“From my own observations usage is way... way up.”
According to the feds (SAMHSA) past-month marijuana use in Washington went from 18.92% in 2013-14 to 15.30% in 2016-17 (https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUHsaeShortTermCHG2015/NSDUHsaeShortTermCHG2015.htm, table 1 and https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/cbhsq-reports/NSDUHsaeSpecificStates2017B/NSDUHsaeSpecificStates2017.htm, table 106).
Oh yeah, that is really believable!!! Every other "study" I have seen, every other person I know who lives here will tell you the opposite. But we should believe your study instead of our own lying eyes. To add insult to injury, taxpayers apparently paid for it. It is always amazing how government “studies” can somehow come to the conclusion of whatever the people who have contracted, or people who conduct the studies want them to say.
My wife was doing an event in Fife recently and I noticed the huge increase in the number of security guards roaming around the facility. I asked a couple of them what was going on and they said the “dispensary” a block away had attracted a lot of users who were breaking into cars and getting into the building and stealing stuff. They kept having to chase these low lifes off while I was talking to them. I asked them what was going on with that. They said the bums were constantly pulling the trash out of the garbage cans looking for marijuana cigarette butts that had been thrown away but still had a little marijuana left in them... N-o-o-o, marijuana is not addictive?