Flashback

Drugs and Culture—Aspen’s Storied History

Aspen today may be known as a worldwide capital of culture, a town of ideas, classical music, art, and design. But it wasn't that long ago that the name Aspen conjured up a different kind of culture-the drug culture that, like it or not, is a key part of our town's distinctive heritage. Aspen Magazine explores the (somewhat hazy) story of those wild and crazy years, and their still-strong influence on our passions and politics today.

Let's get one thing straight. From the start, Aspen has never been a town to "just say no." You had to be something of a nonconformist to move here in the first place, whether you were a silver miner in the boom years or a fun-loving skier in the '50s. Even this summer you will have social types complaining about having too much on their dance card because they couldn't "just say no." This town has changed a lot in recent decades, but it still retains, deep in its DNA, a rebel streak. Aspen is cool, and a certain liberal attitude towards drug use has historically seemed to go along with that. A respect for personal freedoms, the liberating vibe of the mountains, the live-and-let-live ethic of the town-that's all part of Aspen's maverick spirit. Or perhaps you've forgotten? Too busy raising your children, or traveling for business, or thinking about global warming, or being a grown-up?

Recreational drugs: Even in a town that adores its recreation, that's a touchy subject. And as in all things Aspen, everyone has an opinion-on how much is out there, who's doing what, and whether anything can (or should) change. Drug raids a few years ago had the town in an uproar over the pros and cons of Pitkin County's long-standing policy against undercover narcotics investigations. What a long, strange trip it's been since 1967, when writer Hunter S. Thompson dubbed the 1967 Summer of Love in Aspen "a wild and incredible dope orgy." As the '70s began, the band that would become the Eagles-Teen King and the Emergencies-holed up in Aspen to hone their skills and play four sets a night at The Gallery (where The Little Nell is today). Singer Don Henley called it "a wild and woolly bohemian town." He told the Rocky Mountain News: "It wasn't the billionaires' paradise it is today. There were a lot of hippies, and people just came and danced. They listened to us and danced till they dropped." Andre's (where Prada is today) was one of the havens for drinking and disco. Henley said he also ate there, although that seemed secondary to other pursuits. "All the waitresses were pretty," Henley said, "so we'd all have breakfast at Andre's."

When Aspenite John Denver came out with "Rocky Mountain High" in 1972, some said the real message was drugs ("It's Colorado rocky mountain high / I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky / Friends around the campfire and everybody's high"). Denver denied that, saying he got high on the outdoors, and even the Colorado legislature eventually overcame their paranoia last year and voted it one of the state's two official songs, along with "Where the Columbines Grow." Still, "Rocky Mountain High" may as well have been Aspen's unofficial song the whole time.

There's no question that Aspen was a capital of the drug culture. In an interview with Oui magazine, another Eagle, Glenn Frey, hinted that his 1982 song "Partytown" was about Aspen. "It's kind of like the climate of the Jerome Bar ... which is a large convention of young monsters," Frey said. "Everybody getting high on whatever's there, everything, all the time."

That "everything," early on, was mostly marijuana, says six-term Pitkin County sheriff Bob Braudis, a keen observer of the Aspen party scene from the early days. But by the mid-1970s, Aspen went from "green to white," says Braudis , as cocaine dropped in. The men of leisure switched from turtlenecks and blue jeans to silk disco shirts and gold chains, "from the mountain-man macho skier to flashy, overdressed young guys with shirts unbuttoned to their navels." The coke dealers now carried more cash, weapons, and tension than ever before. "It went from antiwar, peace-loving freaks to profit and paranoia," says Braudis.

The scene took a grim turn in 1985 when well-known and well-dressed Aspen resident Steven Grabow was killed when his borrowed Jeep blew up as he stepped in the parking lot of the Aspen Club. The 38-year-old, who had no visible means of support, was facing federal trial as the alleged kingpin of a cocaine ring valued at up to $35 million a year. Among the items seized from his home were a Porsche, $1.5 million cash, and 243 gold Krugerrand coins. Some have even speculated that the crime, which remains unsolved, leads back to Colombia's Medellín cartel. 

