 So one of the biggest challenges was really taking the time meeting with the district attorneys and the city attorneys and really learning the law. It's very important anytime there's kind of a groundbreaking change in the way law enforcement do things, we study the law and we make sure that we are enforcing it correctly. So that really took a lot of time. One of the other challenges that we had was educating our officers on the new law to make sure that the patrol officers, the rank and file officers, first of all understand the law, second of all know how and when to enforce the law. It's something that's very, very important to the citizens that voted for legalization to make sure that we are enforcing it correctly. For the police department we actually had to increase our numbers of officers investigating illegal marijuana based on the number of citizen complaints. One of the big surprises after legalization was the number of citizen complaints about illegal marijuana grows really, really increasing. So in order to handle this we had to increase our staffing for the detectives that investigate these crimes and then the sergeants that supervise those detectives. On top of that we had to add a sergeant and two detectives to Denver department of exercise and license because they deal with the license marijuana locations. Although most of our criminal activity isn't related to the license locations, there are a lot of things that go on there as far as regulations are concerned that the detectives have to address. So the majority type of enforcement that we conduct is based on citizen complaints about illegal residential marijuana grows. In the state of Colorado you are allowed to grow a maximum of 12 plants on a zoned residential lot. So we get complaints almost daily from citizens about their neighbors growing more than 12 plants on their lot, usually inside. We also have complaints about outdoor marijuana grows. In the city and county of Denver it is absolutely illegal to grow marijuana outdoors. It has to be an enclosed and locked structure. So when we get these complaints from residential marijuana grows they take a long time to investigate. Certainly now that growing up to 12 plants is legal, just odor doesn't give us probable cause for search warrant. So it takes the detectives a long time to establish if something illegal is going on inside that residence. We usually have between 40 and 60 citizen complaints of illegal marijuana grows at any time in our queue. So we're always investigating as soon as we clear one we're on to the next one. And a majority of those investigations lead to illegal cultivation. It is uncommon for us to go to a location and the people have the legal amount of plants. When that happens we want to shake their hand, we want to give them a hug because they're following the law. Unfortunately that doesn't happen very often. What we are seeing now is we are seeing a lot of people from out of state where marijuana is not legal. They'll move to Colorado to grow marijuana and then ship it back to those states because the value is so much more. We have a lot of citizens that call us and say I know it's legal, I wanted to call you a year ago, but I really don't understand the law or how many plants they could have or I can't tell. And certainly we have always called it hiding in plain sight. We have had many people that just come and put a hundred plants in the basement and when we talked to the neighbors they say well I thought it was legal, I really didn't understand the law, I couldn't prove how many plants they had. Certainly there are people that are using the marijuana laws the way they should be, but there are a lot of people who are taking advantage of legalization. It's important to talk about that we need to recognize that you can't think of marijuana as a plant. You need to think of marijuana as money. Marijuana is a commodity. So what these criminal actors are doing is they're growing the marijuana here and instead of selling it on the black market here they'll sell it on the black market on the east coast states most of which do not have recreational marijuana and the profit is so much higher. They'll triple or quadruple their profit by selling it out of state. So with that we are seeing interdiction obviously. We are seeing it going across state lines. They do ship it through United States Postal Service and they also have couriers to traffic it. In relation to that we've seen an increase in violence related to the illegal cultivation and sale of marijuana. So the type of crimes we're seeing associated with the illegal cultivation and sale. In 2017 we had seven homicides that were directly related to illegal marijuana sale and cultivation. We've seen numerous robberies which most of the time are drug rips which often go unreported. If you're going to sell dope and you get ripped off you often don't call the cops. But we do know that those are occurring. We have seen home invasions on homes and burglary certainly where there are marijuana grows inside those homes. In 2016 we had very violent crimes related to the illegal outdoor cultivation of marijuana. So what we did in 2017 is we prioritized those complaints. Now if we get a complaint of an outdoor marijuana grow which again is illegal for residents in the City and County Denver we investigate them right away. Because what we were having we were having kids hop the fences, steal the plants or adults come and steal the plants. And then we had a homicide, we had a few shootings. Since we have moved those complaints to the number one priorities in 2017 we had no reported violent crime associated with outdoor marijuana grows. So that was a big success. One of the things that we are noticing over the past probably nine to twelve months is when we are executing search warrants at the illegal residential marijuana grows we are seeing an increase in other drugs. We're seeing an increase in LSD, mushrooms and methamphetamine in those locations with the illegal marijuana grows. So we have seen an increase in the black market because the marijuana again is being shipped out of state. So anytime anything is worth more in a different location but legally produced in one location that's what's going to happen whether it