© 2025
NPR News, Colorado Stories
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Colorado Springs leaders may try recreational pot measure again, claiming voters who approved it were 'confused'

An image of a marijuana plant is shown.
Jeff Chiu
/
AP
Marijuana plants are shown at a California Street Cannabis Company location in San Francisco on March 20, 2023. Along the West Coast, which has dominated U.S. marijuana production from long before legalization, producers are struggling with what many call the failed economics of legal pot...a challenge inherent in regulating a product that remains illegal under federal law.

Weeks after residents voted in favor of legalizing recreational marijuana sales in Colorado Springs, elected leaders are considering putting the issue back on the ballot in April, saying people who voted “yes” could have been mistaken.

The city council is expected to vote at its next meeting Jan. 28 whether to re-refer the issue to the April 1 ballot, when voter turnout is historically lower than general elections, claiming that “confusing” language had muddied the issue.

The move marked a further show of resistance to recreational marijuana in a city whose officials have long argued that it contributes to crime and increased drug use. Colorado Springs is the largest city in Colorado that has refused to allow the sale of recreational marijuana since it became legal in January 2014.

“It boggles my mind that we want to put it on the ballot again,” Councilwoman Yolanda Avila said Tuesday, adding that she would not support pushing the measure to another vote.

“I find that the citizens of Colorado Springs, the constituents, the voters are pretty smart,” she said. “And I think it’s so unfair that, in November was a presidential election when people get up to vote more than any other time, we are going to have the least voter turnout April 1, because we don’t even have the mayor running.”

To read the entire story, visit The Colorado Sun.