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Pot-Positive Traffic Fatalities Up 100% in Colorado
Cybercast News Service ^ | November 26, 2014 - 9:48 AM | Cully Stimson

Posted on 11/30/2014 6:03:08 PM PST by Olog-hai

… The data coming out of Colorado is exhibit A on why voters should reject legalization efforts. Even the Democratic governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper, said that legalizing marijuana in Colorado was “reckless.” As I have written at Heritage, pot-positive traffic fatalities have gone up 100 percent since voters legalized pot in Colorado. This is true despite the fact that overall traffic fatalities in Colorado have gone down since 2007.

A report by a federal grant-funded agency in Colorado found seven specific negative side effects that pot legalization has caused in Colorado:

  1. the majority of DUI drug arrests involve marijuana;
  2. youth consumption of marijuana has increased;
  3. drug-related suspensions/expulsions increased 32 percent over a 5-year period and a majority was for marijuana;
  4. an increase in college users;
  5. almost 50 percent of Denver arrestees tested positive for marijuana;
  6. marijuana-related emergency room visits increased 57 percent from 2011-2013; and
  7. marijuana-related hospitalizations has increased 82 percent since 2008.
Perhaps people are also aware of new scientific studies pointing to the inherent dangers of marijuana. For example, the British health research journal The Lancet Psychiatry recently concluded that teens who smoke marijuana are “also 60 percent less likely to graduate college and seven times more likely to attempt suicide.” …

(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; US: Colorado
KEYWORDS: cannabis; carfatalities; colorado; deathtoll; dui; marijuana; pot; potheads; trends; wod
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To: JRandomFreeper

actually the article we’re commenting on is about how pot-affected traffic fatalities have doubled since legalization in colorado.


161 posted on 12/01/2014 1:20:52 AM PST by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: GeronL

he pulls this putting-words-in-your-mouth sh1t everytime someone disagrees with him. it’s really getting old.


162 posted on 12/01/2014 1:23:08 AM PST by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: chris37

pot ain’t as weak as what you may have been exposed to 30 years ago. from what i am told some varieties are a hell of a lot more potent than what people could get their hands on in the past. that makes them more addictive by definition. and more powerful in their sense-bending effects.


163 posted on 12/01/2014 1:26:49 AM PST by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: chris37

society - we - do let people do dangerous things, but society can decide where that danger becomes more than just danger to an individual and manifests itself in any number of society-unacceptable ways.

i can’t have a nuclear weapon even though i want one. if i got drunk or high and in my altered state decided that it would’be fun to detonate it, the pro-drug people would say the pot had nothing to do’with it and to prosecute me the same way they’d prosecute anyone who nukes his neighbors.

now replace nuke with driving my car stoned and killing others, or playing around with a weapon while stoned and killing or injuring someone. they want to ignore pot’s - or any other mind-altering, inhibition lowering, conscience-affecting drug, contribution to that person doing that act in the first place.


164 posted on 12/01/2014 1:38:30 AM PST by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: cherry

>> we will see that all these “alcohol related” accidents are really alcohol and weed related....

Likely the case.


165 posted on 12/01/2014 1:41:07 AM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: chris37

again, many of these drugs hook a person the first time they use them. no one becomes an alcoholic after one drink. and most drinkers are not alcoholics. if you are on crack or meth or krokodil, there is no such thing as a modeate user of these drugs. by their nature these drugs instantly turn people into addicts and require more and more to be taken. not so with alcohol. if it were not true every person who drank would be hooked and become addicted to alcohol and require more and more each time to get the same buzz level as before.


166 posted on 12/01/2014 1:44:15 AM PST by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: chris37

Sounds like cigarette addiction then.

And it is an addiction no matter that you don’t die from withdrawals. It just means it’s not as dangerous a substance to begin with, compared with drugs like heroin, coke and meth.

So imo pot can be addictive. Why are they legalizing one potentially addictive substance and at the same time trying to get everybody off of another, one that’s been legal for centuries?


167 posted on 12/01/2014 1:46:27 AM PST by kelly4c (http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=2900389%2C41#help)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Dope isn’t exactly the type of narcotic you’re enumerating.

FWIW, I abhor drug use.


168 posted on 12/01/2014 1:48:25 AM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: kelly4c

You make the interesting point about the addictive struggle, and what’s required to become addicted.


169 posted on 12/01/2014 1:50:23 AM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Gene Eric

read my prior posts on it. i think there are real medicinal uses for it. at the same time today’s pot ain’t your grandpas. more potency means more addiction to it because of a better high. simple as that.


170 posted on 12/01/2014 1:51:48 AM PST by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Good point regarding engineered dope.


