Last week, the cover story of The Clarion was about Denver’s marijuana dispensaries. The topic has gone from popular to cliché. I feel like the conversation has become redundant and surrounded by assumptions.

Most people believe that the only people who care about the legalization of marijuana are college-aged.

However, of the 17,356 people with valid Registry ID cards in Denver, the average cardholder’s age is 40.

Apparently the big push for medical marijuana has been fueled by an older generation.

I don’t think that the average age of all users is necessarily the same as the average age of legal users.

Maybe the statistic only tells us who finds it important to have their activity be legal.

Sometimes a person’s opinion on weed legalization has nothing to do with any interest in actually smoking.

Many people who have no interest in smoking weed support the legalization of the product. Why? Because the government could tax it and make money for our economy.

If people are smoking illegally, the government might as well legalize the product and have the ability to tax the users.

Everyone has heard the argument for taxation and apparently Denver is taking that to heart. The city is closing over 100 dispensaries by March 1 because they did not apply for their taxing license by last December.

To open a dispensary, you must apply to be able to tax with the county and state. This means that taxing works the same way as if someone was buying any other kind of medicine.

Still, with 100 dispensaries closing, there will still be about 400 in Denver open for business.

To put that into perspective, consider how many Starbucks coffee shops are in Denver.

According to their store locator, there are 21. That means that in March, there will be about 19 dispensaries for every Starbucks.

So, even if you can’t find a place to order your morning coffee, at least you can get another kind of pick-me-up.