By Matt Ferner

A majority of Denver voters support recreational marijuana smoking in bars and other public venues in the city, according to a new survey, boosting a new drive to expand legalized pot. 

A survey released Thursday by Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling found that 56 percent of likely 2015 voters in Denver would support allowing businesses to permit pot consumption on the premises. Only 40 percent said they were opposed.

 The survey appears to support a recently launched petition drive in Denver for a ballot measure that would give businesses the ability to allow for marijuana consumption. The measure would prohibit pot sales at the establishments, so patrons would have to bring their own. 

“Denver voters have repeatedly voted in favor of treating marijuana similarly to alcohol,” said Mason Tvert, communications director for Marijuana Policy Project and a key backer of Colorado’s 2012 recreational marijuana law. “For the same reasons many adults enjoy having a drink in a social setting, many adults would enjoy using cannabis.”

The petition proposes to allow marijuana smoking and vaporizing in spaces that can’t be publicly viewed. Smoking would likely be confined to enclosed outdoor areas, so venues can comply with state law that limits indoor smoking. 

Marijuana tourism would get a boost from the measure, allowing visitors to Denver, which has become the “epicenter” of the legal marijuana industry, a place to consume their legal weed. Currently, tourists looking to light up have limited options, but are able to consume their weed in some hotels.

Colorado became the first state — and the first government in the world — to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana for adults in 2012, with the first retail shops opening in 2014. But state law continues to ban recreational marijuana consumption “openly and publicly.” The law doesn’t specifically block pot use in private …read more

Source:: Weed Feed