Braudis says there were "a few Mr. Bigs who lived in Aspen." But that doesn't mean Aspen was their business model. "If you're interested in investing $1 million and earning $10 million, the market in Aspen, Colorado, was insignificant," he adds. "You could market more drugs in one large tenement house in the Bronx than in the whole Roaring Fork Valley."

Which is not to say Aspen abstained. Skinet.com declares,  "Aspen has always loved an occasion-any occasion-to party, and no town its size does better." Outside magazine recently proclaimed, "There's only one best ski town for nighttime fun, and it's Aspen."

Do nightlife and drugs still go hand in hand? I ask one Aspenite-a 26-year-old who worked at the Buttermilk terrain park-about the drug scene. "I've never done any hard drugs," he says, requesting anonymity, "but I see them everywhere." Cocaine? "Every night in Aspen," he claims. "Every time I go to the men's room." His friends, he claims, have veered towards Valium and OxyContin before moving on to smoke heroin. "I've seen a lot of my friends go down pretty bad and end up in rehab, once they moved to Aspen," he says. He adds: "They ended up in Betty Ford. Had good families. Good jobs. They got in the party scene instead of making a living."

Recently, it seems as if the entire town suffered a civic hangover. In December 2005, undercover raids were executed simultaneously at local hangouts Little Annie's and Cooper Street Pier. The busts didn't exactly target the Medellín cartel: Officers made 10 drug arrests and snatched somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000 cash, along with five ounces of cocaine valued between $20,000 and $40,000, according to Aspen police. (Some of the drugs were found in local homes, and another 11 arrests were for immigration violations.) Some residents rejoiced. But the undercover nature of the raids also caused much gnashing of teeth among those who felt the early-evening raid on a popular downtown restaurant with families, townspeople, and tourists present was not the best way to catch drug dealers.

Then came the sheriff's race. Braudis, the incumbent, was accused by his opponent of being laissez-faire on drug enforcement and was himself-thanks to what the local papers suggested were questionable tactics-flushed out of a rehab center. Braudis still trounced his opponent-Aspen community-safety officer Rick Magnuson-and handily got a fifth term, continuing a 20-year run. Some people expected the last sheriff's race to turn into a community-wide debate on drug policy, that didn't really happen. And who knows, it may never happen. But the raids (and the resulting flurry of letters to the editor) create a sense that the drug life is increasingly clashing with modern Aspen. How does the drug culture fit in a town that seems more into yoga than cocaine, more into organic cooking than legalizing marijuana? Can Aspen still be of two minds about drugs?

Aspen first gained its national reputation as party central from one of its top imbibers-of everything-who was also one of its finest chroniclers. Hunter Thompson first drove into town in 1961 "with $2, drunk as a loon, sliding violently in the snow," and tapped into the Aspen zeitgeist nearly 10 years later in an article for Rolling Stone titled "The Battle of Aspen." (The piece was later published as "Freak Power in the Rockies.") "In Aspen, hundreds of Haight-Ashbury refugees tried to settle in the wake of that ill-fated ‘Summer of Love' in 1967," Thompson wrote, adding, "Many of the West Coast refugees moved on, but several hundred stayed; they hired on as carpenters, waiters, bartenders, dish-washers ... and a year later they were part of the permanent population."

The main problem, however, was what Thompson referred to as "the main bulk" of Aspen's population at the time: "burghers and businessmen." They didn't exactly welcome the hippies with incense and love beads, and their idea of justice might have been called "Deliverance in the Rockies." In 1968, business owners circulated a petition encouraging police to strictly enforce the hitchhiking and vagrancy laws, with the underlying message of running the hippies out of town, recalls former county commissioner Joe Edwards, then a newly minted private attorney in town.   

Guido Meyer, it might be said, was the enforcer. A local restaurateur from Switzerland who also acted as city magistrate, Guido took a hard line.

