Boulder Weekly 11.5.20

F R E E E v e r y T h u r s d a y F o r 2 6 Ye a r s / w w w. b o u l d e r w e e k l y. c o m / N o v e m b e r 5 - 1 1 , 2 0 2 0

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

news:

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In Colorado, some say pretrial risk assessments are biased, others say they’re better than nothing

by Angela K. Evans

How political expression manifested in Boulder this election, and what it means for the future

by Matt Cortina

Longmont authors discuss ‘The War on the EPA’ and how we fix the integral agency

by Matt Cortina

Natasha Mistry explores the imagination in ‘Inner Landscapes’ at Refuge Gallery

by Caitlin Rockett

Behind the beer that launched a thousand breweries

by Michael J. Casey

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feast:

County program connects kids, particularly from lower-income families, to good food

by Matt Cortina

departments 5 6 16 17 21 22 23 25 30

Boulder Weekly For Your Ears: BW and KGNU launch new podcast, ‘Unhoused’ The Anderson Files: Despairing Johnstown workers and the election Events: Flamenco dancing, Mexican Bingo, Magic Beans, and more to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do...

Words: ‘Pearl Street, 2020’ by Dr. Asa Don Brown Astrology: by Rob Brezsny Film: Picks for the final weekend of the Denver Film Festival Savage Love: Foot and mouth Food/Drink: What to try this week along the Front Range Weed Between The Lines: Colorado’s new cannabis vape regulations reduce risks for both consumers and producers

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Publisher, Fran Zankowski Editor, Matt Cortina Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Senior Editor, Angela K. Evans Arts and Culture Editor, Caitlin Rockett Special Editions Editor, Michael J. Casey Adventure Editor, Emma Athena Contributing Writers, Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Sarah Haas, Jim Hightower, Dave Kirby, John Lehndorff, Rico Moore, Amanda Moutinho, Leland Rucker, Dan Savage, Alan Sculley, Ryan Syrek, Christi Turner, Betsy Welch, Tom Winter, Gary Zeidner SALES AND MARKETING Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Sami Wainscott Advertising Coordinator, Corey Basciano Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman Graphic Designer, Daisy Bauer CIRCULATION TEAM Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama BUSINESS OFFICE Bookkeeper, Regina Campanella Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer

November 5, 2020 Volume XXVIII, Number 12 As Boulder County's only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holds-barred journalism and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county's most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you're interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@ boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper.

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It’s like ‘Boulder Weekly,’ but for your ears

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oulder Weekly, in collaboration with KGNU, is proud to announce the release of our first podcast “Unhoused.”

Join host Emma Athena as she analyzes how COVID-19 has changed the conversation around homelessness solutions. In light of the coronavirus pandemic, communities already struggling to provide services to the unhoused are seeking to end an enduring problem with new solutions: preventing evictions and exploring opportunities for safe lots, urban campgrounds and tiny homes in addition to the national Housing First strategy.

Episode 1, “Status Quo” is available at boulderweekly.com and wherever you get podcasts.

Subscribe now and you won’t miss an episode.

Reporting for this series was made possible by support from the Solutions Journalism Network.

Boulder Weekly is published every Thursday. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. © 2020 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved.

Boulder Weekly welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@ boulderweekly.com) or the comments section of our website at www.boulderweekly.com. Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address and telephone number for verification. We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms. Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website.

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5

Despairing Johnstown workers and the election

by Dave Anderson

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nxiety, dread, fear. Almost 70% of Americans said the presidential election is a substantial source of stress, according to the American Psychological Association’s Stress in America survey in October.

I am writing this a few days before the formal Election Day and you are reading this afterwards.

However, things will likely continue to be wild and crazy for the foreseeable future. Trump is an erratic and unpredictable sociopath who feels he needs to be re-elected because he is facing huge financial debts and has numerous pending legal issues. The massive right-wing propaganda machine will likely be going full tilt, spewing out lies, disinformation and conspiracy theories.

Right-wing terrorism will continue.

If Biden becomes president, will there be a return to normality? Or, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sarcastically puts it, how many who opposed Trump will “go back to brunch”?

Given the pandemic and the economic crisis, that might not be an option.

There will be plenty of Trump supporters around. Journalists have been watching the people of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, which voted for Trump by close to a 2-1 margin in 2016. This is a town where the American dream has definitely died. The steel mills are closed and the population is almost two-thirds of what it was in the 1940s.

In 2017, Michael Kruse of Politico visited Johnstown and concluded that the residents didn’t believe Trump would help them but they love him anyway because Trump hates the same people they do: “‘obstructionist’ Democrats, uncooperative establishment Republicans, the media, Black Lives Matter protesters and NFL players (boy oh boy do they hate kneeling NFL players) whom they see as ungrateful, disrespectful millionaires.”

That’s not the full story. After all, 6

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Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary in Johnstown and all of Cambria County.

Recently, Hamilton Nolan, labor reporter for In These Times attended a Trump rally in Johnstown.

He wrote: “At first glance, Trump supporters come in many flavors: The cigar-chomping Benz guys, the outlaw biker types, the middle-aged white woman with her kids, the quiet churchgoer in a pro-life T-shirt standing next to the angry, dumpy man in a ‘Vote No For Joe and The Hoe’ T-shirt. “...What unites them around this

them all thinking that they won something.”

Trump has a big sign at his rallies saying “Promises Made. Promises Kept.” That is a lie.

Our Revolution, a progressive group that came out of the 2016

“[TRUMP] IS REBELLIOUS in the same sense that Metallica or pro wrestling is rebellious: not rebellious at all where it counts, but making loud enough noise to give the appearance of it.”

— Hamilton Nolan

objectively dumb loudmouth?

Donald Trump is a living embodiment of ‘Fuck the System’ for people who have not thought much about how the system actually works. He is the red state version of a comic working blue, the Jeff Dunham of politics. He is rebellious in the same sense that Metallica or pro wrestling is rebellious: not rebellious at all where it counts, but making loud enough noise to give the appearance of it. Whether his fans wake up the next day and go to a bar or a church, they have all had their hit of naughtiness. Trump rallies are a barnstorming religious revival for a deeply cynical age, swooping in from the big city to sucker the locals and leave NOVEMBER 5, 2020

Bernie campaign, organized a speaking tour of laid-off Rust Belt factory workers who challenged Trump’s lies.

A study in October by Global Trade Watch said: “Donald Trump became president by winning Midwestern states with pledges to end job offshoring. Firms that offshored would be denied U.S. government procurement opportunities, he promised. To keep billions in lucrative government contracts, firms would be forced to bring jobs back to America. Instead, as Trump seeks reelection, 311,427 American jobs have been government-certified as lost to trade during Trump’s presidency, with 202,543 explicitly listed as offshored. And, eight out of the I

top 10 firms receiving government contracts during the Trump administration have been government-certified as having offshored jobs.”

More specifically: “At least one of every four taxpayers’ dollars spent by the federal government on procurement contracts during the Trump administration went to the pockets of companies that offshored American jobs during his administration.

“At least $425.6 billion in U.S. tax dollars has gone to firms that have been certified by the U.S. government as having offshored jobs during the Trump administration...

“Half of the top 10 recipients of Trump-era contracts were certified by the U.S. government as offshoring jobs during the Trump administration.”

The big tax bill passed in 2017 by the Republican-controlled Congress incentivized companies to offshore jobs by slashing their tax rates on foreign profits.

Joe Biden proposed a wide range of quite progressive economic policies and programs that will help the working class majority. However, he has a record of favoring quite a few corporate-friendly policies over the years. He supported NAFTA and other free trade agreements in the past but he has been changing his position. He proposes a “Buy American” program, which would allocate $400 billion for federal purchases of products made in the United States.

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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7

Analyzing the risk

In Colorado, some say pretrial risk assessments are biased, others say they’re better than nothing

by Angela K. Evans

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et’s start with a theoretical scenario: Al Capone and Mother Theresa are both arrested and charged with committing murder. Based on that charge, bond is set at $5 million for each of them. Given what we know about them, who do you think would be seen as a lower risk to the community if released?

Probably Mother Theresa. But who do you think is going to be able to pay bail and be released? Definitely Al Capone.

It’s a conundrum that has plagued the criminal justice system in the U.S. for decades, as high incarceration rates have been driven by pretrial detention, i.e., holding people awaiting trial.

But what if there was a way to review someone’s personal history — previous interactions with law enforcement and courts, involvement with drugs and alcohol, living situation, etc. — in order to 8

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assess their risk if released?

That’s the idea behind pretrial risk assessments, which are used within the criminal justice system to determine if and under what conditions someone can be released into the community while they wait for the judicial process to play out. In Colorado, such a tool has been used by many jurisdictions since 2013 in an attempt to lower pretrial jail populations, largely supported by district attorneys, pretrial services departments, prominent legislators and others. However, there’s been increasing concern among criminal and racial justice advocates across the country that these assessments reproduce certain biases — especially toward people of color and those experiencing homelessness — that exist within the current criminal justice system.

In response to a recent study of the

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Colorado Pretrial Assessment Tool (CPAT) that analyses this bias and recommends a revised tool, ACLU Colorado argues the use of such a tool leads statewide pretrial reform efforts in the wrong direction.

What has been more effective, they say, is some of the simple policies local jails and prisons have used in response to COVID19, essentially halving the state’s incarcerated population in six months.

