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COKEDALE — Jack Van Heesch experimented hard with all sorts of psychedelics back in the day.
“It was a party,” said the full-bearded, 66-year-old resident of this former Colorado mining town perched in the shadows of the Spanish Peaks in Las Animas County.
Van Heesch was one of nearly 1.3 million Coloradans last November to vote for Proposition 122, which decriminalized the growing, use and sharing of psilocybin and psilocin — key compounds found in “magic mushrooms” — along with ibogaine, mescaline and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT.
But his was a rare yes vote in Cokedale, a tiny hamlet of 150 hardscrabble residents seven miles west of Trinidad. The town, with its 350 defunct coke ovens signifying its legacy as a one-time coal mining hub, isn’t jazzed about psilocybin healing centers coming in.
Residents cite concerns about crime, transients, exposure of psychedelics to children and any funding that might be needed to regulate the industry.
“It’s a quality of life thing here,” Cokedale Mayor Jason Swetky said.
Van Heesch agrees, saying the final word on psychedelics should rest with the residents of Cokedale.
— Full story via John Aguilar, The Denver Post
Some Colorado communities don’t want psychedelic healing centers — but can they stop them?
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