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Hikers in danger, not potheads

Colorado’s leap into legal marijuana is making linguistic imprecision a high-stakes game for emergency responders.

Thursday morning, the La Plata County Office of Emergency Management’s Twitter feed instructed the public: “If you are getting high, plan to come down before the thunderheads develop. Rain and lightning a concern today.”

The tweet was quickly deleted.

Tom McNamara, emergency management coordinator, said the tweet was not actually directed at helping locals who relish being intoxicated by marijuana plan their day.

Instead, McNamara said, he was trying to warn individuals hiking at high elevations about the dangers of thunder and lightning.

He said he composed the tweet hastily and only realized the inadvertent pot-inflected pun after the tweet published.

“I realized within seconds. It just went out too quick, and the world moves faster than you can click,” he said.

He quickly published another tweet reading, “If you are going up in elevation, plan to come down before thunderstorms develop. Rain and lightning a concern today.”

Herald Staff



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