“Risk assessment tools have not decreased the pretrial population,” Rebecca Wallace, senior staff attorney and senior policy counsel of ACLU Colorado, says. “They haven’t worked. It is a crutch. It has the aura of objective decision-making that is actually a recreation of the biases that are baked into the current system, but we take those biases and we make them look objective, and that is actually more harmful.”

Pretrial detention is considered a BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

major contributor to the nation’s high rates of incarceration, growing 433% between 1970 and 2015 according to the Vera Institute of Justice. People detained while awaiting trial make up two-thirds of local jail populations across the country, the vast majority of whom are charged with nonviolent crimes.

“Taking away somebody’s liberty by the government is the most serious control mechanism that we have,” Wallace says. “And it should be reserved for the most serious potential risks.”

Seen as a reform leader, Colorado adopted a law in 2013 that provided guidelines for the way in which judges are supposed to set bail, and encouraged, though didn’t require, jurisdictions to use pretrial services and risk assessments in order to prevent unnecessary pretrial detention.

This led to the development of the CPAT, which uses an algorithm based on a list of 12 factors to determine a risk score of one through four. It scores individuals based on whether or not they are currently housed or own a cell phone, whether they rent or own their home or contribute to residential payments, whether they have past or present problems with alcohol or receive mental health treatment, previous jail or prison sentences or pending cases and the age of first arrest.

That risk score is then presented to a judge, sometimes with additional information, to determine conditions of release, which can range from personal recognizance (PR) bonds to a variety of community supervision methods like drug and alcohol monitoring, mental health treatment and even employment help.

“The goal here is to ensure that people are not fleeing the jurisdiction and they’re going to come back to court and also that they’re not posing an immediate risk to the community,” says Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty, who generally supports the use of CPAT, especially when compared to leaving these determinations up to an individual judge’s discretion, as was the practice previously. “But when one is trying to predict human behavior in any walk of life, I think that’s extremely difficult to do. And there’s no perfect instrument for that.”

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

In Boulder County, the average length in the pretrial system is about six months, although it can vary widely from three months to two years, according to Monica Rotner, division manager for Boulder County Community Justice Services, which includes the pretrial program.

Of the 10,000 or so people that are booked at Boulder County Jail

“We didn’t find differences where being black versus being white led you to a higher score,” Ward says.

“Where the differences lie was when we dove into those false positives and false negatives.”

The false positive rate being the rate at which those given a high-risk score don’t actually have a high-risk outcome, such as failing to appear in

each year, Rotner says about half are interviewed and assessed, the rest are either on hold from another jurisdiction or not “bond eligible” for a variety of reasons.

“There’s no doubt that assessment tools of all sorts maintain the bias that exists in our society,” Rotner says, but that’s why Boulder County bond commissioners — those tasked with assessing pretrial defendants — have an entire matrix of factors to use, and don’t rely solely on the CPAT. “We believe strongly in combining it with an in-person interview and also being able to override those scores, so we never make a recommendation to the court that’s based alone on the CPAT,” she says.

In an effort to more fully understand the impact of the CPAT, the state, with some additional resources from the University of Northern Colorado (UNC), funded a recent study from UNC researchers Victoria Terranova and Kyle Ward.

To assess for bias in CPAT, they relied on self-reported data about race, ethnicity, sex and residential status — whether a person was housed or homeless when arrested.

court or being rearrested when released on bond.

“Our bias analysis focuses on the false positive rate, because from that kind of perspective, if you think about it, those who are assigned as a high risk but may not result in a high-risk outcome are the ones who are receiving the detrimental consequences of being justice-involved,” Terranova says.

The researchers found that the CPAT in its current form had a higher false positive rate for black defendants versus white, and unhoused defendants versus housed.

Of the 12 factors in the original CPAT, Terranova and Ward found prior violent arrest and questions about residential status to be the most problematic. Their study includes a recommendation for an updated risk assessment tool based on their research, the CPAT-R, that only considers nine factors.

“To say that a tool is actually biased I would say is a bit of a stretch just solely relying on the false positive rate,” Terranova says. “Being a descriptive statistic, there really isn’t a threshold for what would be biased.”

In essence, there isn’t statistical cer-

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tainty that biases exist within the tool.

But in a letter to the researchers, Wallace and Aaron Horowitz, deputy chief analytics officer for ACLU National, argue that the discrepancy in false positive rates (FPR) show that bias does exist. “FPR inequality is a well-established way to determine if predictive bias exists in predictive models,” Horowitz writes in an email to Boulder Weekly. “Given the magnitude of the differences between false positive rates among homeless versus housed people and black people versus white people, we have no reason to doubt these disparities are real and meaningful.”

And that makes the use of the CPAT and even the CPAT-R problematic in assigning risk to pretrial defendants, according to its detractors.

“The new study indicates that CPAT has racial bias,” Maureen Cain, legislative and policy director for the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, says. “That’s a given. I think every risk assessment tool by the nature of the factors that correlate to risk, you’re going to find over-representative numbers for overpoliced communities.”

According to the Pretrial Justice Institute (PJI), a Baltimore-based think tank that long supported the use of pretrial risk assessments, these tools should no longer be considered a solution for equitable pretrial justice systems. In a February 2020 position brief, PJI argues that regardless of scientific methodologies, every pretrial risk assessment is inherently flawed because every risk assessment uses data that reflects the “structural racism and institutional inequity” in our current court and law enforcement policies and practices. “Use of that data then deepens the inequity,” PJI argues.

Risk assessment tools are built upon historic policing and criminal justice data, which is problematic, Wallace says, because these systems tend to be inherently biased against communities of color and those living in poverty. For example, the age of first arrest (not conviction) is the most heavily weighted factor in most risk assessments, but that correlates with over-policed communities where young see RISK ASSESSMENT Page 10

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people can be arrested for low-level offenses like smoking in the park.

“The analytics community has a term for it: garbage in, garbage out,” Wallace says. “Your outputs for an algorithm are only as good as the data that’s going into it.”

This also comes into play when looking at pretrial defendants experiencing homelessness, those who are often incarcerated for low-level offenses directly tied to their lack of housing, such as sleeping on a park bench, violating camping and smoking bans or urinating in public.

“We know that these individuals are being viewed as extremely high risk under the risk assessment tool. If they go back outside, they get released, they’re going to sleep on a park bench again,” Wallace says.

“This is not a useful tool and leads to thinking these are risky populations when they are not risky at all.”

In general, the pretrial population is very low risk, as less than 2% will be charged with a violent offense if released, according to the UNC study.

And yet, the risk assessment tool still divides people into low-risk and high-risk categories, which is misleading, Wallace says.

The tool “forces a certain number of people into these high-risk categories that by and large are not high risk,” she says.

“We believe it over-defines risks — the people in the highest risk category in the instrument really are people who will substantially more likely than not, not re-offend, not fail to appear,” Cain adds. “And if they reoffend, the most common re-offense is a misdemeanor traffic offense.”

Which raises another area of concern the ACLU and others have with risk assessment tools.

Measuring success based on failureto-appear rates also skews success rates against impoverished communities, those that don’t have cars and

rely on public transportation, those who can’t easily get time off work without losing employment or may have trouble with childcare.

“There is constantly going to be a poverty factor, there is going to be a policing factor,” Cain says. “The tool should help for release; it shouldn’t drive detention.”

Overall, Wallace argues, why rely on such a tool if it hasn’t moved the needle on decreasing our jail populations?

“There are jurisdictions that have managed to decrease their jail population while using tools, and New Jersey is a great example of that,” Wallace says. “But there are plenty of jurisdictions including Kentucky that have increased their jail population while using these tools.”

New Jersey adopted a statewide pretrial assessment method in 2017, and the jail population has decreased significantly since then. However, racial disparities persist, and more and more advocates are arguing against the method.

Kentucky’s incarceration rate, on the other hand, has remained high, ranking seventh in the country for per-capita incarceration, despite implementing risk assessments more than a decade ago. Plus, judges in that state who were provided with risk assessment scores have shown increased bias in their decision-making, according to a 2019 Harvard study. It found that not only did the use of a risk assessment tool in Kentucky increase racial disparities in initial bond settings, but judges were more likely to override risk assessment recommendations, setting harsher bond conditions for black defendants compared to similar white defendants.

Earlier this year, New York implemented a law that all but eliminates pretrial detention and cash bail without the use of a risk assessment tool in most misdemeanor and non-

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

violent felony cases. It has already received some pushback, however, over public safety concerns. In California, a measure to fully eliminate cash bail in favor of risk assessment was on the ballot this year, but with pushback from racial justice advocates like Human Rights Watch, PJI and the ACLU, it appears to have failed.

A key factor in moving away from pretrial risk assessments are increased community resources to address people’s needs as opposed to their risk, according to PJI. Allocating funding toward policies that improve transportation options, court reminders, access to childcare and behavioral health treatment could significantly contribute to addressing failure to appear rates and even likelihood of re-offending. Wallace adds an increased use of summons in lieu of arrests could also help.

“What we want to do is dramatically decrease the pool of folks who are arrested, period,” Wallace says. “If we dramatically decrease the pool of people who are [incarcerated] pretrial, then the folks who are there, we can have more individualized, meaningful decision-making about them, in part because they’re well-represented by counsel, who have time to prepare and meet with them and make bond arguments before the judge. ... Due process hearings like that are really lacking from our current system, and that has a lot to do with volume.”

