At Governor's Mansion, Yard has Gone to Pot

[superjoint]

By Trent Seibert, Denver Post Capitol Bureau
Source: Denver Post

Gov. Bill Owens may want to take the war on drugs to his own backyard. This plant, later identified by botanists as marijuana, was found growing in a backyard garden at the Governor's Mansion. In back of the Governor's Mansion on East Eighth Avenue in Denver, what appeared to be a marijuana plant was allowed to grow knee-high from a bed of bluebells and clover.
Owens and his staff said they have no idea where the green, leafy plant came from, and it's highly unlikely that Owens is grooming his own stash of hash.

"This is obviously a planted story," said Owens spokesman Dick Wadhams, tongue in cheek. Wadhams also jokingly said it may be a conspiracy against the governor by potential Democratic opponents: state Sens. Bob Hagedorn and Stan Matsunaka and businessman Rollie Heath.

"It's clearly a joint effort by Hagedorn, Heath and Matsunaka to discredit the governor," he said. "We believe they're just blowing smoke."

Within minutes of being asked about it by a Denver Post reporter, state workers yanked it from the lush gardens that line the sidewalk along Logan Street and later said it tested negative for being marijuana. However, experts from the Denver Botanic Gardens said the plant is of the smoking variety, Cannabis sativa, which rarely grows in the wild.

Neither the Colorado State Patrol nor Wadhams could identify the plant.

"It's probably just some kind of weed," said State Patrol Technician Tim McClinchy, who tested the plant. "There are some weeds that look like marijuana. It's a common mistake."

A reporter from The Post took a leaf from the plant to a team of the renowned garden's researchers Thursday after a story and photo in Thursday's Colorado Springs Independent by Cara DeGette first raised the issue and suggested that the plant might be pot.

Several experts at the Botanic Gardens compared the leaf to those in their vast plant collection. It was a dead-on match with Cannabis sativa plants.

Even if it is marijuana, the State Patrol said such a plant at the Governor's Mansion, which Owens uses mainly for official functions, is a fluke. Since his inauguration in 1999, Owens and his family have continued to live in Aurora.

"It's just one plant? Someone was probably smoking a joint and flipped it, or the wind took a seed and blew it in," State Patrol Sgt. N.A. Nathlich said. "There's a lot of traffic by there."

Needless to say, some folks still found a bit of levity in the fact that Colorado's tough-on-drugs governor might have a little wacky weed growing in his garden.

"I think they should shake the governor down and give him a drug test," said Ken Gorman, who said he will run against Owens in 2004 on a pro-marijuana ticket.

Source: Denver Post (CO)
Author: Trent Seibert, Denver Post Capitol Bureau
Published: Friday, August 17, 2001
Copyright: 2000 The Denver Post
Contact: letters@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/

[ludivicomethod]

That's stupid to have "renowned" scientists, that could be busy working on the whole hemp thing, to be testing pot. You just smoke it. If you get high, then it's the shit! And if the governor does chief up, more power to him... exact that he's a damn dirty republican hipocrit!!!!! The only good parties are the 3rd parties. Long live Nader!