How the 'Napa Valley of Cannabis' Dried Up

The Journal.

The Wall Street Journal

Daily News, Business News, News

4.2 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Colorado became one of the first states to legalize recreational marijuana, a community called Pueblo stepped forward hoping to become the 'Napa Valley of Cannabis'. WSJ’s Julie Wernau visited the town to explore the cannabis boom that promised new jobs and tax revenue, and found an industry that had gone bust, with local residents struggling to find a way forward. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: -The Highs and Lows of Diversifying the Cannabis Industry Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	So this is Pueblo County, and this is where all the pot stuff started.
0:11.0	And this whole area was filled with pot stuff.
0:15.0	Karen Randall lives in Pueblo, Colorado, one of the first cities in the country to develop a legal marijuana industry.
0:22.4	We're in cannabis country here. I'll show you the greenhouses over there, you can see.
0:28.0	Karen took our colleague Julie Wernow on a tour of Pueblo late last year.
0:32.4	As they drove around, they spotted signs of the cannabis industry everywhere.
0:36.8	I mean, that looks like a giant sort of like industrial warehouse size building.
0:41.3	Yeah, exactly.
0:42.3	I guess I'm just surprised how packed together it all is.
0:46.3	And you can smell, like, smell it.
0:48.3	Can you smell the pot?
0:53.3	Oh, yeah.
0:55.0	Yeah, right.
0:56.0	And like that signature smell was hard to miss.
1:00.0	And yet, many of the marijuana greenhouses and dispensaries that Julie saw seemed to be shuddered.
1:06.0	Well, it looks like a lot of abandoned businesses.
1:12.1	You see anything in there?
1:14.1	It looks empty, right?
1:15.1	Yeah.
1:15.8	So this is a big pot place.
1:17.6	Wow.
1:17.9	Yeah.
	...

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