For now, both DA Dougherty and Rotner from Boulder County say having a tool like CPAT is better than nothing, even if it’s clear the tool needs to be improved.

“The CPAT is something that grounds the judges in having to look at data and try to be objective about it,” Dougherty says. “And obviously that needs to be improved upon, I can’t stress that enough, but I’d rather have that then the judge on Monday being completely different than the judge on Tuesday when it comes to bond. And you can only make the right decision on individual cases if you have accurate information besides just one’s gut reaction.”

Dougherty is also concerned about public safety, especially considering that Colorado falls into the bottom 10 states in the nation when it comes to the re-offense rate: Almost 50% of people who leave BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

state prison will be rearrested in three years, he says. But some of this does have to do with lack of other social services, like substance abuse and mental health support, which face significant pandemic budget cuts, further hampering solutions that don’t rely on risk assessment.

Nevertheless, it appears COVID-19 has moved the needle in ways decades of criminal justice reform have failed to do.

“The COVID experience is actually going to be more informative and helpful towards bail reform than perhaps the results of this study,” Cain says.

According to an Oct. 13 ACLU Colorado report, jail populations decreased by 46% statewide at the height of the pandemic, meaning there was an average of 6,000 fewer people in jail every day. Whereas the average jail occupancy was 81% prepandemic, it’s now at 47%. (Since July, when jury trials and court sentencing resumed, jail populations have increased 17%.)

The report attributes the jail population to four policies in particular: Active management of county jail populations to reserve beds only for those who posed a threat to others; increased use of summons and heightened arrest standards, which led to a 48% drop in people being held pretrial on misdemeanor charges; increased use of personal recognizance bonds, releasing folks without having to pay; and changes in probation, parole and pretrial services, which meant non-criminal infractions and technical violations didn’t send people back to jail.

“I don’t think that we need to wait for some concept of comprehensive bail reform that has eluded Colorado for so long in order to take substantial steps to keep our jail population as low as it is right now,” Wallace says.

In Boulder County, COVID policies have resulted in a dramatic increase in PR bonds for people who scored high on the CPAT, according to Dougherty, and at the height of the pandemic, those with low scores were released 100% of the time.

“In Boulder County, we’re going to take the lessons that we learned through the pandemic and make long-term changes based on that,” Dougherty says. “We’re living through a forced experiment.”

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“The Boulder Mountainbike Alliance ran ads recently in the Boulder Weekly to promote our annual Membership Party and Colorado Gives Day. The campaign was a huge success and BMA raised $34,320 - all going towards improving Boulder County’s trail system! The Boulder Weekly ads led to additional awareness of BMA and played an important part in this extraordinary fundraising campaign. Thanks Boulder Weekly!”

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Signing up

How political expression manifested in Boulder this election, and what it means for the future

by Matt Cortina

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f you drove down 28th Street in political causes. That’s largely the putting statements about their ideoloBoulder any Saturday in the last result of a concerted effort on behalf gy on their front door.” two months, you saw the Trump of politicians for years to create an usEven though yard signs, bumper party. An unmarked, black tour versus-them dichotomy. Certainly, stickers, etc., have never quite gone bus at the northwest edge of the Trump has mastered the tactic and away, much of the expression has Target parking lot, big banners on all has benefited from its compounding shifted online. Everything from the intersections of 28th and Pearl effect — the more politicians have Instagram filters that indicate one’s calling out pedophiles and begging for hammered division, the more people support for a cause to the stories one freedom to reign. And a growing have taken on one side or the other as posts on their Facebook feed. And number of folks in MAGA hats and part of their identity. We were primed because of the algorithms social media Trump shirts, flags waving as they ran for Trump. companies employ to keep us engaged, through crosswalks when we’re seeing things we the lights turned red. tend to agree with, Sokhey They looked like they says, while the in-person were having fun. And displays of political expresand people plenty of people driving sion do the good work of tend to change with them. Their by honked in support. getting us out of our politPlenty flipped ’em off, ical bubbles. identification is a bit flexible in that too, and plenty more “People are kind of respect.” ignored the whole spectaassuming their [social cle. media] channels are what —Anand Sokhey, director of the American Then the counter they want them to be.

Politics Research Lab demonstrators came a few You’ll encounter some disweeks later — signs for agreement, but a lot of it is Biden, signs for Black congruent information,” Lives Matter. Fewer people overall, “One of the reasons I think you Sokhey says. “Putting up a yard sign though way more masks being worn. see and hear so much about yard signs or bumper sticker and doing it in More car beeps, more birds flipped. A and people engaging in theft and van- public… it can’t be turned off. It’s out block down, a shirtless person in a dalism and these marches with flags there in the world, tying to a physical rainbow wig and heels with a sign and so forth is because in this time thing, which is a little different imploring people to honk if they’re when we have these polarized kind of dynamic than social media stuff.” horny to vote. A mile away, a guy responses that are being triggered That doesn’t mean you’ll interpret waving a car-dealership-sized Trump constantly, a lot of those markers [yard the political expression correctly, or flag every single morning on a bridge signs, etc.], those are about identity to take people at their word for who over Foothills Parkway. people,” Sokhey says. “Identity is they’re supporting and why. You may Good for Boulder. There hasn’t being primed by politics all the time. think a bunch of Trumpees in Boulder been sustained political expression like … And there’s a nontrivial contingent are just trolling and not actively trying this for at least a decade. But was it of people who want to show the peoto engage in political discourse. That something unique to this crazy year, ple where they stand and who they may very well be true, but regardless and this crazy election, that brought are.” of how the presidential election turns out such expression?

So, the message becomes: You’re out (it’s still up in the air at press “What we’ve seen in the past are with us, or you’re against us. You’re time), it’s clear way more people still the kinds of visible manifestations of good or you’re bad. And politicians believe in Trump than the experts had politics — wearing a button or putcapitalize on this binary. It’s so effecus believing. ting a bumper sticker on your car. tive, Sokhey says, that the tactic is Though Sokhey doesn’t think anyWe’ve seen that trend increasing over showing up in social movements more one can replicate Trump’s unique time, ” says Dr. Anand Sokhey, often, as in, “‘Back the Blue’ versus appeal in the future, the tactic of runCU-Boulder professor, director of the Black Lives Matter. These are kind of ning as the outsider — which Trump American Politics Research Lab and broad, sweeping statements from did in both elections — is a proven author of a book, Politics on Display, which a lot of people can make reamethod that’s likely to resonate with that looks into the science of political sonable inferences about your politics,” future voters. yard signs and other displays.

Sokhey says. “You see people with “It’s that pent-up anger and frusWhat’s different, maybe, is the these signs, ‘We believe in science, tration that people have about feeling degree to which people identify with Water is life…,’ those are like people like they’re not represented, they’re

“PARTIES CHANGE

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excluded and they’re not getting what they want,” he says. “Every politician, across the aisle, they all want to run on going to Washington and changing it. … I think that is absolutely going to continue, that narrative of the political outsider — exactly what that’s going to look like, we’ll see.”

Trump has shifted the Republican voter base — and the politicians within it — drastically in just four years.

His support in the 2020 election, and the election of candidates that are friendly to the QAnon conspiracy theory, might have some of us feeling a little on edge about the direction of half the country. Sokhey says just like people moved from Romney (and in some cases, Obama) to Trump in 2016, they’ll move from Trump to someone else in the future.

“Parties change and people tend to change with them. Their identification is a bit flexible in that respect,” Sokhey says. “Candidates can move around a bit and a lot of people will follow. A good example of that is what Trump has done with trade. If you had told me you’d have a tariffwielding Republican president eight years ago, I would’ve been like, what? … A good example on the left, you didn’t see in the mid-2000s many saying that gay marriage should be legal and recognized coast to coast. Fastforward, politicians are shifting and then of course Democrats saw a sea change.”

So, change is the only thing that’s constant. That and people will express their political beliefs — online, with a yard sign, on a bumper sticker, on a street corner with a cowboy hat. Any guesses beyond that are speculation.

“If you told me in 2004 that in 2008 Barack Obama would be president, I probably wouldn’t have taken you that seriously. If you had told me in 2013 Trump would be president, I wouldn’t have taken it seriously,” Sokhey says. “It’s a little hard to anticipate who’s going to be the next big thing that emerges in the political parties.”

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OF COUNTY 2020 WINNER

OF COUNTY 2020 WRITE-IN

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Protecting the Environmental Protection Agency

Longmont authors discuss ‘The War on the EPA’ and how we fix the integral agency

by Matt Cortina

T

he Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) turns 50 this year. For its birthday, the Trump administration continually tried to destroy it — or, at least, manipulate it to serve various industries instead of the public, and our right to clean air, water and environment.

Rolling back emissions standards, eliminating fine enforcement for polluters, failing to enact science-based air particulate standards... the list of actions antithetical to the EPA’s mission perpetrated by the Trump administration is long.

But Bill and Rosemarie Alley, authors of the new book, The War on the EPA, say the battle to politicize and neutralize the agency has been going on for decades. And, Rosemarie says, “The war on the EPA is largely a war on science.”

“People who don’t have a clue what they’re talking about get equal time with experts who have worked long and hard to examine environmental problems,” she says.

