MMJ not always good medicine
JACKSON, Wyo. – With Colorado and Washington now legalizing marijuana, and others thinking about it, an obvious question is just how healthy it really is.

Doctors contacted by the Jackson Hole News&Guide take a dim view. Why would you voluntarily put smoke in your lungs, one asks. You know it doesn’t belong there. Coughing is a sign of that.

Studies have shown that long-term smoking of marijuana is associated with symptoms of obstructive lung disease.

How about cancer? A 2006 review of literature found no link between pot smoking and cancer, but the authors mention a “biological plausibility.”
Torching up before the start of an outdoor adventure is common with many mountain bikers, skiers and others. Is there any harm in that?

Not a good idea, said Dr. Will Smith, an emergency medical specialist and medical director for Grand Teton National Park. When high, people aren’t thinking as clearly as usual and don’t always react normally. “It’s definitely one of those things I’d advise against,” he said. “I’d avoid alcohol or any other drugs when you’re out in the wilderness as well as driving or any work activities where you rely on decision making.”

That said, he was unaware of any studies linking the use of marijuana to mountain accidents, the News&Guide notes.

OK, so how about marijuana’s reputation for causing smokers to lose their focus and become forgetful. There, the documentation is clearer, although the exact cause is not. “Heavy users displayed significantly greater impairment than light users on attentional/executive functions,” researchers wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Effects linger even after a day of abstinence.

How about effects of pot use on those who are young and those who have long used it but are now getting old? Not any evidence of it contributing to dementia or Alzheimer’s, doctors tell the News&Guide. But for youngsters – the picture is becoming clearer that smoking can produce wobbly brains. “Evidence is mounting that regular marijuana use increases the chance that a teen-ager will develop psychosis, a pattern of unusual thoughts or perceptions, such as believing the television is transmitting secret messages,” said Ann MacDonald, editor of Harvard Health. “It also increases the risk of developing schizophrenia.”

Grizzly bear helps close out ski area
LAKE LOUISE, Alberta – People often dress up at ski areas on closing day, but that was no man in a bear costume at Lake Louise. It was a real grizzly bear lumbering across the slopes of the ski area.

Skiers were quickly shunted to other areas, and the Rocky Mountain Outlook indicates that the operator spun the news as a win-win.

“It shows Lake Louise and bears can be in the same area peacefully,” said Sandy Best, director of business development. “In summer, it’s one of the few places in Banff National Park where you’re guaranteed to see one of these great creatures in their natural environment.”

The grizzly’s appearance was one of the earliest yet for the ski area, which is located about 35 miles west of the town of Banff. The early appearance was attributed to a mild winter and unseasonably warm weather in early May.

Banff, the town, recorded a high temperature for May 6 that was only matched once since record-keeping began in 1892.

She hangs up skis after 100th birthday
DILLON – From what The Denver Post reported, Elsa Bailey is nothing but a character. She celebrated her 100th birthday on Saturday by going skiing at one of North America’s highest ski areas, Arapahoe Basin. It also happens to be the only one still open in Colorado.

Bailey began skiing 75 years ago. Tickets at the rope tow in Vermont cost a dollar. “But I had so much energy in those days I walked up the hills and skied down,” she said. “If I could walk up, then it didn’t cost anything.”

The Post’s Jason Blevins says she worked as an occupational therapist but fed a rebel streak with adventures in hiking, kayaking and scuba diving across the world. Just last fall, she went alone to Brazil and returned by way of Disney World where she rode Space Mountain.
“It was scary,” she said. So she only rode it five times.

She has now hung up her skis, but her hunger for travel remains strong. She intends to tour the Norwegian fjords, see polar bears in the Arctic, and visit Old Faithful in Yellowstone.

Bakery owner talks foreign labor needs
JASPER, Alberta – The words seem like they could have been spoken in Vail, Frisco or Steamboat just five, 10 or 15 years ago. But they were uttered by the owner of a bakery in Jasper, the eponymously named town within Jasper National Park.

“Plain and simple, my business would not exist or survive if I did not have foreign workers,” said owner Kim Stark. “I honestly, truly, try my best to recruit Canadians for jobs at my store, but Canadians do not apply. They do not want to work as a night-shift baker, nor as a full-time, year-round barista.”

Stark tells the Jasper Fitzhugh that she has been hiring foreign workers through Canada’s temporary foreign worker program for 4½ years. Before that, she was working 16-hour days, seven days a week.

The Fitzhugh notes public outcry after media revealed two abuses of the program in Canada. At question is whether companies use the foreign-labor program as a way of cutting wages. In Alberta, its once-high-octane oil economy is now sluggish, the insinuation being that there are plenty of job-seekers.

But Stark says that tourist towns are different. “We are tourism driven, with a higher than average cost of living and nowhere to live,” she said.

 

“Those attributes don’t make it easy to recruit long-term employees or certain foreign workers once they achieve permanent resident status. I pay above-average wage and I pay the same to Canadians and foreign workers alike, and my wage increases are based on work performance and loyalty, not color of skin.”

Aspen tinkers with Caribbean rotation
ASPEN – The powerful demographic of baby boomers, those people born between 1946-64, is being anticipated by managers of affordable housing in Aspen and Pitkin County. Somewhere between a third and half of the town’s full-time residents live in deed-restricted affordable housing, and those terms preclude them from renting out the housing to others.

But if you’re at least 65 and have worked more or less full-time in Aspen for the previous four years, you can retire into affordable housing.

That creates a problem – and presents an opportunity, says Tom McCabe, who directs the Aspen Pitkin County Housing Authority. With many baby boomers soon to retire, they may be eager to flee Aspen during the cold-weather months in what is colloquially called the “Caribbean rotation.”

Why not let them rent their units to seasonal workers? “It’s a de facto seasonal housing rental program,” said McCabe at a recent meeting covered by the Aspen Daily News. “The nice thing about the program is that it costs essentially nothing, and if we experiment with it and find that it doesn’t work we could rescind it very easily.”

Directors of the housing authority are to take a final vote on the idea May 22.

Solar gardens move forward in Breck
BRECKENRIDGE – If somewhat slowly, plans by Breckenridge to create two so-called solar gardens within the community are moving forward. But the Summit Daily News notes a leeriness among some members of the community about the aesthetics of solar panels.

“What isn’t appropriate is a massive solar farm,” said local resident Eric Buck at a recent community meeting. “People don’t come to Breckenridge to see the bleeding edge of technology or to admire the pioneers of environmentalism.”

Under legislation approved in Colorado several years ago, solar panels can be assembled in central locations, what some people call gardens. The core concept is that they are operated by third parties, in this case a private company, and ownership in panels and hence production is sold to individuals or, in the case at Breckenridge, the town government.

“The town has enormous energy needs, and participating in the solar garden would be a prudent investment for us,” said Brian Waldes, the town’s finance officer, who has shepherded the project for several years.

The town government provided two municipal-owned areas, one near an electrical substation and the other along the entrance to the town. The latter is to be partially shielded, as the sight of solar panels is to some people unappealing.

Town officials originally planned to buy 80 percent of the capacity, but because of a surprising amount of demand from the general public, will get less.

Elsewhere in Colorado, Telluride’s town government is also a primary buyer of a solar garden located about 80 miles west, in the Paradox Valley. Aspen and Vail are also served in part by a solar farm located at the end of an airport runway in Rifle.

Electrical consumers in Durango will some day be able to own panels in a farm being planned near Ignacio, on the Southern Ute Reservation.

– Allen Best