I’d like to see a serious study on what the impact of legalized marijuana has been on in-state marijuana consumption in Colorado and Washington in the last few years. No idea how that data could be compiled, but it would be interesting to know whether making the drugs legal and easily accessible led to more usage, or if instead it meant the romance went out of it and people stopped finding it exciting.
There are two types of people concerned about excessive drug use. The first kind is focused on the pharmaceutical industry and how it managed to hook Americans on enormous amounts of drugs - many times what citizens of any other country consume.
The other kind is still trying to fight the drug war, and those types should receive no response other than the cocking of a shotgun, as anybody who can’t prevent themselves from sticking their noses in other people’s business deserves.
The data is IN, here in Colorado.
Homelessness and crime are UP, with potheads flooding into the state.
Kids are using MUCH more, since any stigma is gone.
If anybody wants you to believe smoking dope doesn’t lead to hard drug use, just come and check it out.
I’ve got family members from young to middle-age caught up in this death grip.
Our Church is across the street from an affluent high school and they use our parking lot.
The kids flood off campus at 9:30 a.m. (at some ill-conceived break) and begin their daily toke.
Looking around, consumption went way up. We are also inundated with people in their 20’s and 30’s begging on the street corners.
The last study I saw was the marijuana use was up in Colorado. Likely it is because people go there to smoke weed.
Illegal sales of marijuana are still going strong. The government blessed weed is still too expensive.
I’d like to see that as well. I have a feeling that people who smoke weed will continue to do so. People who don’t will continue abstaining from it.
If the people in cars with WA plates you see here in Crescent City, CA, openly smoking weed in the Safeway parking lot are any indication, MJ use has gone way up.
A serious study might be problematic and I can give an example. The first automobile caused death after WA legalized pot, by a driver heavily intoxicated by pot, was listed as the pedestrians fault. The authorities said the pedestrian would have been hit even if the driver had not been under the influence of pot. The driver was not even cited for being intoxicated. That way it would not show up as a statistic.
One statistic they couldn’t hide was the increased number of infants and small children showing up in the ER with pot overdoses.