Ahead of their Zoom book talk in conjuction with Boulder Book Store on Nov. 12, Boulder Weekly chatted with the Longmont residents and authors about how the agency and its scientists have been maligned over the years and what needs to happen to fix what’s broken.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Boulder Weekly: Did the effort to curtail the reach of the EPA start with the Trump administration, or has this been going on for a while?

Rosemarie Alley: It started with Ronald Reagan. The EPA had a nice 10-year honeymoon.

In the 1970s, Congress was the most progressive environmental body in history. The seven acts — the Clean Air Act and so forth — were all passed in the 1970s, all but one signed by a Republican president.

Reagan came along and one of his quips was, “If EPA had its way, we’d all be living like rabbits.” He appointed Ann Gorsuch as EPA administrator, and she wrote the playbook on how to hobble and undermine and undo EPA in everything. And a BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

number of those strategies, the Trump administration has used: Do everything you can to weaken enforcement. Right now, the enforcement is seriously diminished.

BW: How did those opposed to EPA create public and political will to curb its influence — after all, the EPA is supposed to keep our air and water clean. What’s political about that?

Bill Alley: People who are against EPA, they can’t use the word “regulations” without putting the word “job-killing” in front of it. You’re going to lose jobs in coal but you’ll have more jobs in wind energy and solar and so on and so forth. If you look at since early in EPA’s days to now, they’ve reduced principal pollutants by about three quarters. Meanwhile GDP has gone up 2-3 times, irrespective of the environmental regulations. A lot of the antagonism against EPA, by this particular administration, relates to fossil fuels. If you look at lot of their actions, it relates to oil and gas or coal.

RA: I think there’s a general sort of apathy about what’s happening with EPA. The environment basically looks like it’s doing just fine.

We don’t have a burning river, we don’t have cities with smog that look like Beijing on a bad day, and everything else we were seeing in the ’70s. Today’s environmental problems are invisible to the naked eye. It’s chemicals that are the big issue. The problems are also more global, like climate change.

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ON THE BILL: ‘The War on the EPA,’ with authors Bill and Rosemarie Alley. 5 p.m., Nov. 12.

Tickets for the talk are $5 and available at boulderbookstore.net/event/ william-m-alley-rosemarie-alley-warepa. An access link will be sent 24 hours before the event, so you can tune in on Zoom.

BW: How quickly can an EPA under a new administration — whenever that is — undo the damage of the Trump administration.

BA: Probably they are not going to be able to rehire the people they lost. There are areas where EPA can make quick changes. They could reverse leaving the Paris Climate Accords within 30 days, but of course we wouldn’t have the same stature. There are a number of areas where the Trump administration was sloppy and quick to get things through so they didn’t go through a public vetting process. They short-circuited that, and those will be able to be turned around. There are things there that may end up in the Supreme Court, so the makeup of the Supreme Court may have a big impact. But you won’t be able to undo all the damage and it’s going to take a while, particularly the morale part.

RA: The problem with EPA: It wasn’t supposed to be a political agency, but that’s what it is because it’s a cabinet-level position, the EPA administrator. Every time you change administrations, it’s like volleyball and so then everything changes again, and it takes time to make things happen, and the goals are not something you can do in four years. It really hobbles the agency that its so political, though it has been for a long time.

BW: Looking forward, what are the issues we are going to need a strong EPA to combat?

BA: There’s a suite of chemicals — PFAs are this chemical from [industrial] facilities leeching into groundwater and so forth. That’s an area EPA is struggling with in terms of defining standards and limits in drinking water. Then, all issues related to climate change are also major issues for EPA, certainly.

RA: No new chemicals have been added to drinking water regulations in over two decades.

With all the thousands of chemicals out there, PFAs are very troubling one. It’s very obvious they need to be regulated.

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MBERCREATIVE, COURTESY OF GUESTHOUSE SHOP

The innocence of color

Natasha Mistry explores the imagination in ‘Inner Landscapes’ at Refuge Gallery

by Caitlin Rockett

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atasha Mistry was a smart child, the kind placed in a selective academic school in her native England and praised for her natural grasp of literature and language.

But she loved to draw more than anything. She knew she wanted to be an artist, but the adults around her had different expectations. In a private conversation, the headmaster of her school suggested Mistry would be wasting her intelligence by studying art at university.

“It was one of those moments I often look back at,” Mistry says over the phone from her home in Boulder. “Those things give us a little fire for the passion that we have.”

Mistry went on to study art, and eventually made her way to South Korea, where she taught English and developed art programs for several schools.

ON THE BILL: ‘INNER

LANDSCAPES’ by Natasha Mistry. Opening Friday, Nov. 6.

Refuge Art Gallery, 1727 Pearl St., Boulder, refugeartgallery. com. Mistry will be painting on site most days. Through Nov. 15.

see MISTRY Page 17

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MISTRY from Page 16

“I think [the experience with the headmaster] also informed my passion to teach Korean children,” Mistry says. “[South Korea has] a very left-brained educational system where there’s a lot of pressure to be academic. I also felt a lot of stress as a child to be academic, so I could relate to them and had sensitivity about their anxiety. My goal with art was to get them to connect to their inner life.”

The whole of Mistry’s artistic practice has been tied to the concept of exploring this “inner life” — the wild terrain that is human imagination. On Friday, Nov. 6, Mistry will mount a show at Refuge Art Gallery in downtown Boulder called Inner Landscapes, featuring vibrant oil paintings and intricate mandala-like studies that Mistry divines during her daily meditation practice.

“Through creating a painting, I find I’m not really conscious sometimes of what is happening,” she says of her process. “I do feel like there are trance-like states I can get into. … Certain elements will pop out and vibrate. It’s an experience, and I strongly feel that art should be an experience. It can flow through you and you can see things and feel things and look differently at things every day.”

This is why Mistry foregoes naming her pieces: “My works are 99% untitled so that people can have this full experience without engaging their logical brains with words.”

Mistry says she was a “very sensitive child” who, despite a loving and supportive family, struggled with anxiety as her family moved around the U.K. numerMBERCREATIVE, COURTESY OF GUESTHOUSE SHOP ous times for her father’s job.

“From an early age I didn’t feel like I could express myself ...

I found it hard to be in social situations. I found it difficult to be the focus of attention,” she says.

But she found relief in dance and art. She drew her first mandala at 14 without knowing what it was.

“I vividly remember thinking I was not supposed to do this,” she says. “I was actually using pastels and drawing studies of Degas’ ballerinas for a local show at the church. I was meant to be focusing on that. But what I was interested in was what was coming out of me, which I had no idea what was. It came intuitively. I think it was the start of me becoming interested in the inner world.”

Teaching in South Korea, Mistry devoted her weekends to exploring as many of the hundreds of Buddhist temples in the country as she could. And she traveled more, visiting spiritual sites in India, Japan and Peru. Through the art she found on her travels, she began to understand the nature of her own art.

“It turned out everyone — all of humanity — has been going through this inner searching; it’s not just me,” Mistry says with a laugh. “It was very exciting to see the inner world was a very real place.”

While living in South Korea, Mistry was introduced to a man from Boulder who eventually became her husband. The two settled down here four years ago.

Mistry will be painting live at Refuge Gallery during her exhibition. Everyone will be required to wear masks and keep a safe distance from others.

“I’m hoping this show can provide some joy,” Mistry says. “It’s a reminder that we can all connect to our inner reality at any time. Life is hard, but we can still connect to our inner power. We can still rejoice in the innocence of play and joy and color.”

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Pearl Street, 2020

by Dr. Asa Don Brown

This was supposed to be the year that I returned, to the breathtaking views of the Rockies, to the aroma of fresh-ground coffee, to the fragrances of freshly brewed tea, to the four-block stretch blending these anomalies.

It was indeed supposed to be my year to see thee.

I have longed to return to this unprecedented community, I have longed to take in your historic sites, I have longed to intermingle with others, it has been too long since I have walked on thee.

This was supposed to be my year, to see my family, my friends, and my colleagues.

It was supposed to be my year to experience your architectural vibe, design, and prominence.

I look forward to your return to normalcy, even the tireless positioning of your parking lots.

I look forward to what you have to showcase, the musical performances, the arts, the food, the hustle and bustle that travel upon thee.

I look forward to being with thee. I miss your character, your charm, your insistence that I travel upon thee.

Dr. Asa Don Brown is an author, speaker, human rights advocate and clinical psychologist.

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

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events

events

BY BOULDER WEEKLY STAFF

If your organization is planning an event of any kind, please email Caitlin at crockett@boulderweekly.com.

4 p.m. Nov. 7 and Nov. 21 via Webex, bit.ly/LibProgramas.

After a lengthy COVID-19-related hiatus, Longmont Public Library’s popular bilingual family program “¡Lotería Mexicana!” returns via Webex. Families are invited to play a few rounds of traditional Mexican bingo using game boards provided by the library during two Saturday sessions, on Nov. 7 and Nov. 21, from 4 to 5 p.m. For the Nov. 7 game, participants will be provided with special Day of the Dead game boards. During the bingo game, players can use beans, coins, small rocks, etc., as chips to mark the images as they are called out. Each player will need 16 chips to fill the entire game board during rounds of “blackout” or “tabla entera.” Those who would like to practice their Spanish will have the opportunity to be one of the card callers or cantores. Names will be drawn at the end to receive special prizes. Registration is required and available online. Once registered, participants will receive emails in English and Spanish with instructions to pick up their game boards and log in to the Webex programs.

