An 82-year-old Montrose man who had been missing for two weeks was found dead Thursday, apparently the victim of a one-car accident on Red Mountain Pass.
The body of Thomas Boylan Sr. was found restrained by a seat belt inside his 1990 Chevrolet Suburban at the bottom of a 380-foot embankment, Montrose Police Chief Thomas Chinn said.
The wrecked vehicle was spotted just before noon Thursday by a delivery truck driver, who was headed up the pass along U.S. Highway 550, Chinn said. Boylan apparently failed to negotiate a sharp turn in the roadway, he said.
“It’s amazing anybody was able to see a vehicle down there,” Chinn said. “If the sun had not been in just the perfect position, we might have been waiting until spring to find it.”
It’s unclear how long Boylan’s vehicle had been there; Chinn said it was partially covered with a smattering of snow.
Deputy Ouray County Coroner Steve Lance said an autopsy Friday showed Boylan died of multiple traumatic injuries in what has tentatively been ruled an accident.
The results of a toxicology report won’t be known for several weeks.
Chinn said investigators Friday still didn’t know where Boylan was driving to.
“That could be one of those things we’ll never be able to answer,” he said.
Boylan was last seen near his home in Montrose on the night of Oct. 20, driving his vehicle. Family had been worried about his health, and he didn’t regularly drive at night.
Boylan’s family recently sought help in finding him through the television program “America’s Most Wanted.”
By MIKE WIGGINS
State Sen. Al White, R-Hayden, announced Friday he plans to introduce legislation that would implement a number of regulations on the growing medical marijuana industry.
The bill would give the state a monopoly on growing and distributing marijuana in an effort to keep black market marijuana out of the supply chain. It also would attempt to crack down on the illegal distribution of the drug by requiring a prescription to be filled by a licensed pharmacist.
“We don’t allow unlicensed people to simply open up a shop and sell controlled substances like Valium or Oxycontin — that’s why they call them ‘controlled substances,’ ” White said in a statement. “So, why are we allowing that to happen with medical marijuana?”
Colorado voters in 2000 approved a constitutional amendment legalizing medical use of marijuana for specific conditions. But state legislators largely left it up to counties and municipalities to govern the establishment and operation of dispensaries.
The Colorado Board of Health this summer eliminated a limit on the number of patients a caretaker can have. That led to dispensaries sprouting across the state — and local governments scrambling to deal with them. The Grand Junction City Council on Nov. 16 will consider a 12-month moratorium on dispensaries so it can study the zoning, regulation and licensing of them.
Governments are concerned that dispensaries could act as a front for crime and hand out marijuana liberally to people who don’t qualify for medicinal use. White said the number of people holding medical marijuana cards has jumped from fewer than 2,000 two years ago to around 13,000 now.
“What we’ve effectively got now is de facto decriminalization of marijuana,” he said. “That is not what the people of this state voted for.”
Under White’s plan, the state would initially split the revenue from the sale of marijuana between a rainy-day fund and a special fund for colleges and universities. Should the rainy-day fund reach $1 billion, the revenue stream would be directed entirely to higher education.
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