be marijuana or liquor or anything else. So we have two detectives that focus primarily on violations related to the license industry. I'm happy to say for the most part the license industry takes care of itself and does a good job and they are not violating a lot of laws. We have had some cases where we have had criminal actors if you want to look up the sweet leaf investigation that we did that's public record now and that was a large investigation and is a large investigation on the license location. Primarily the violations that we are seeing in the license locations are regulatory violations. We do have robust enforcement just like liquor and we do have underage stings that we do at the marijuana locations to make sure they're not selling to kids underage. One of the biggest things that we had related to license businesses which is really a success story for the industry is the number of burglaries. In 2016 we had well over 100 reported burglaries to license retail places, grow locations. In 2017 it was cut down by more than 50% and really I think that's a testament to the industry changing their lighting, changing their cameras, changing the way that they operate and it really was a success for them. And truthfully with the licensed industry the biggest crime that we have is the burglaries. We do not see many robberies at the licensed business locations and I think that is for a few reasons. A lot of locations have armed guards and most locations don't keep a lot of cash on hand so that really reduces the desire. There are a few different dangers for the police officers when we're processing and investigating these grows. One of course is the hazardous materials, the mold, the pesticide, the spores. So we equip all of our officers with proper PPE, personal protection equipment when they go in these grows. And that in itself is expensive. It's expensive to protect our officers but it's very, very important. And what's concerning to us is when we have kids in these grows or around these grows obviously that raises the level of law enforcement and city agency involvement into that investigation. One of the other things that we've been seeing is sulfur burners. So people use sulfur for pesticides. Well when that burns that creates a deadly gas. So we have to check the air to make sure we're safe going in. Well we worry about the effects to the residents or the people that live upstairs, you know, because oftentimes these are basement grows. One of the major safety concerns are hash laps. Butane hash laps are completely illegal in the city of County of Denver unless it's a licensed facility. And we have seen fires and explosions related with those butane hash laps. So what has been very surprising to me and I've been in law enforcement for 21 years, most of that in investigations is the number of guns that we are recovering in these illegal residential marijuana grows. In 2017 we wrote over 100 search warrants on illegal residential marijuana grows and we recovered 143 guns. And what's interesting is the type of guns we're recovering. We're recovering, you know, high end rifles, pistols. And when we ask the growers why they have these guns, they all say the same thing. They all say it's to protect their grow. And that comes back to what I said earlier that you have to think of marijuana as money. And so they have these guns to protect their money. Some of the lessons learned are make sure you have collaboration with all your city agencies. I can't stress enough and I stress when we talk to people from all over the nation and really all over the world about marijuana legalization is make sure you have good relationships with fire, health inspectors, zoning, building, everybody make sure you have a good working group. And the city of Denver has done a great job creating that good working group so we're all able to work together. When this first started we would be in a grow with a clear safety hazard and we wouldn't know who to call. I didn't have phone numbers to anybody on the fire department. You know, I would have to call 911 to get the fire department. Well, now usually they're with us. I mean, the collaboration has really, really, really been key. Another lesson learned is make sure that you have city ordinances and state laws that you can use in your enforcement and prosecution. That's something that's very important. One thing is going to be a very, very important piece and just make sure that you have good relationships with your district attorneys and city attorneys. Again, you are going to need a district attorney that understands the marijuana laws and will answer their phone in the middle of the night. When you're standing in a house with 200 marijuana plants and you're not sure what direction to go, you need to have that personal contact. One of the key ones is really to make sure that, as I stated earlier, not only the officers but the citizens know the law. I learned that there was a lot of confusion with police officers even though we would send out training memos and we would do in-house training with them. There's still a lot of confusion. I made the mistake of giving my personal cell phone number to 1,400 police officers, so I was pretty busy on the phone for a while, but we really helped educate them what we can do and what we can't do. And just as importantly is get out those public service announcements so the citizens understand what is legal and what is not. And really of probably of foremost importance when supporting the community is give them an avenue of how to report illegal marijuana cultivation. For a while, when someone would report that their neighbors were illegally growing marijuana, that call would get dispatched to a patrol officer. Well, that patrol officer oftentimes would drive by or stop and not see anything and then the complaint would just go away. And then the citizen really felt that we weren't serving them because nothing was done. So what we did is we streamlined that all non-emergency marijuana cultivation complaints come straight to our office and they get assigned to the sergeants and then to the detectives and the detectives immediately respond to the complainant unless it's anonymous and that way we know that the investigation is being handled.