FIFTH ANNUAL VIRTUAL COLORADO POLLINATOR SUMMIT.

8 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5. Registration is $20, butterflies.org/copollinatornetwork.

The Colorado Pollinator Network was established in 2016 with a mission to bring organizations together to conserve, protect and create pollinator habitat while educating communities across the state of Colorado on how to protect pollinators. Through this summit, a broad audience of researchers, educators, land managers, policy experts, community organizers, homeowners and landowners will come together to explore the state of pollinator conservation in Colorado; identify impediments to conservation action across disciplines; and identify strategies to overcome the challenges of pollinator conservation here in Colorado and beyond.

DARE TO CARE FOOD DRIVE.

Nov. 10 to Dec. 30.

Food drop locations and information on how to donate at creativecatalyzers.org.

Approximately 10,000 gradeschool students in Boulder County are affected by food insecurity due to recent COVID-19 public school closures. Local nonprofit organization Creative Catalyzers has mobilized some 20 local artists to turn food crates into sculptural attractions for a food drive in businesses in Niwot, Longmont, Central Boulder, Lafayette and Louisville. If you can’t make it to any of the delivery depots, Creative Catalyzers is also accepting monetary donations toward this project: $20 is equivalent to six school lunches, $100 can feed lunch to a classroom.

Even $5-10 makes a difference. Food requests: nut butters, soups, cereal, oatmeal, canned tuna and chicken, beans, canned fruit, canned vegetables, pasta, pasta sauce and rice.

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LONGMONT PUBLIC LIBRARY HOSTS BILINGUAL MEXICAN BINGO.

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‘RETURN TO NAM’ ZOOMBACK @ THE BOE.

7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11 via Zoom. Free but registration is required, truecare.org/returntonam.

The Dairy Arts Center and TRU Community Care Hospice have come together with Old Glory Honor Flights for an event commemorating this year’s Veterans Day with a screening of Return to Nam, a 2019 documentary following 52 Vietnam veterans returning to the Southeast Asian country that birthed so many of their memories and demons. Return to Nam is a story of healing, and the hour-long documentary will be followed by a talkback featuring veterans from the film. There will also be an opportunity for participants to ask questions and share their own thoughts and memories.

FLAMENCO FANTASY DANCE THEATRE PRESENTS ‘ALEGRÍAS.’

7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, Dickens Opera House, 300 Main St., Longmont.

Price: $18-$22, dickensoperahouse.com.

Legendary local flamenco guitarist René Heredia’s Flamenco Fantasy Dance Theatre brings the heart and soul of Spanish gypsy flamenco to the main stage at Dickens Opera House, complete with colorful costumes, castanets, stomping feet and fiery passion. In this performance, three dancers blend light, graceful arm movements, syncopated hand-clapping and powerful, synchronized foot work to the beautiful music of talented flamenco guitarist Andréana Cortés, René’s niece. These are challenging times and Flamenco Fantasy Dance Theatre is keen to continue doing their part by offering entertainment at a price point people can afford. Guests must wear masks unless seated at their table. No dancing will be allowed. No bar service; table service only. Only 50 tickets are available.

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music

music

Live and livestreaming shows around Boulder County ARISE ONLINE FEATURING A LIVE STREAMED PERFORMANCE BY MAGIC BEANS.

7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5. Streaming provided by NoCapShows.

Once purchased, private links will be sent via email and text to attendees. Tickets start at $5, arisefestival.com.

Arise Music Festival announces its newest project, ARISE Online, with a live streamDYLAN LANGILLE ing performance from one of Colorado’s neojam favorites Magic Beans, performing from the legendary Colorado Sound Studios in Denver.

With their signature combination of soul, rock and funk, Magic Beans have performed at festivals and venues across the country, including Red Rocks Amphitheatre and their very own Beanstalk Music Festival in Colorado. Their latest album, Off Leash, weaves genres to build a distinct neo-jam sound, pushing limits both on stage and in studio.

Magic Beans new album, Casino Cabaret, is due out March 16, 2021.

books

JIM MIMNA

JOHNNY & THE MONGRELS.

7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, Dickens Opera House, 300 Main St., Longmont. Price: $20, dickensoperahouse.com. Tickets are limited.

Johnny & The Mongrels is a high-powered, New Orleans-influenced band combining funk and deep bayou soul. Its founders, currently based in Fort Collins, are singer/songwriter Johnny Ryan and singer/ bassist/songwriter Jeff Bostic. Their debut LP, Creole Skies, was produced by JoeBaby Michaels and Scott Sharrard (formerly of The Gregg Allman Band). At this Dickens Opera House show, guests must wear masks unless seated at their table. No dancing is allowed and no bar service will be available (table service only).

BOULDER THEATER INTIMATE DINNER CONCERTS (2032 14TH ST., BOULDER):

All tickets are sold in tables of four or eight and include two drinks (beer, wine or well), two McDevitt Taco Supply tacos (chicken, pork or veggie), and chips and salsa per person. Additional beverages, food and upgrades are available for purchase at the table.

Gratuity is not included. Tickets are $50.

COURTESY OF ARTIST

JANE AND MATTHEWS.

7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7.

Jordan “Jane” and Jarrod “Matthew” formed the group Jane and Matthews in pursuit of blending popular music genres with top-tier musicianship. The duo showcases influences from a variety of genres, including Americana, country, pop, rock, prog, classical, jazz, funk, blues, bluegrass and metal.

BOWREGARD.

7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8.

Bowregard — winners of the 2019 Telluride Bluegrass Band Contest and the 2018 UllrGrass Band Contest — is a five-piece bluegrass band from Boulder.

With driving rhythm and tight three-part vocal harmonies, Bowregard’s underpinnings in traditional bluegrass meld with old-time, Americana and progressive sensibilities to provide the foundation for their original songwriting and creative reinterpretations of the classic bluegrass repertoire.

LOCAL AUTHOR ALERT: ‘THEY DIED ON MY WATCH,’ BY NOEL BAILEY.

words

In this reference book, Longmont author Noel Bailey covers the who, what, when and where of popular culture of the last 75 years.

How many actors died of cancer-related illness in 1996? How many husbands did

Sunday Nov. 8 to Wednesday, Nov. 11; Sunday Nov. 15 to Wednesday, Nov. 18. All sessions are from 6:15 p.m.–9:30 p.m. MST. Suggested donation of $25. Registration is required: jlflitfest.org/colorado.

Join Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) Colorado (virtually) for its sixth iteration – streaming online with back-to-back sessions. JLF is a literature festival unlike any other where you can experience the reflections and imaginations of distinguished contemporary authors from around the globe. JLF Colorado kindly asks for your support with a suggested donation of $25.

The festival line-up includes: Life of Pi, Booker Prize-winning

7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5. For more information, to register for this free online event and to watch previously recorded One Book, One Boulder events, please visit boulderlibrary.org/one-book.

Ijeoma Oluo, bestselling author of So You Want to Talk About Race, will make a virtual appearance at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 5, for the finale of Boulder Public Library’s One Book, One Boulder 2020 event series. Oluo will discuss her book and engage in a community Q&A. Oluo is a Seattle-based writer and speaker. Her work focuses primarily on issues of race and identity, feminism, social and mental health, social justice, the arts and personal essay.

Elizabeth Taylor divorce in her lifetime?

What well known actor died just a few days after David Bowie? They Died On My Watch can answer these questions and many more. It’s the ultimate umpire in any pop culture argument that may arise regarding a dead celebrity.

and internationally renowned author

JLF COLORADO 2020.

ONE BOOK, ONE BOULDER TALKS RACE WITH BESTSELLING AUTHOR IJEOMA OLUO.

COURTESY OF ARTIST

winning author, The Boundless Sea: Human History of the Oceans

mist and former soccer player, author of The Snowman

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author of Queer Times, Black Futures author of The Black Wave French experience, Africana thought, and Queer studies in Africa and the Caribbean see EVENTS Page 20

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HOMEVIEWING

Barbara Bridges and Jill S. Tietjen on ‘Hollywood: Her Story’

by Michael J. Casey If there’s a specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can’t change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies. —Kathryn Bigelow

K

Oskar Blues Brewing. Photo by Susan France.

Boulder County Events .com

athryn Bigelow was the fourth woman nominated for a Best Director Oscar in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ then 82-year history, and the first to take the statue home. The movie she won for — 2008’s The Hurt Locker — will air Tuesday, Nov. 10 as part of TCM’s Women Make Film, a 14-week series designed to reframe cinema’s history with an emphasis on gender inclusion. An aspect of the industry that has been present since 1896 but excised from the collective memory.

“Women helped found the movie industry,” AMPAS Barbara Bridges, founder of Denver Film’s Women+Film Festival, says. “They were the early filmmakers. They owned their studios.

They developed many of the filmmaking techniques.”

But when the historians sat down to pen the history of movies, women were left out and their names were left off. In recent years, the name Alice Guy-Blaché has bubbled back into the conversation, but 20, 30, 40 years ago, forget it.

“She was the first to use film to tell stories,” Bridges says, “[and] she was doing all kinds of experimenting with filmmaking.”

