By: Danette Gamble, Kansas City Star Reader Advisory Panel

I love John Denver’s song, Rocky Mountain High. To this day I still get goose bumps when I hear it. Unless you have been on a mountain and looked at the stars from atop a “fourteener,” you don’t quite get it. Denver wrote the song after one such experience.

Breckenridge, CO is breathtaking. I have a timeshare there and spend a week every summer just breathing the cool, fresh mountain air; hiking a trail up to an isolated lake; listening to the crackling of leaves; the pop of a twig as it’s stepped on by a deer.

Yes, Breckenridge is a picturesque place. Although it’s grown exponentially over the past few years, there are strict building codes and such to help keep its “old west” charm.

I only hope the citizens have not damaged Breckenridge’s appeal by voting to “legalize marijuana.”

We must make note: The legalization of marijuana by the citizens is only symbolic because marijuana possession in Colorado is still a crime if you don’t have “medical clearance.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m actually not a big opponent of pot legalization. I’m not a big advocate either. I would never vote to legazie it; however, if it is legalized, so be it, as long as it is regulated, people have to be of age and consent to buy it, and we get tax money from it.

The one big concern I have about all this: I go to the mountains to breathe the fresh air. It clears the lungs and the head.

Please tell me fellow citizens of Breckenridge…

Tell me that the next time I visit your beautiful city and area I can walk down the streets and still fill my lungs with clear mountain air.

Tell me I can take a deep breath and not feel like I’m at Woodstock.

Tell me the cracks and pops I hear as I walk through the woods are still from wildlife and not the sounds of stems and seeds.

Tell me most of you had altitude sickness when you voted.

Tell me most of you weren’t high when you voted on this.