abandon.
Dog Days at Vista Water Park
Sept. 3 // Banning Lewis Rec Center, Colorado Springs FB.COM/BANNING-LEWIS-RECREATION-CENTER
Pooch Plunge + Strut Your Mutt
Sept 7 // Butterfield Crossing Pool, Castle Rock // VISITCASTLEROCK.ORG
This year, Castle Rock’s Parks & Rec added Strut Your Mutt prior to its annual doggie dip event. Take a couple of loops around Butterfield Park with your dog before you have the pooch take the plunge. Play games, win prizes, and watch your furry friend have the time of their life.
Puppy Pool Party
Sept 16 // Pool & Fitness Center, Manitou Springs // MANITOUPOOL.COM
On this one blissful Saturday, the new kiddie pool & splash pad is open for canine swims. The first-ever Puppy Pool Party runs from noon to 3 p.m., $5 per pup. To make the water fit to go to the dogs, the center’s lowering the chlorine levels leading up to the plunge, so no humans allowed. Which frees
Bring your pups to Vista Water Park for the annual Dog
you up to post lots of Stories to your Insta of the pooches
Days event, where dogs can swim and play in the pool
wagging and full-body wiggling with glee. We wouldn’t be
during two time slots: 10 a.m. to noon; 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
mad if you tagged us. (Please tag us: @SENSIMAGAZINE .)
50 SEPTEMBER 2019 Southern Colorado