Same for 1,200-plus talents featured in Bridges and Jill S. Tietjen’s book, Hollywood: Her Story, An Illustrated History of Women and the Movies — a “horizontal approach” to film history through archival photographs and direct quotations. For those following TCM’s series, there’s plenty from Lois Weber, Dorothy Arzner, Ida Lupino, Ava DuVernay and Barbara Streisand — whose Yentl will air Nov. 18 on TCM. There’s a lot Bridges and Tietjen convey with their book, chief among them: There is no one way to or through Hollywood.

“So many of these women didn’t have the conventional path that they could follow,” Tietjen says.

So, as Tietjen points out, they do it all: Write, produce and direct.

Sometimes, like Lupino, they act. Sometimes, like Streisand, they sing.

“Because that’s what it takes,” Tietjen continues.

And while that’s true today, Tietjen notes that technological advancements have granted access to filmmakers. As DuVernay says in the book, “I’m grateful that I live at a time when access to cameras and distribution platforms and ways to reach audiences outside of the normal Hollywood infrastructure are possible for me, a black person, a woman, than ever before.”

DuVernay was also nominated for an Oscar, by the way, in 2017 for 13th.

And if you go to the book’s companion website, hollywoodherstory.com, you’ll find two categories relating to the Oscars: nominees and winners sorted by chronology and by category.

“When you look at it by date, you can see how more and more women over the years have been nominated,” Bridges says. “And when you look at it by category, you can see the categories where women really have been able to thrive ... and you can see the categories where they have struggled.”

‘Hollywood: Her Story, An Illustrated History of Women and the Movies’ can be found in bookstores and online. TCM’s Women Make Film continues Tuesday, Nov. 10.

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LIBRA

SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: In the 1970s, an Englishman

BY ROB BREZSNY ARIES

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: Aries poet Charles Baudelaire champi-

oned the privilege and luxury of changing one’s mind.

He thought it was natural and healthy to always keep evolving beyond one’s previous beliefs and attitudes, even if that meant one might seem inconsistent or irrational. “It is lamentable,” he once proclaimed, “that, among the Rights of Human Beings, the right to contradict oneself has been disregarded.” I bring these thoughts to your attention, dear Aries, so that you will feel at peace with the prospect of outgrowing rules, strategies, and approaches that have worked well for you up until now — but that have outlived their usefulness.

TAURUS

APRIL 20-MAY 20: The horoscopes I write are my love

letters to you. As I compose them, my goal is to celebrate your beauty and strength even as I discern what’s lacking in your life and what confusions might be undermining you. In my philosophy of life, that’s how love works at its best: remaining keenly aware of the good qualities in the beloved while helping them deal with their problems and heal their wounds. I suggest that in the coming weeks you adopt my approach for use with your own close relationships. Your allies are in special need of both your praise and your rectifications.

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: When Charles de Gaulle was 15 years

old, he wrote “General de Gaulle,” a short story in which he envisioned himself, many years in the future, as a general in the French army. Thirty-five years later, his imaginary tale came true, as he became a general of the free French army fighting against Germany in World War II. In the spirit of de Gaulle’s prophecy, and in accordance with current astrological omens, I encourage you to compose a comparable tale about your own destiny. Have fun as you visualize in great detail a successful role you will play months or even years from now.

CANCER

JUNE 21-JULY 22: In 1903, archaeologists digging in a

cave in Cheddar Gorge, England, found the fossilized remains of “Cheddar Man,” a person who had lived there 9,000 years earlier. In 1997, DNA tests revealed that a teacher named Adrian Targett, who was living a half-mile from the cave, was a direct descendant of Cheddar Man. I propose that we invoke this scenario to serve as a metaphor for you in the coming months.

According to my analysis of the astrological omens, your ancestors are likely to play a bigger role in your life than usual. Connections between you and them will be more vivid and influential and worthy of your meditations.

LEO

JULY 23-AUG. 22: According to the film Amadeus, com-

posers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) and Antonio Salieri (1750–1825) were adversaries who disliked and undermined each other. But there’s evidence that this was not entirely true. In fact, they collaborated on creating a cantata that was performed by Nancy Storace, a famous singer they both admired. It’s unlikely they would have cooperated in such a way unless they had a working relationship. I suspect that a comparable correction is due in your world, Leo. It’s time to dissolve a misunderstanding or restore a lost truth or fix an old story that got some of the facts wrong.

VIRGO

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: The coming weeks will be a favorable

time for you to ask for help and seek support. I urge you to be forthright in doing so! Resources that have been inaccessible before may be more available now. I suspect you will be able to capitalize on the luck and skill of allies who have benefited from your favors in the past. Their successes could bring you blessings and their breakthroughs should inspire you to instigate breakthroughs in your own life. Be straightforward: Ask them to lend their influence in your behalf.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

named Stephen Pile founded the Not Terribly Good Club. It was designed to be a gathering place for mediocre people whose lives were marked by inadequacy and incompetence. To organize his thoughts about the club’s themes, Pile eventually published a book entitled The Book of Heroic Failures.

Unfortunately, it sold so many copies that he got expelled from his own club. He had become too successful! I suspect that in the coming months, you may have an experience akin to his. The odds are good that you’ll find interesting success in an area of your life where you have previously been just average.

SCORPIO

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: “At every crossroad, be prepared

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to bump into wonder,” wrote Scorpio poet James Broughton. I believe that’s stirring advice for you to keep in mind during the coming weeks. Broughton’s words inspired me to come up with a corollary for you to heed, as well: “At every turning point, be ready to stumble into an opportunity disguised as a problem.”

I’ve got one more clue for you. Last night in my dream, my Scorpio poetry teacher offered a thought that’s well-suited for you right now: “Whenever you want to take a magic twisty leap into the big fresh future, be willing to engage in one last wrestling match with the past.”

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but his peculiar rants sometimes make good sense.

Here’s one that I suspect might be useful for you to consider during the next two weeks: “It’s good for everyone to understand that they are to love their enemies, simply because your enemies show you things about yourself you need to change. So in actuality enemies are friends in reverse.” I don’t mean to imply that your adversaries and nemeses are totally accurate in their critiques of you. But there may be a thing or two you can learn from them right now that would truly improve your life.

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DEC. 22-JAN. 19: Musician John Coltrane described

one of his life goals as follows: “There are forces out here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world,” he said. “But I want to be the opposite force.

I want to be the force which is truly for good.” Even if that’s not an intention at the core of your long-term plans, Capricorn, I recommend you consider adopting it during the next few weeks. Being a vigorous and rigorous force for good will be especially needed by the people with whom you associate — and will also result in you attracting interesting benefits.

AQUARIUS

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: Known as “the bad boy of bridge,”

Aquarian-born Geir Helgemo is a champion in the card game of bridge. At times he has been the toprated player among Open World Grand Masters. But in 2019, he was suspended from the World Bridge Federation for a year because he tested positive for taking testosterone supplements that are banned. Why did he do it? He hasn’t said. There is some scientific research suggesting that testosterone may boost cognitive function, but other evidence says it doesn’t.

I’d like to use Helgemo’s foolishness as a teaching story for your use, Aquarius. According to my astrological analysis, you’re approaching the peak of your competence and confidence. There’s no need for you to cheat or sneak or misbehave in a misplaced effort to seek an even greater advantage. In fact, righteous integrity will enhance your intelligence.

PISCES

FEB. 19-MARCH 20: “I might really have gone round the

bend,” confessed Botswana author Bessie Head. “I mean people who get visions and see a gigantic light descend on them from the sky can’t be all there, but if so I feel mighty happy. If one is happy and cracked it’s much better than being unhappy and sane.” Although I don’t expect your state of mind in the coming weeks will be as extreme as Bessie Head’s, Pisces, I do suspect it will have resemblances to her dreamy cheerfulness. If I had to give a title to this upcoming phase, it might be “Wise Folly.” And yes, I do think your “craziness” will generate useful insights and fertile revelations.

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Picks for the final weekend of the Denver Film Festival

by Michael J. Casey

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NOVEMBER 5, 2020

he 43rd Denver Film Festival concludes Sunday, ON THE BILL: Both ‘Apples’ and the Nov. 8, with plenty of good stuff to see before then.

Shorts 2: There’s just never enough time to watch them all, Documentary are but here are two programs not to miss before the playing the virtual Denver Film Festival fest goes dark. until Nov. 9, dff.evenLet’s start with Apples from Greek director Christos tive.org.

Nikou. It’s the closest thing we’ll get to an art-house hit in 2020, and the premise is so bonkers it feels real: There’s a pandemic goin’ ‘round, and it’s claiming memories. How and why are never explained. All we know is that it strikes suddenly, attacks without prejudice and causes immediate amnesia. It hits Aris (Aris Servetalis) while he’s riding the bus, causing him to miss his stop. “Which stop did you want?” the driver asks when he sees Aris still sitting there after the bus pulls into the station. Aris doesn’t answer.

The driver asks another, “What’s your name?” Aris replies with a silent stare. “I’ll call an ambulance,” the driver says with familiarity.

With no identification card to notify next of kin, no memories to draw on and no past to speak of, Aris enters a recovery program that assigns him a series of daily tasks and a Polaroid camera to document them with a hope that Aris will build a new life and flourish. Aris is dutiful in the program, but he’s also detached. There’s a sense that something beyond his misplaced memories has broken his spirit — an irrevocable loss well beyond middle-age loneliness. His only comfort: apples, which he eats by the bushel. “Yes,” a grocer says when he sees Aris stocking up on the ruby-red fruit, “good for the memory.”

