No good weed goes unpunished.
Earlier this week, Colorado Grow Co., a new retail marijuana shop in Durango, generated headlines when the business gifted two sealed containers of pot to a group for disabled veterans.
News of the gift broke Wednesday, when Bob Collette, executive director of Disabled American Veterans Silver San Juan Chapter 48, delightedly told the media that he didn’t know what, exactly, he could do with this generous, albeit novel, donation of two one-eighth-ounce containers of Grape Krush with 14.31 percent THC.
Collette hoped the donation could go toward his campaign to buy a new bus to ferry local veterans to and from the Veterans Affairs hospital in Albuquerque.
Within hours, he was contacted by federal agents, Collette said in an interview Friday.
“I got a call from the DEA. I had to take the gift down to the police department, where they photographed it and had to make sure it was all up and up and legal,” he said.
“It was legal,” Collette said. “The police were pretty amused.”
Though DAV Chapter 48 has regained possession of the marijuana for now, Collette said it looks like the group will have to give the gift – valued at $79.90 after taxes – back to Colorado Grow Co. at the insistence of DAV’s national organization.
“We can’t sell it, but the article has caused quite a response,” he said. “I’ve had three or four calls from women – always women – asking if I still have it and would I like to part with it.”
Collette said he’s a married man. “Nobody’s asked me if I’m free and easy or anything,” he said. “These women don’t want me – they’re after the donation.”
News of DAV’s marijuana donation has spread far and wide.
Collette said an Illinois woman also called him, saying she enjoyed the story so much, she was going to put it on social media.
“I don’t know what Facebook is, but this lady from Chicago said it might make us famous and get us more money,” he said.
While several local businesses have made donations to the DAV since the story broke, Collette said that so far no donors had followed Colorado Grow Co.’s example by bestowing the veterans group with narcotics forbidden by the federal government.
“We haven’t had anything illegal given to us that I’m aware of, like cocaine or heroin,” he said.
He said the DAV still has to raise $10,000 to reach its $16,000 goal for the bus program.
He’s optimistic it can be done, and some of the DAV’s most historically reliable donors haven’t yet given to the veterans organization this year.
Collette said he expects most forthcoming donations to come in as cash or checks.
“I suppose one of our biggest donors, Coors Brewing Co., could give us a bunch of beer this year. That wouldn’t be a horrible thing!” he said. “There’s not a lot of restrictions on that – at least, I’m sure the DEA wouldn’t call.”