171 posted on 12/01/2014 1:53:21 AM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: Gene Eric

i mean people have on purpose just bred more potent plants. not just only chemically enhancing existing pot. not sure if you meant artificially adding chemicals or actually cross-breeding or hybridizing more potent plant lines. or’both. it’s late! :-)


172 posted on 12/01/2014 1:59:27 AM PST by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Understood. By whatever means, the cannabis was modified to be more potent and presumably more addictive (emphasizing the presumption.)


173 posted on 12/01/2014 2:02:35 AM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: grania

I live in Colorado, but don’t do drugs, so I have no direct experience except to say that alcohol at this altitude has a greater effect for some.

It seems to take visitors less alcohol to get tipsy than closer to sea level.

I’m not sure the altitude affects those of us who live here, though. You do get used to the thinner air eventually. I live at about 9,500 feet or so, and it bothered me at first, but hasn’t for a long time.

I get altitude sickness above around 13,000 feet and that hasn’t changed at all over the years, so getting used to the altitude does seem to have concrete limits. I’ve only hiked above 13,000 feet twice and the last time I got very ill and had to descend rapidly. I’ll never manage to hike all of the 14ers.

You ask a good question - wondering if anyone has a more definative answer?


174 posted on 12/01/2014 2:06:27 AM PST by mountainbunny (Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens ~ J.R.R. Tolkien)
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To: Secret Agent Man
Asking a question to clarify what was said is not putting words in someone's mouth.

/johnny

175 posted on 12/01/2014 5:12:29 AM PST by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: Ken H

2007 & 2012, the same two years as the number of pot traffic fatalities cited.


176 posted on 12/01/2014 5:53:13 AM PST by coloradan (The US has become a banana republic, except without the bananas - or the republic.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

No variety is addicting in a physical sense at all.

Yes, they are potent. If you don’t smoke at all and then smoke some of the good stuff, it’s going to rock your world.

If you smoke all day long everyday and smoke some of the good stuff, it’s barely going to phase you because you will have a high tolerance to its effects.

The last time I got stoned on the good stuff was about 5 years ago, so I am very familiar with today’s variety.

But regardless of the drug’s potency, my point is still that it doesn’t matter to an addict at all if their of choice drug is illegal.

That does not factor into their equation at all. The problems that motivate their destructive behavior are far beyond the ability of laws to correct.


177 posted on 12/01/2014 7:34:26 AM PST by chris37 (heartless)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Well, society decided in this case to allow people to do this.

Yes, there are risk involved in its usage. I can’t argue with that.

And DUI laws and wrongful death laws and manslaughter laws still remain and haven’t been changed in any way.


178 posted on 12/01/2014 7:36:20 AM PST by chris37 (heartless)
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To: kelly4c

Nicotine does have physically addictive properties as well as psychologically addictive properties.

However, neither of those aspects is as strong as people think they are.

It took me all of three days to stop smoking after 9 years and finishing at 2 packs a day.

I decided to stop, and then I stopped. I bought one pack of nicotine gum to help, and it helped a lot. I still chew gum to this day even though I quit cigs 18 years ago, but I only chew sugar free gum, not nicotine gum.

If you want to know what actual addiction is, then talk to someone who has been taking valium or xanax every day for years and cannot quit without facing a torturous death.

As far as why they are legalizing pot, I have a few theories. My first would be to say that people who smoke pot do not deserve to be in prison for smoking it or possessing it.

I’d also say that certain left wing powers realize that for whatever reason, the high of THC makes one more pliable to their left wing philosophies. I don’t know why that it is, but it is.

As far as why are they so active against cigarette smokers at the same time, they are utter shameless hypocrites who only want people doing what they want them to do, and nothing else.


179 posted on 12/01/2014 7:45:37 AM PST by chris37 (heartless)
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To: Secret Agent Man

I saw a program about a month back on NAT GEO channel. I forget the name of it, but it was something along the lines of Addicted, that may have been the name of it.

They followed around a series of various addicts to different drugs as they partnered with an addiction psychiatrist who was trying to help them and convince them to enter his rehab.

They had all the usual suspects...coke, pot, heroin, meth, pills, crack....pretty much everything under the sun.

But what was interesting was that the person who was by far the most messed up was the hardcore alcoholic.

This young man, who was 27, had an addiction to alcohol unlike anything I’d ever seen. He had a number of people around him, loved ones, who really cared for him and wanted to help him, ex girlfriend, mom, brother and such.

But his addiction was so powerful that if he did not wake up and drink hard liquor every day, he would go into life threatening withdrawal symptoms.

Basically, at the end of the show, the doctor had indeed convinced this young man to enter his rehab.

The young man died 17 days later in rehab at the age of 27 from organ failure due to extended alcohol abuse.

Of all the addicts featured on the show, he was the only one who died.

The product remains legal.

Even if the product was not legal, this young man would still have had his demon to contend with.

Addiction is without a doubt a medical problem and a spiritual problem. Law is not relevant in this matter.


180 posted on 12/01/2014 7:53:12 AM PST by chris37 (heartless)
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