Whether or not Aris intends to keep his memory sharp is a question left to the viewer. It certainly seems as if Aris wants to hold at least one memory at arm’s length — a feat director Nikou achieves aesthetically throughout the film. His color palette is cool; his framing is plain. No character behaves with recognizable emotion beyond curiosity, and the world around Aris feels depopulated. Greece has never looked this empty. But the world has never felt this hollow, and it’s fortuitous that Apples is reaching audiences at the exact moment when the story on the screen matches the world surrounding it.

There’s plenty more to say about Apples, but that’s a discussion best left ’til after the movie. Instead, we’ll turn our attention to the documentary shorts program.

All six are good and can conveniently be divided into three categories. Do Not Split and Unforgivable are fly-on-the-wall observations of current events, Betye Saar: Taking Care of Business and Halpate are works of portraiture, and The Shawl and Mizuko are documentaries by way of personal essays. Those last two, from filmmaker Sara Kiener and directors Kira Dane and Katelyn Rebelo, respectively, are two of the best movies — long or short — playing this year’s festival. Both are animated, and both are so effective, to summarize them here would be a disservice to their technique.

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

BY DAN SAVAGE Dear Dan: Pre-COVID I was in the whirlpool at a hotel spa when an elderly gentleman asked if I wanted a foot massage. There’s only one reason a guy offers another guy a foot massage: he was gay and into feet. I’m straight and not into feet but I said, “You can rub my feet — but just my feet, no higher.” My wife insists this means I had a “gay encounter.” I say it was gay for the other guy but not for me. What say you?

—Fighting Over Our Terms P.S. We’re not really fighting.

feelings more of a priority to him than mine? I’ve hung out with him and Susan three times. I have asked if we can get together again, as a group, so I would feel less insecure about the times they get together without me, but there’s always some excuse for why it’s not possible. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a relationship and I’ve invested a year in this man. He is a decent guy otherwise, Dan, but this nags at me.

—Boyfriend’s Long-Ago Blowjob

Dear FOOT: Not all encounters with Dear BLAB: Your boyfriend was gays count as “gay encounters,” FOOT, either playing head games — meaning but seeing as this was clearly an erotic he was fucking with you on purpose — experience for the elderly guy and you or he lacked the emotional intelligence knew it — you weren’t and/or impulse control to ROMAN ROBINSON being secretly perved on — realize why sharing someI’m going to side with your thing like that, at a moment wife. Even if you didn’t get like that, was a bad idea. If off on it, even if you were he’s the kind of guy who just enjoying the massage, enjoys tormenting the you knew the other guy women he dates, BLAB, he was getting off on it. would’ve done similar or worse things by now. (And Dear Dan: I’m a a woman he dated a quar45-year-old straight ter of a century ago probawoman in a monogamous bly wouldn’t be on speakrelationship with a 48-yearing terms with him, much old straight man. One thing less one of his closest that keeps playing over and over in my friends.) Assuming he hasn’t done similar mind is something he said to me three or worse — I’m guessing you would’ve months into our relationship. He spent included other examples in your letter if the night for the first time at my place. he had — perhaps he deserves the benWe were laying in my bed the next morn- efit of the doubt here: He said something ing, just talking and enjoying each othstupid and thoughtless, he couldn’t come er’s company, when his phone beeped. up with a good explanation for why he He read a text and then said, “That was said it, and doesn’t like to be reminded of my friend Susan. I can’t wait for you to it. As for Susan… he’s known her for 25 meet her. I think you’re really gonna like years. If he wanted to be with her, he’d her — oh, and she sucked my dick 25 be with her. And he may be reluctant to years ago at a rest stop in New Jersey.” get together as a group because he worIt turns out “Susan” is his best friend. I ries — perhaps not without cause — that had not met her yet and this was the first you might bring it up. If he’s given you no thing I knew about her. When I asked other reason to suspect he might be why he told me this, his response was cheating on you, cram this ancient blowthat he was half asleep. He wasn’t. job down the memory hole.

When I pressed further he told me it was something that happened a long time On the Savage Lovecast, Dan chats ago and that they laugh about it now but with Adam Sass, author of Surrender Your then told me it was none of my business! Sons — an escape from conversion camp I agree! It’s none of my business! So thriller, savagelovecast.com why did he feel the need to tell me?

Send questions to mail@savagelove.

Then he told me Susan can never know I net, follow Dan on Twitter @ know because she would feel humiliated. FakeDanSavage and visit ITMFA.org.

But that’s exactly how I feel! Are Susan’s mail@savagelove.net BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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TRY THIS WEEK: Garden Pizza @ Boss Lady Pizza

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IF YOU DIDN’T stress eat a pizza or two on Election Night — or even if you did — indulge in some more comfort food and another pie this weekend. How about the exceptional ’za at Boss Lady Pizza? It’s got a large menu of unique specialty pies — Chicken & Waffles, Baked Po-TOT-o, mac and cheese — along with more traditional options. All the variety works because BLP has a solid pizza foundation — a flavorful, crispy crust, well-executed sauces and fresh toppings. We opted for the Garden pizza, which is loaded with house-shredded mozzarella, roasted red pepper, portobello mushrooms and spinach. With red sauce underneath, seasoning and olive oil on top — it’s as satisfying as a veggie pie gets.

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1 Drink This: Sierra Nevada’s Narwhal Imperial Stout ANY DAY THAT ENDS with stout in your glass is a fine one, indeed. Finer still if that day is the first Thursday in November: International Stout Day. You can thank beer writer Erin Peters (aka The Beer Goddess) for this fantastic holiday, and since Peters hails from the Golden State, what better way to pay tribute than with one of California’s finest: Narwhal Imperial Stout from Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. The beer pours out of the bottle an enticing midnight black, and kicks up a mochatinged head of rocky foam. Take a big sniff and let the aroma of ground espresso entice you. Take a sip and discover hints of bakers cocoa and smoky char nestled between roasted malts and piney hops. It’s a combination that’s never gone out of style, from a brewery that’s managed a similar feat. Which is nothing to scoff at, considering the milestone Sierra Nevada is celebrating this month — for that, turn to page 33. As for the Narwhal, you’ll find that 10.2% ABV beast at all your better liquor stores.

BOULDER WEEKLY

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Alfalfa’s opens in Longmont BOULDER COUNTY-BORN Alfalfa’s Market recently opened a location in Longmont — a 23,000-square-foot operation on Ken Pratt. It’s got some bells and whistles you might want to check out, including the Produce Lab, “an open-air station inside the produce department, bringing live culinary theater to the new store.” There’s a large meat department, too, and a line of prepared goods created by Chef James Mazzio, a Food & Wine Best New Chef award winner. There’s also a pizza oven, coffee bar and, as in the other two Alfalfa’s locations, an emphasis on local goods.

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

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NOVEMBER 5, 2020

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

This is 40: Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Behind the beer that launched a thousand breweries

by Michael J. Casey

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t was 5 a.m. on November 15, 1980, when Ken Grossman Cultivated in Corvallis, Oregon, and initially released in flipped on the lights in his small converted warehouse in 1971, Cascade imparts floral and citrusy aromas and a flavor Chico, California. Before him wasn’t much to look at: a that vacillates between grapefruit and pine. Furthermore, mill, a brewhouse, a fermenter, a bottling line, all acquired Grossman decided on using whole cone hops for the beer secondhand and all piecemealed together by the 26-year- and a relatively neutral yeast strain that wouldn’t mask either old homebrewer heading pro. But looks can be deceiving, and the Cascades or the dollop of sweet crystal malt in the grist. history is rarely marked with signposts. What would transpire Though it would take another decade and change for here would ripple out over the next four decades, and beer drinkers to fully embrace hoppy beers, Sierra Nevada Grossman’s Sierra Nevada Pale Ale proved to be a winner, PHOTOS COURTESY SIERRA NEVADA BREWING CO. Brewing Co. would lead the and the beer’s success translatcharge. ed into financial stability for But first, Grossman would Sierra Nevada and legitimacy for have to brew. Five barrels of the larger craft beer movement. stout to be specific: a test Imitations of the beer were batch he and cofounder Paul legion, and the brew helped lay Camusi settled on, hoping the the ground work for what many dark ale would hide any now call West Coast-style. beginner imperfections. They Grossman and company needn’t have worried. The (Camusi was bought out in stout turned out fine, and it 1998) would continue to play gave them the encouragewith hops, creating another legament they needed. Now they cy in 1981: Celebration Fresh could turn their attention to Hop IPA, and again in 2009 with the beer they intended to Torpedo Extra IPA, with the latter plant their flag on all along, using a specially fabricated conPale Ale. traption to extract the maximum Few beers are as deserving of the label “iconic” as Sierra amount of essential hop oils out of the flower without extractNevada Pale Ale. In his 2013 memoir, Beyond the Pale: The ing excess amounts of bitterness.

Story of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., Grossman writes, “We And while hops, hop usage and hopping rates have knew we needed to create our own style of beer that would exploded in the brewing scene, Sierra Nevada brewers have stand out as being unique and distinctive.” At the time, massmanaged to stay relevant without sacrificing legacy. Pale Ale market lager was the ubiquitous beverage of Americans, but continues to rate as one of the world’s top beers, and the the burgeoning craft beer revolution began laying inroads. company continues to inspire new generations of brewers.

