IT’S HARD to avoid the news about marijuana these days. You could get a contact high from all the stories coming out of Colorado alone. Last week, some government outfit with a long name put out a report about weed’s making its way out of that state, where it’s now legal, and into other states where it’s definitely not.
Goodness, who could have guessed that such a thing could happen? Except maybe everybody. If only Horace Greeley were writing editorials today, one of them might be headed, Go West, Young User!
Alarming? Nah. Defenders of marijuana’s legalization point out that there’s a simple solution to the problem: Just legalize pot everywhere and there’d be no problem with trafficking it in from Colorado. Why didn’t we think of that? And imagine the “solutions” that await the underground trade in crack cocaine and heroin too. Cool, man.
The long-named outfit that issued this government report is officially called-patience-the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. (Whew.) It’s connected to the White House’s drug control office and has been studying where all that Colorado weed ends up. Some of it snakes its way across the country clear to Florida. USA Today, which published a story about the report, quoted sources as saying that drug cartels would seem to be moving in on this Colorado business, too.
Yes, those cartels. From Colombia.
USA Today linked to the report through the, ahem, RMHIDTA (Rocky Mountain, etc. and et al.). If a body doesn’t mind looking into the details, which is where Old Ned lives, you can find some interesting reading there, even if it was published by a government agency. The details don’t always make the headlines, but some of these should:
-From 2006 to 2011, the number of traffic deaths decreased by 16 percent in Colorado, which is par for the course. The country as a whole saw a similar drop. (Thank you, seat belts.) But during the same time, traffic fatalities in Colorado in which drivers tested positive for marijuana increased 114 percent.
And that was before marijuana for“recreational” use became legal. Who knows how high the numbers will climb in a few more years?
-Way back in 2006, drivers with dope in their system were involved in 28 percent of the fatal car crashes in Colorado. By 2011, with only medical marijuana legally available, that number had increased to 56 percent.
-When asked in 2011, nearly a quarter of the high-school kids in the Boulder County School District said they were marijuana users. They didn’t say they had tried it once. They didn’t say they knew somebody who did. They told a survey they were the users. One out of four. Again, that was back before marijuana was legalized for general use. That’s three times the national rate. The Boulder County School District needs an intervention.
-At one Colorado hospital alone, Children’s in Aurora, more than 1,375 kids younger than 12 were treated for unintentional ingestion of marijuana between 2005 and 2011.
Tell us again how the kids won’t get in the stash if only medical marijuana is approved here in Arkansas. On second thought, don’t bother. Some of us never bought that line even before the stats started coming in from Colorado. It may be because of something called common sense, which isn’t all that common in this debate.
EVERY WEEK that goes by, there seems to be another news story out of Colorado about marijuana and its effects in and on that state. And far beyond.
And every week we get another reason to doubt the good judgment of those pushing for “medical” marijuana in this state. You can see how well that’s turned out in Colorado.
You might have heard that there are a couple of outfits in Arkansas trying to get medical marijuana on the ballot again. Maybe as soon as this fall. The next time somebody asks you to sign a petition to legalize medical marijuana, ask them how things are going in Colorado. If they say things are going just great, you might be pardoned for wondering just what they’re on.
Editorial, Pages 14 on 02/18/2014