Governor says other states should learn from Colorado\u2019s example, noting that state initially failed to regulate edibles strongly enough<\/p>\n
States preparing to legalize cannabis for recreational use in 2017 have been warned to impose strong regulations on edible products, in order to help prevent children mistaking the drug for candy. John Hickenlooper, governor of Colorado, which pioneered legal cannabis for recreational use in 2014, said other states should learn from his state\u2019s example.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t regulate edibles strongly enough at first,\u201d he said this week, at a gathering of the Western Governors\u2019 Association.\u00a0 Colorado has seen a rise in numbers of children taken to the hospital after eating marijuana products. California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine are the latest states to legalize recreational cannabis, after voters passed ballot measures in the November elections.<\/p>\n
Recreational use is currently legal in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia. More than half of the 50 states now allow marijuana for medical use.\u00a0 Los Angeles could become the weed capital of the world, one industry insider has predicted, estimating that the southern California city already generated close to $1bn in annual medical marijuana sales.<\/p>\n
The whole of Colorado had just under $1bn in sales in 2015, on which the industry paid $135m in taxes and fees to the state. Revenues are likely to grow to $1.3bn in 2017, according to the state department of revenue. Hickenlooper, who said he had been fielding calls from governors asking for his advice, California\u2019s Jerry Brown among them, opposed legalizing recreational pot. The drug nonetheless became legal for leisure use in Colorado in January 2014. The state has since been forced to toughen regulations, particularly on edible products, because many emerged that looked exactly like non-cannabis-containing products such as gummy bears, lollipops, brownies, cookies and chocolates. Lawmakers in Colorado passed rules requiring manufacturers to improve child-proofing on packaging and use better labelling,\u00a0 including stamps on food to say it contains pot.\u00a0 Recent measures will prohibit animal and fruit-shaped edibles. The state also started a public education campaign aimed at teens and children.\u00a0 Hickenlooper, speaking in California, said that in a few cases children had died. There are, however, no confirmed statistics or details available for the state.<\/p>\n
Hickenlooper spokeswoman Holly Shrewsbury told the Guardian there have been no such deaths of under-18s and the governor was including young adults in his reference to children, without citing exact numbers. A study by the University of Colorado published last July reported that in 2015, 16 children under the age of 10 were admitted to the emergency room of the Children\u2019s Hospital of Colorado, in Aurora, with edible-related complaints.<\/p>\n
In the same year, state poison control authorities received 47 calls about children falling sick after taking pot. Around half of those incidents involved edibles. In 2009, there were nine such calls to poison control.\u00a0 It\u2019s more regulated than plutonium at this stage but I\u2019m in favour of common sense rules backed by science, not fear.\u00a0 Most children affected became drowsy and recovered after a few hours. A small number became seriously ill and ended up in intensive care.<\/p>\n
Julie Dooley, who owns Julie\u2019s Natural Edibles, a Denver company that makes cannabis-infused granola, echoed the governor\u2019s advice that states should regulate better from the start of legalization, rather than bring in laws retroactively.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to regulate ahead of time,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve just gone through our fourth round of regulation since legalization and it\u2019s very expensive having to change the labelling and packaging all the time.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s more regulated than plutonium at this stage, but I\u2019m in favour of common sense rules, backed by science, not fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dooley said it was incumbent on parents to store cannabis and cannabis products safely away from children, but said the state should do \u201ca lot more\u201d to educate the public.\u00a0 Hickenlooper said that if he could have had a magic wand in 2013, he would have reversed Colorado\u2019s legalization vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow if I have that magic wand, I probably wouldn\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cI would wait and see if we can make a better system.\u201d\u00a0 He described America\u2019s wider policy of waging a law enforcement \u201cwar on drugs\u201d as \u201ca train wreck\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cIt didn\u2019t work, so it remains to be seen whether the new system is actually going to be better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Last week, Colorado announced $2.35m in funding for research grants to look into the effects of cannabis on driving ability and cognitive functioning.\u00a0 Henny Lasley, executive director of Smart Colorado, an advocacy group that campaigns for better protections from cannabis for youth, said: \u201cCannabis products should not look like candy, or like anything a child would pick up and eat.\u201d<\/p>\n
She called for more research and data at the state level and warned about the strength of highly concentrated pot coming on to the market for recreational use.\u00a0 \u201cI would like states to limit the potency of the products,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Source:\u00a0\u00a0 https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2016\/dec\/18\/recreational-marijuana-legalization-states-edibles-candy<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Governor says other states should learn from Colorado\u2019s example, noting that state initially failed to regulate edibles strongly enough States preparing to legalize cannabis for recreational use in 2017 have been warned to impose strong regulations on edible products, in order to help prevent children mistaking the drug for candy. John Hickenlooper, governor of Colorado, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,14,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-drug-legalisation-efforts","category-social-affairs","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13057","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=13057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}