English-inspired ales (stout, porter, bitter) were the bread and Grossman still owns Sierra Nevada (the slogan “Family butter of the few craft breweries around at the time (including owned, operated & argued over” is printed on each bottle Boulder Beer). But Grossman wanted to Americanize Sierra and can), and the brewery produces over 1 million barrels of Nevada beer. So he turned to the Cascade hop — the first beer a year, making it the third-largest craft brewery in U.S.-bred aroma hop from the USDA’s hop breeding program. America.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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NOVEMBER 5, 2020

‘Purest ingredients’ and ‘finest quality’

G

rossman and Camusi brewed their first batch of Pale Ale on Nov. 21, but it would take another 10 batches before they were ready to head to market. The target was consistency out of the gate, and it paid off in spades. There have been slight tweaks to the recipe to account for changes in malt and hops over the decades, but the Pale Ale you drink today is more or less the same Pale Ale you would have drank in the ’80s.

And it’s still an incredible beverage: A rocky pile of foam atop a crystal clear caramel-colored brew, snappy grapefruit and fresh pine on the nose, sweet and cooling malt in the mouth, prickling hops throughout and bright bitterness on the back. Drink it out of the bottle, and you’ll get a slight breadiness on the nose (courtesy of the bottle-conditioning). Drink it out of the can, and the hops burst with fruity freshness. As the label states, Pale Ale is made from the “purest ingredients” of the “finest quality.” You could drink this beer day-in, day-out and never grow tired of the subtle nuances (some of us have tried). It’s a Mary Poppins beer: Practically perfect in every way.

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BOULDER WEEKLY

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bout 13% of early childhood centers reported in May, in the middle of the pandemic, that they struggled to afford enough food for the children in their care. Enrollment at early childhood centers and preschools has dropped significantly, increasing the financial burdens on those establishments, and further imperiling their ability to make sure the children in their charge are well-fed.

But one collaborative program — between Boulder County Public Health, Boulder County Farmers Markets and local farms — helped those establishments caring for kids ages 6 months to 5 years old get access to local produce, all while teaching the kids about gardening, agriculture and eating healthy.

The Farm to Early Care and Education (Farm to ECE) program distributed local, fresh produce to 68 early childhood centers this summer. Heather Hauswirth, Farm to ECE program specialist, says that’s up from the initial group of four recipients in 2016, when the program launched after the County recognized a need to get good food into the hands of more of the area’s youngest residents.

“There have been a lot of studies and research that [we] looked into that cited especially low-income kids had less access to fruits and vegetables, so we were trying to figure out a way to provide opportunities,” Hauswirth says.

Early childhood centers can enter the program if they meet a few criteria, Hauswirth says: They have to have a garden on-site, for educational programming; they have to be willing to run nutritional educational activities; and they have to either offer a sliding tuition scale or work with the County’s Childcare Assistance Program, which provides financial assistance to lowincome families.

Hauswirth says there are more applicants every year than the program has funding for, but the hope is to expand it to 75 centers next year. Funding comes from the City of Longmont’s Human Services Fund and the City of Boulder Health Equity Fund, which is filled, by the way, from revenue on the sugar-sweetened beverage tax voters passed several years ago.

CHRISTINA KIFFNEY

County program connects kids, particularly from lower-income families, to good food

by Matt Cortina

The program bought food from four farms this year, via their CSA programs, so essentially each center got one share of a CSA. Ollin Farms, in Longmont, provided food for centers in Boulder; Browns’ Farm served Longmont; and Cure Organic Farm and Milk + Honey Farm provided food for East County and Nederland.

Centers that participate in the program can use the food in a variety of ways, Hauswirth says. The County provides lesson plans throughout the summer that offer a month’s-worth of activities at a time. Centers are encouraged to use the food for snacks, or in tastings, or to send home to families if they don’t offer a food program.

“We have been able to send a few items home with

Boulder Restaurant Week, amended

F

irst Bite, Boulder’s Restaurant Week, was supposed to start next weekend. With restaurants at limited capacity, First Bite Producer Jessica Benjamin pivoted, curating a cookbook, A Bite of Boulder, with 40 recipes from 30 Boulder County restaurants.

So instead of eating at local restaurants, we can cook their food at home after the book is released Nov. 12. Half of the proceeds of the book sales will be split between participating restaurants, at a time when they need it most.

To sweeten the pot, several restaurants are offering special packages and unique interactive offerings to BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

the parents at the end of the week, and they have been extremely grateful to incorporate these fresh veggies into their dinners,” says Micheline Zawacki, director of Longs Peak Learning Center in Longmont, a Farm to ECE program recipient. “Their children have been eating them, participating in cooking, and trying the new vegetables at home because of the new exposure at school.”

In the past, the Farm to ECE program has provided market bucks for programs to spend at the farmers market. Hauswirth expects more collaboration with local farms in the future, spreading the benefits to more farmers in the local ag community and to more early childhood centers.

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NOVEMBER 5, 2020

coincide with the book launch. Café Aion, for instance, is offering an at-home paella kit that includes a pan, ingredients and a copy of the book for just $62. Add a bottle of wine for $13. Japango’s dealing a make-at-home sushi kit; Roadhouse Boulder Depot’s got a DIY burger kit; and there’s much more. Check out the launch weekend events at firstbiteboulder.com/dining-events/.

First Bite’s also doing a bunch of local-restaurantfriendly things after the book launch, including an Instagram-based “12 Days of Giveaways” event starting the day after Thanksgiving to support local businesses and highlight local goods. For more info, and to buy the book, go to firstbiteboulder.com.

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Making vapes safer

Colorado’s new cannabis vape regulations require “emissions testing” and expiration dates, reducing risks for both consumers and producers

by Will Brendza

R

emember back in late 2019 when the bigNow, though, it seems to be catching up. gest health story in the nation was the outThe new vape regulations will require all THC break of “e-cigarette or vaping use-associ- vape products to be emissions tested by a ated lung injuries” (EVALI)? licensed third-party lab. That third-party will test It feels like an eternity ago, but it’s the aerosols emitted from a cartridge to validate only been a year. Now new regulations for cannathe quality of the product itself and also offer bis vape products are coming down from the greater peace of mind for consumers. These tests state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED) to will determine if poor metals or core components help make vapeable THC safer. of the cartridge itself are causing any “effective Starting on Jan. 1, 2021, the MED’s new rules leaching” and will prevent contaminated products will require vape products to be emissions tested from ever making it to market. and to have a print“The crisis that ed expiration date we dealt with at the created concerns on the label. The end of last year was goal, simply, is to a crisis born of for both companies joining the market ... reinforce consumer unregulated cannabis [and] consumers who are concerned safety guidelines. production and “It’s actually sales,” Malone says. about using them.” really exciting to “This just offers more —Henry Baskerville see [these regulasecurity going fortions] coming ward for the industry through,” says as we continue to Alana Malone, cofounder and CEO of Green Dot face headwinds.”

Labs. “This is a testing we wanted to see availThe first cases of EVALI were detected in able.”

August 2019, peaking in September of that year, Green Dot Labs is Colorado’s longest running according to the CDC. By December the issue had cannabis extract company. It produces high-quality become a priority for lawmakers, health professionextract products that are bred, grown and extracted als and concerned parents everywhere. As of the all in-house. And it’s been waiting for this particular last time the CDC updated their official EVALI form of emissions testing to become available for tracking website (Dec. 17, 2019), there were 2,506 some time. cases and 54 deaths, nationwide.

Malone explains, “Testing isn’t available to The problem was (and largely still is) a mystery. licensed producers until the state certifies it. So No one knows exactly what causes EVALI. sometimes we’re waiting on the state to get up to However, the CDC website insinuates that it speed with the times.” had something to do with cannabis products:

THE VAPING EPIDEMIC

“Nationwide, 82% of patients hospitalized with [EVALI] reported [THC]-containing product use.

Vitamin E acetate, an additive to THC-containing e-cigarette, or vaping, products, is strongly linked to the EVALI outbreak.”

These new regulations from the MED aim to throw a security blanket over Colorado’s THC vape products, though, to make them less risky for every party involved.

“The vaping epidemic created concerns for both companies joining the market who want to produce cannabis vape products [and] consumers who are concerned about using them,” says Henry Baskerville, an attorney who specializes in cannabis businesses with Fortis Law Partners. “Providing some feeling of security to both manufacturers and consumers that the products are safe is a good step.”

Baskerville points out that the new requirement might cost businesses marginally more to have the testing done. It isn’t free, nor is it subsidized by the state — the cost falls on the producers.

“But I think any company in the industry would tell you that they’d be more than happy to spend a little bit of money on testing” if it helps product sales, he says.

Malone with Green Dot Labs backs this up.

“Everyone knows and can expect additional testing to add an incremental cost increase,” she says. But she calls that a “minor disruption” and one that will be easily adapted to.

“I have a pretty mild tone about it because it’s more of the same — any operator in Colorado is adept in responding to updated testing requirements,” Malone says. “This really just affirms Colorado’s position as an excellent leader in the legalization of cannabis and the regulation of cannabis production lines.”

Malone says Colorado might be the first state to implement regulations like this — but she’s certain that we won’t be the last.

“This will likely set a new standard for the national landscape,” she says.

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