But Will the New Denver Post Pot Editor Host Tastings?

I, for one, welcome the Denver
Post‘s announcement that it will have a new editor covering
the marijuana beat full-time. The paper promises “a mix of news,
entertainment and culture stories” which sounds like a healthy
range of coverage for an intoxicant that is rapidly moving from the
counterculture into the mainstream with Eric Holder-defying speed.
Not long ago—and still in many places—marijuana was a matter for
the police blotter. But can it be long before we see newspapers
running reviews and holiday recommendations for the discriminating
palate?

Denver Post News Director Kevin Dale
writes:

We have written extensively about the research on marijuana, the
regulation, the wrangling in the legislature, cooking with
marijuana and growing it. The new year will bring all angles
together in a way that is challenging and exciting for us. We plan
to do what we do with any major story: throw our best muscle,
creative minds and ingenuity at the project.

It’s not surprising that the news we would be hiring an editor
to oversee the project swirled around the journalism and marijuana
community. …

We’re going to have some fun – with a mix of news, entertainment
and culture stories.

Having worked for a daily newspaper, I suspect that the
Post will have little trouble finding in-house talent
familar with the new beat. Lots of Americans have
experience with marijuana (42.4 percent of us, as of 2008,
says the World Health Organization)—positive or at least
non-scary experience, that puts the lie to the decades-old
fearmongering about the stuff eroding our inhibitions and
destroying the fabric of American society.

Besides, a little inhibition-eroding ain’t so bad.

Such experience has nudged Americans way ahead of institutions
like government and old-line media, with full legalization now
drawing
58 percent support, according to Gallup. The Department of
Justice will need some time to catch up. The Denver Post
seems to have arrived. At least, it will have arrived when the
paper starts holding marijuana tastings and making suggestions
about
something special to bring to that…umm…holiday pot
luck.

Sorry.