Pueblo County’s jailing of the homeless has nearly tripled since 2010, many of them for committing violent crimes. The increase – to 565 arrests, including 63 involving violence, in 2016, from 204, including 30 for violence, in 2010 – has grown apace since Colorado legalized recreational marijuana in 2012.

No, marijuana is not the only cause of homelessness, but there’s an inescapable statistical connection between the lure of legal pot and other reasons people are drawn to Pueblo.

Anne Stattelman, director of the nonprofit Posada of Pueblo, works to help the city’s homeless. “We used to know the homeless population here. We don’t anymore. They are younger and they come here with a sense of entitlement, that we owe them services. And they get angry and sometimes violent when we can’t help them. I’ve had staff assaulted and I always worry about their safety now,” she said.

Stattelman knows of what she speaks, observing firsthand people who come to her agency high on drugs, such as heroin, methamphetamine and even marijuana.

Read more at The Pueblo Chieftain.