If Colorado had a “pot desert” — a place where no marijuana could be legally purchased for miles and miles around — it was the southeast corner of the state, a wide swath of fields and farms where U.S. 50 cuts through small communities such as La Junta, Las Animas and Lamar.
But that wasteland for weed is beginning to transform into a cannabis marketplace of sorts five years after the state’s first marijuana dispensaries opened for business. Starting with Rocky Ford, where a lone dispensary opened its doors in late 2017, to the pot shop that opened less than three months ago in Ordway, residents of Crowley and Otero counties can now score a joint or bottle of edibles without having to drive an hour to Pueblo.
State of Marijuana
