Pot-Positive Traffic Fatalities Up 100% in Colorado

Cybercast News Service ^ | November 26, 2014 - 9:48 AM | Cully Stimson

[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.” …

[Secret Agent Man]

that’s not why certain substances are illegal and others aren’t.

there isno such thing as a responsible drug user. i see zero evidence of this regarding heroin, meth, ecstacy, coke, crack, or whatever else that makes someone addicted to it.

all of these drugs make the person want more, and cause them to take more to get the same high as the last time due to what they do to the persons’ neurotransmitters. there is no such thing as a social crackhead, or moderate methhead, or a i only shoot heroin when i play cards, user.

as oposed to alcohol where it doesn’t hook you the first time you use it, and people do not all 100% who use it get addicted and become alcoholics.

not all drugs/substances are equal.

[chris37]

I will not dispute posing a danger to others at all. That is when society must step in in my opinion.

However, even in mid eastern countries where, for example, homosexuality is punishable by death, the behavior still exists. That is another demon that some people are burdened with in this world, and those people will either defeat it or be defeated by it.

The legality of it has no bearing on the person engaged in that struggle.

[PGalt]

Hey…where’s MAPS (Mothers Against Pot Smokers)?

[gogeo]

More to the point, Colorado traffic fatalities between 2007 and 2012 involving operators testing positive for marijuana use increased 100 percent over that period—from 39 in 2007 up to 78 in 2012...

I have no doubt that understates actual DUI occurrence. I would not expect to see the full effect(or have accurate reporting) for another 5-10 years.

[cherry]

since weed has been made legal in my state by the buffoon voters, our local media has bent over backwards about the new stores, new items, after Thanksgiving sales, etc....

this is being fed to our stupid sheeple like its no big deal.....the state is making big money though....

I hearby declare if anybody using their cell phone or weed and they hit me with their car, I am suing them upside in and out and up the wazzu as well.....

[kosciusko51]

Look at the comments. Same stuff, different day.

[jonascord]

"To your knowledge, could it also make one aggressive?"

Have you ever seen two stoners get into a punch up in a bar?

[gogeo]

laws are there so we can ascribe punishment for negative societal behavior, that most often has a victim. it’s for justice.

Truancy laws, for example?

[Secret Agent Man]

you ignore the fact that those suffering from their drug use, don’t just affect themselves. they do not care that family suffers, spouses suffer, kids suffer, if they lose their jobs and turn to crime for money, those victims of theirs suffer. it’s hardly just about one person.

there is such a thing as a deterrent effect to laws, and it dos stop a certain percentage of people who might consider doing it in the first place, if theydon’t stop to consider their bad choices affect others around them theyare supposed to love and love/care about them.

[cuban leaf]

I have not touched the stuff since 1977, but think it should be legalized. The reason is pretty simple and twofold.

1. Alcohol is far worse and it’s legal (and we know what happens if we try to make it illegal).
2. I side with G.K Chesterton on this issue: “The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.”

[South40]

Have you ever seen two stoners get into a punch up in a bar?

Can't say I have. But then I don't spend a lot of time in bars.

[vette6387]

“That’s funny. Someone actually thinks CA MM is not about stoners getting high.”

Yeah, The Harborside (Oakland, CA) Medical Marijuana “Clinic’s” entire “security staff is Black. Told me all I needed to know about MM. I just imagine if I had looked around a little more I could have found the black pimps and the whores too.

[chris37]

Even though the experience was extremely harsh, I am not sorry for it. I believe that this is something that the Lord determined that my soul must learn, and so I did.

But I do not believe that I can or should decide what is unlawful or lawful for everyone.

The truth of the matter is that I do not wish to have power over anyone at all except for myself.

I do not wish to control, and I do not wish to be controlled. I am a less than smart man trying to find my way in a world that doesn’t make much sense to me, so I do not presume to know what is best for others.

I thought that perhaps the experiences I had with addiction would allow me to help others in similar situations, but I learned that I can’t.

I can tell them what I learned and hope that they are able to take something from my story, but I have never seen that happen. Addiction is a truly personal struggle.

[Secret Agent Man]

the bottom line is they are selfish people.

i want to take drugs and i’m going to reject your arguments that my drug taking is going to negatively impact the’lives of others around me, onemwayor another.

they have to ignore human history. and they do b/c they are selfish and just want to do what they want to do, and damn ceveryone else. if i kill someone on pot, just lock me up then. that,s how frickin concerned they are.

[dr_lew]

Well, if a greater percentage of the populace is driving stoned, and the rate per day of traffic accidents is holding steady, the percentage of stoned accidents will perforce increase, so I would like to see the effect on total number of accidents addressed in the statistics.

[cuban leaf]

anyone with half a brain knew people high on pot would start killing people in their cars when their reaction time diminishes.

---

But if they are only going 10 mph, it’s ok. :-P

[cuban leaf]

From the article:

More to the point, Colorado traffic fatalities between 2007 and 2012 involving operators testing positive for marijuana use increased 100 percent over that period—from 39 in 2007 up to 78 in 2012.

---

IOW, the peasant nailed it.

[chris37]

I do not ignore that addictions hurts others at all.

I am especially aware of that.

But that is something the addict must come to recognize, that is one of the aspects that may open eyes as to how damaging such behavior is.

But I can tell you from 20 + years of addcition and knowing addicts that the deterrent affect of such laws mean nothing.

If addiction is the path a person was set to walk upon, then that person is most certainly going to walk on that path until the time he finds his way to the right path.

[Secret Agent Man]

truancy laws have moral underpinnings behind them, the basic premise of the safety of minors and ensuring they are kept out of adult places in the nighttime hours.

[cuban leaf]

I am not sure that our society’s slide towrd the abyss can be stopped.

---

I AM sure that it can NOT be stopped, short of the return of the Lord.

Dead serious. It’s obvious.