{"id":10113,"date":"2014-10-03T12:14:01","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T12:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=10113"},"modified":"2016-09-20T17:55:29","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T17:55:29","slug":"drug-legalization-in-one-state-reconsidered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2014\/10\/drug-legalization-in-one-state-reconsidered\/","title":{"rendered":"Drug legalization in one state reconsidered."},"content":{"rendered":"
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It was all high fives on New Year\u2019s Day in Denver\u2019s marijuana shops. That was the day sales began under Colorado\u2019s voter-approved measure to make legal \u201crecreational\u201d use of marijuana.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More than a few state bureaucrats, on the lookout for new revenue sources, must have looked on with warm smiles. After all, proponents had said often that legalization would give a boost in tax receipts to the state\u2019s treasury.\u00a0\u00a0Not to be left behind, the Colorado Symphony announced it would play a series of \u201ccannabis-friendly\u201d concerts to be called \u201cClassically Cannabis: The High Note Series.\u201d With dwindling audiences and a deficit, the orchestra\u2019s CEO, Jerome Kern, told the Associated Press, \u201cThe cannabis industry obviously opens the door to a younger, more diverse audience.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pot-happy visitors flocked to the state. Some took a supply home. The head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration testified before a Senate committee in April that Kansas officials reported a 60 percent increase in marijuana seizures traced to Colorado. The police chief of Colby, Kansas, which is on an Interstate highway leading to Colorado, reported his department had made 20 marijuana-related charges through late May, more than three times the number two years earlier. \u00a0 \u00a0Many pot enthusiasts bought their favorite drug in edible form–candy and cookies–from now-legal retail stores. Some had fatal results.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In March, Levy\u00a0Thomba\u00a0Pongi, a Wyoming college student, and three fellow students drove to Denver to sample the wares. Mr.\u00a0Pongi\u00a0ate some marijuana cookies (some reports said six, but the label cautioned buyers to eat only one). He began acting wildly and jumped from a hotel balcony to his death. The Medical Examiner\u2019s office said that marijuana intoxication was a \u201csignificant\u201d contribution to his death.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In April, Richard Kirk purchased a pre-rolled marijuana cigarette and Karma Kandy at a shop in Denver. Having consumed his purchases, he began acting crazily, so his wife called 911. Minutes later he shot her. She died.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Children\u2019s Hospital of Colorado reported that through May it had nine children admitted after consuming marijuana. Six were critically ill. In the entire previous year, the hospital had only eight cases.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After these incidences, state regulators set out to write new rules governing packaging and labeling edible marijuana. The danger of such stuff lying around where children could find it should have been obvious before legalization took place. Instead, deaths and hospital cases had to occur before the authorities took action.\u00a0In August a report titled \u201cThe Legalization of Marijuana in Colorado: The Impact\u201d was released by the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. Using data from 2006 through mid-2013, it examined traffic fatalities, youth usage, adult usage, emergency room admissions, marijuana-related exposure cases and \u201cdiversion\u201d (i.e. seizure) of Colorado marijuana. The picture it paints is not a pretty one. The data compiled are all from pre-legalization years. That is, before this January 1.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Driving fatalities for 2006-2011 decreased by 16 percent, but those involving drivers testing positive for marijuana increased by 114 percent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Youth use: The national average of 12-to-17-year-old \u201ccurrent\u2019 users in 2011 was 7.64 percent. In Colorado it was 10.72 percent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Adult use: The national average of young adults (18-25) who were \u201ccurrent\u2019 users was 18.7 percent. The Colorado average was 27.26 percent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Emergency room: In the four years 2005-2008, the annual average of emergency room visits for marijuana-related incidents was 741. In the three years 2009-2011 it increased to an 800-a-year average.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Marijuana-related exposure cases: From 2005-2008, the annual average exposures for children from under one to five years of age was only four. Between 2009 and 2011 it had grown to a yearly average of 12.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 Diversion (seizure) of Colorado marijuana: The annual average in 2009-2011 quadrupled from 52 to 242. During the same time spans the amount of pounds of marijuana seized increased by 77 percent, from an average of 2,200 to 3,957 pounds. And, in 2012, authorities seized 7,008 pounds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2022 The mails weren\u2019t immune. In 2010, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service seized 15 packages of Colorado marijuana addressed to people in other states. In 2012 the number was 158 parcels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Did Colorado voters know all of this when they voted in 2012 to legalize marijuana sales? If they didn\u2019t, they should have been informed.\u202f\u00a0\u00a0While comparable data for 2014 won\u2019t be available until next year, there is no evidence yet that the legalization program is producing benefits to outweigh the dangers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Marijuana promoters routinely say that legalization of the sale of \u201crecreational\u201d marijuana will put an end to illicit activities. Don\u2019t bet on it. And, especially, don\u2019t bet on adult users being careful to put tempting pot cookies and candies well out of the reach of children.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Hannaford writes from California, the first of 22 states to legalize the sale of medical-use marijuana.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source:\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/spectator.org\/articles\/60510\/marijuana-cookie-monsters<\/a>\u00a0\u00a09.29.14<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was all high fives on New Year\u2019s Day in Denver\u2019s marijuana shops. That was the day sales began under Colorado\u2019s voter-approved measure to make legal \u201crecreational\u201d use of marijuana.\u00a0 More than a few state bureaucrats, on the lookout for new revenue sources, must have looked on with warm smiles. After all, proponents had said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannabis-marijuana","category-social-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}