Edwards, who now lives in unincorporated Eagle County, recalls the trial of an accused hitchhiker-a 14-year-old in jeans and no shirt. "You dirty hippies are ruining our business, and let this be a lesson to you and all your friends," Meyer said, before dropping the gavel on 90 days in jail.  That same year, Edwards filed a lawsuit against the city of Aspen in federal district court in Denver, citing Civil Rights Act violations. The judge, Edwards recalls, said the way Meyer ran his court was the most egregious thing he'd ever seen, but he did not issue a formal order. Instead, he would "keep an eye" on the mountain town to see if the behavior stopped. And it did; the police chief was fired. Then a group of progressives backed by the Citizens for Community Action helped take over the city council in the 1969 elections. (Thompson had recruited Edwards, by then known as a "hippie lawyer," to run for mayor. Edwards lost but went on to serve as a Pitkin County commissioner from 1973 to 1981.)  

In 1970, Thompson himself ran for sheriff. "Could the conventional, establishment citizens of Aspen elect as their sheriff-bring themselves to vote for-a hippie? A freak? An acidhead?" a BBC documentary asked. "A man who openly smokes grass-marijuana?" Cut to Hunter Thompson, jamming up a mountain road on a motorcycle, wearing a knit beanie and small, round glasses. Thompson's campaign made last year's Ireland-versus-Semrau mayoral race, our most heated election in years, look like a yawn. Thompson's "Tentative Platform" stated: "Drug Sales must be controlled. My first act as Sheriff will be to install, on the courthouse lawn, a bastinado platform and a set of stocks-in order to punish dishonest dope dealers in a proper public fashion." Among his other issues was to forbid most cars, create a pedestrian city, and "sod the streets at once." Aspen would also change its name (by public referendum) to "Fat City" to "prevent greedheads, land-rapers and other human jackals from capitalizing on the name Aspen."

Thompson lost-but only by about 500 votes out of some 3,000 cast. And flower power was now blooming. The proof was in Dick Kienast, who Thompson had planned on appointing undersheriff. In 1976, Kienast himself ran for sheriff and won. "Kienast, in his first active gesture in changing the [department's] culture, was to start hiring well-educated locals who had no previous law-enforcement experience," says Braudis, who was hired by Kienast in 1977 and considers him a mentor. "[Kienast] felt that career policemen became cynical, if not disdainful, toward the people whom they served." Kienast envisioned a "citizen militia" whereby deputies would serve for a couple of years, then move on to other jobs in the community, says Braudis. The progressive vibe earned the department the nickname "Dick Dove and the Deputies of Love."

The refusal to cooperate with federal undercover drug agents-effectively making Aspen a more "open zone" for drug use and sales-was popular at the time with many locals who didn't like worrying about whether their neighbor, bartender, or dealer was actually an undercover agent. The policy made headlines in the '70s (Kienast was the subject of a 60 Minutes episode), and it's still with us today.

That's why December 2, 2005, became Aspen's black Friday. It was shortly after 4pm when the après-ski crowd was pulsing through Little Annie's and Cooper Street. Customers were joined by 53 officers, some in plainclothes, from the Aspen and Snowmass police departments, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Colorado Department of Revenue.  "Don't move," the cops said, and-according to local newspapers-drew their guns. (Then-police chief Loren Ryerson calls that "folklore," but says officers did pull out their guns around suspects, briefly, while making arrests.)

Many Aspenites were miffed. The undercover taboo had been broken. The brazen bust netted nothing more than a few peons, they said. And noticeably absent from the law-enforcement lineup that day was the enormously popular Sheriff Bob, who openly opposes undercover work and the war on drugs. Ryerson-and every other agency involved-had neglected to tell Braudis.

