Posted on 05/23/2014 12:15:28 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Nearly five months into Colorado’s great pot experiment, the early returns are good. In Denver, home to the bulk of the first-in-the-nation retail stores, violent crime fell by 5.6 percent over the first four months of the year, with major property crimes down nearly twice that, according to the city’s police. State coffers, meanwhile, are flush with tax revenues from the nearly $50 million worth of recreational weed that was sold through March, the last month for which official estimates are available. Those sales translate into $7.3 million for the state, a number that jumps to $12.6 million when you factor in medical marijuana and licensing fees. Lawmakers are already trying to figure out how to spend future revenues that are projected to reach $98 million this year alone.
It’s too soon, however, to call Colorado’s measure an unqualified success. Officials had long warned of unforeseen problems once the retail stores opened their doors on Jan. 1, and such fears have proved legitimate thanks largely to how people are choosing to get high. So-called edibles are being blamed for an increase in the number of pot-related emergency room visits, including those from a half-dozen or so children who unknowingly ate pot-laced treats. The baked goods and candies also are believed to have played a role in two deaths in the past two months—providing opponents with front-page anecdotes that run counter to the cannabis-kills-no-one narrative long trumpeted by legalization advocates. A college student visiting from Wyoming jumped to his death from a Denver hotel balcony in March after consuming six times the recommended dose of a pot-infused cookie. The following month, a Denver man is believed to have shot and killed his wife after eating pot-laced candy, although police concede that he may have had other drugs in his system, too....
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
I had my days with pot, I found it stimulating and exhilirating to smoke it, early on. But even in those days I never appreciated “pot brownies”. All I got from that was a dull lethargy, so I find it hard to understand these reports, but who knows.
“... I’m high on the real thing: a clean windshield, powerful gasoline, and a shoeshine!”
It’s the peoples’ republic of boulder. No surprise there.
I wonder why the sudden big push to legalize pot at this particular time? We have a bunch of young brain damaged, uneducated, game addicts now, why do we want more zombies, or should I say why would the Feds want more young adult zombies?
Could it be the Feds want more stupefied kids of prime fighting age zonked out? Wonder why, what’s coming?
Edible marajuana should be locked up or have “trigger guards”. Treat it the same way the gun-hating libtards want to treat handguns. After all any safety feature is “for the children.”
“So-called edibles are being blamed for an increase in the number of pot-related emergency room visits, including those from a half-dozen or so children who unknowingly ate pot-laced treats. “
I was wondering how many kids were accidentally hurt with their parents’ guns during the same time period?
Could it be the Feds want more stupefied kids of prime fighting age zonked out? Wonder why, what’s coming?
This isn't coming from the feds; it is coming from people tired of the War on Drugs. They're tired of no-knock raids, they are tired of their dogs being shot, they are tired of forfeiture laws, and they're tired of so many people being in prison. They're tired of the losses of freedom, and they're tired of the feds telling the states what to do. And with all of that, the drugs are still on the streets. The feds have fought this at every turn.
I was initially surprised to see that the marijuana thing passed here in Colorado - it flew under the radar as far as the amount of publicity it got before the elections. When it became law, I think it surprised most people. Many politicians came out against it, but the people running the campaign never seemed to say much.
We don't have legal recreational marijuana in our town, but it is coming to a small town in our same county. We've had medical marijuana for years. Either way, it hasn't affected us and doesn't seem to have affected most other people we know. We didn't do drugs before and don't do them now.
There are roughly as many medical pot places as there are liquor stores in our area. The crime rate is the same or down a bit. Talking to friends, people on all sides of the spectrum seem to support it, and it isn't the big deal here that it seems to be from the outside looking in.
Here in Seattle, we may go legal in a couple months, or possibly longer, no one seems to know.
State and local government are DEEPLY involved in regulating growers and sellers.
Also, once the licenses are issued, local landlords, for retail space and grow space, must conform to all kinds of environmental policies that were issued long before marijuana became legal.
I don’t watch a lot of local news, but, so far, it seems pretty uncontroversial.
The state is also trying to limit how much weed can be grown legally.
They are worried if the price of pot in Washington state is too low, residents of surrounding states will rush in, buy up all the pot, and resell it for higher prices in their home states.
Also, reports of contaminated edible marijuana (molds, bacteria, heavy metals) in Colorado have caught the attention of at least one state agency here.
If edible marijuana has to be tested before it’s sold, or if it has to be monitored while growing, that could shut down that segment of the market for a long time.
The only big deal is the drug nazis screaming about losing power.
Why they believe they have the RIGHT to force someone else to choose only medicine they approve and sell at the point of a gun, is good is beyond me.
We don't want 0m0slem deciding for us! We don't want harry anslinger deciding either!
All consequences that will be ignored, by and large, by the dope stupified masses.
Also, if a student from a college in Colorado is a candidate for a job, all other things being equal, you have to think the employer will assume the worst.
Anyone know if Colorado has adopted metrics for DUI due to marijuana?
It’s because Muslims don’t drink alcohol - watch for the criminalization campaign to begin soon on something that has been part of human civilization for millennia - but they do smoke a lot of pot and hash. I imagine qat will be next.
We can see what wonders staying stoned has done for the Muslim world and it’s decidedly non-thriving countries.
These things don’t taste good, smell good, have any culinary or aesthetic value, and have no non-intoxicating dosage; they just serve to make you stupid, lazy and accepting. What more could a good Muslim Marxist want for “his people?”
God forbid someone actually practices capitalism. Democrats can't have that going on.
Sounds quite similar to alcohol
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