As the dust cleared, it was left to Ryerson, who has since resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment, to play defense. Ryerson said he too opposed undercover work, but he noted that Drug Enforcement Administration officers handled that part of the investigation. On the phone shortly after the raid, Ryerson sounded irritated when I started out an interview by asking why Braudis had not been informed. "I've already answered that question, and I'm not going to talk about it anymore," Ryerson said.  

According to The Aspen Times, Ryerson did not want to inform those who were not involved in the raids. Ryerson also indicated that he meant to call Braudis just as the raids got underway but got caught up talking with other officials. "I was concentrating on calling my council people and my city manager," the Times quoted Ryerson as saying. The city manager called Ryerson and Braudis together after the raids to smoke the peace pipe, as it were, and Ryerson apologized to Braudis. I asked Ryerson if he would carry out the raids in the same way again. "There's never any two sets of circumstances that are exactly alike," he said, but added, "The one issue that I would certainly change would be to inform the sheriff." But the question of who should have had advance warning pales in comparison to this stark fact: For the first time in decades, a full-blown DEA raid brought the "war on drugs" into the heart of our mountain town.

Drugs versus undercover work. Police versus sheriff. Dragnet versus Miami Vice... Aspen's story has many episodes. The 2006 election for sheriff proved that. Braudis's opponent, Rick Magnuson, a non-sworn community-safety officer with the Aspen police, said he supported undercover drug stings and charged that Braudis was too soft on pursuing drug and DUI cases. Braudis listed a number of arrests on both of those fronts, but the election never turned into a true referendum on drug policy. Magnuson himself was a distraction; he did performance art on the side, and news stories detailed the films he had made of himself masturbating, the letters he'd addressed to Osama bin Laden, and the more than a thousand times he'd driven around a roundabout while filming a bowl of goldfish. Then there was Magnuson's Nixonian dirty trick, "outing" Braudis to the local media after the sheriff checked into a rehab clinic in Sedona.

That November, Braudis harvested more than 5,500 votes. Magnuson gathered about 950. A week later, I asked Braudis what he thought the vote meant. "It was an affirmation that what we're doing, and have been doing, is highly acceptable and desired by the voters," he said of his department. In other words, stay the course. There are no signs of regime change in the sheriff's office in the basement of the Pitkin County Courthouse anytime soon. But someday there will be a challenger. Who knows? Then we might have a real debate, just like in the old days.

In the meantime, the party seems to continue alongside Aspen's other love of high culture-the arts. Although NORML annually convenes its legal seminar in Aspen, recreational drug use, like so much else in town, has changed with the times. Cocaine and especially marijuana remain king in Aspen, but prescription meds and heroin are on the rise, says Brad Osborn, director of The Right Door. This local nonprofit does not provide drug and alcohol treatment firsthand, but it helps patients find such programs and stick with them. "Everyone's drinking," Osborn says. The barbarian at the gate is meth. "It's here," he says, "but not a lot. But it's right down the road in Garfield County."

The Right Door opened in 2003 and saw 240 people in the first two years, Osborn says. In 2005, its third year, the organization counted 380 clients. But Osborn does not attribute the increased numbers to increased drug use. He figures more people are simply learning about his agency-and trusting it. "It doesn't mean a whole community is in trouble with their substance abuse," he says. "They're not."

In fact, Osborn believes drug use overall may be decreasing. He cites as factors vigilant DUI enforcement, eight substance-abuse deaths in 2005 that raised awareness, and friends and employers who may be less hesitant to intervene. He also cites the December drug busts. He says both the sheriff and police departments have been supportive of his organization.  "People want to come here and party," Osborn notes. "That's part of the deal." But with Hunter Thompson gone in a 2005 suicide, many of the original hippie invaders now retiring from lucrative real estate careers, and attitudes changing all over town, where does the drug culture fit into modern Aspen?

Whatever happens, Aspen's culture has always attracted the nontraditional­, from the legendary ski bums to the Harvard and Wall Street dropouts to the rebellious hippies of the '60s and '70s to the entrepreneurs, artists, writers, and musicians who flock here. They've all shaped Aspen's maverick culture.