Six Months After Legalizing Marijuana, Two Big Things Have Happened in Colorado

Mic.com ^ | 7/1/14 | Chris Miles

[Rebelbase]

$19 million in new tax revenue.

Marijuana-related arrests, which make up 50% of all drug-related crimes, have plummeted in Colorado, freeing up law enforcement to focus on other criminal activity. By removing marijuana penalties, the state saved somewhere between $12 million and $40 million in 2012, according to the Colorado Center on Law and Policy.

According to government data, the Denver city- and county-wide murder rate has dropped 52.9% since recreational marijuana use was legalized in January. This is compared to the same period last year, a time frame encompassing Jan. 1 through April 30.

[HiTech RedNeck]

We should all be high.

High on God.

[ConservingFreedom]

That's the only answer to the drug problem. But I guess turning the world back to God one heart at a time isn't as much fun as getting government to push people around.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Not just the drug problem, but the gun problem, and the infant mortality problem (which includes the bane of abortion), and the racism problem, and... well a litany of sin problem.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Also people let their faith get weak, and they lay down when secularists pushed the case that it was better to cloister faith inside church doors than let it walk the streets and the boardrooms.

It’s an abomination. Bring God back into the picture and just watch Satan’s mischief making shrink.

[ConservingFreedom]

secularists pushed the case that it was better to cloister faith inside church doors

I heard the line, "Keep it in church!" a while back, and thought, "Huh - so I guess political ideas should be kept in the voting booth, too."

[HiTech RedNeck]

At any rate... God can be counted upon to reliably tell us the best way to use any manner of things, and that’s because it’s really His show in the first place. But He won’t violate our power to choose. And it’s all based on a love that is deeper than anything we could possibly imagine.

[DiogenesLamp]

Opium was legal since the nation's founding - Ben Franklin used laudanum. But even accepting your cooked books ...

You mean your cooked books. Yes, all the drugs were legal back in Franklin's era, but there was not major and widespread abuse going on. Widespread usage did not occur until After the Civil War, meaning after a whole lot of people had been informed of and exposed to the existence of these strong narcotic drugs.

Asserting equality between Franklin's era and the post Civil War period is a form of lying. By any reasonable measure, drug addiction began with the Civil war.

America had (no less than) 43 years to China's 58, and yet as you acknowledge America's addiction rate was never anything remotely like China's.

You have a serious lack of understanding regarding all the particulars involved. The major market was in China, and that's where the British concentrated their efforts. It was far easier to ship opium from India to China than it was to ship it to the United States.

They wanted Tea and Silk and Porcelain and Gold from China. What did they want from the United States? Pretty much Cotton. Most of our other products they could make just as well themselves.

Also, the British at that time were highly racist, and considered it perfectly acceptable to turn loose the demon of drug addiction on those "heathens". They could do so with impunity and very low chances of bad ramifications coming back to bite them. Not so had they tried shipping that crap to the United States.

Though the Emperor of China could not make his plea reach the Queen's ear, we had no such problem, and if Queen Victoria had heard that the British were shipping poison to her brethren in the United States, she would have quickly called the East India company to an accounting.

You leave out many factors in your statement, but of course it doesn't suit your agenda to have an actual understanding of what happened and why.

Looks like the addiction experts are right to say culture and environment are important factors.

If you think "culture" will protect you from hard drugs, you haven't taken a look around you lately. Did you happen to see this pic?

[Chickensoup]

where was this picture taken?

[DiogenesLamp]

Where? Your accompanying claim that the researchers are "people who like drugs and alcohol" is not evidence.

Your usage of the word "Researcher" is itself a loaded claim. It implies that there is some objectivity going on when in fact, most of the cites I see from Pro-Drug people are from that vast armada of propagandists who want legalized drugs. Take the link for this topic thread for example. http://mic.com/articles/92449/six-months-after-legalizing-marijuana-two-big-things-have-happened-in-colorado

I looked at the rest of the site. I wanted to know what sort of source it was, because all too many times when I look at a source for one of these pro-drug stories (especially one so silly as to draw conclusions after a mere six months) it generally turns out to be part of a larger pro-drug armada.

Guess how many Pro-Marijuana stories I found on that site for this last Week?

Well there's

This one: http://mic.com/articles/92981/here-are-the-states-set-to-vote-on-marijuana-legalization-this-year

And this one: http://mic.com/articles/92873/after-opposing-legalized-marijuana-last-year-here-s-what-colorado-s-governor-says-today

And this one: http://mic.com/articles/92733/there-s-one-huge-problem-with-washington-s-retail-weed-sales

and this one: http://mic.com/articles/92675/the-5-big-lies-that-d-a-r-e-told-you-about-drugs

And this one: http://mic.com/articles/92641/bill-clinton-just-made-a-surprising-statement-about-medical-marijuana

And this one: http://mic.com/articles/92597/the-city-you-d-least-expect-looks-ready-to-legalize-marijuana

and this one: http://mic.com/articles/92515/here-s-how-much-cash-california-could-make-off-of-legal-marijuana

That's eight different stories in support of pot, and that's just since June 30.

Seeing these nearly daily stories promoting pot, one gets the impression that the people who post at this website have an agenda. As a matter of fact, if you look at OTHER topics, you realize pretty quickly that this site is very Pro Gay marriage, Pro Abortion, Pro Gun Control, Pro Climate Nazi, Pro Feminist, Pro Vegetarian, Anti Military, Pro Trans Gender, Supports accusations of "Racism", Pro minimum wage hike, and of course Pro-Drugs.

In sum total, that website is against everything Free Republic purportedly stands for, and in favor of everything Free Republic is purportedly against. It is, in fact, an extreme liberal Kook site, and I would have thought someone would have better sense than to post a link to it here at Free Republic. You might as well be linking Mother Jones or the San Fransisco chronicle.

So give me a break when I don't take much "evidence" posted on this topic very seriously. It's Agendas all the way down.

[DiogenesLamp]

"Some"? A few posts ago YOU were (falsely) accusing ME of denying the harms of alcohol - and here you are minimizing it.

Your arguments are so lacking in substance that the best retort you can come up with is that by using the word "Some" I am minimizing the deleterious impact of alcohol. Killing 80,000 people per year, Alcohol deaths comprise 0.026% of our population.

I would suggest the word "Some" is an appropriate description of that portion of our population. This does not make those deaths any less tragic for that they could have been prevented.

And yet you say "Were I in a position to do so, I would not ban it [alcohol]" despite the ill it causes - that just doesn't add up.

Just goes to show you aren't even bothering to read and comprehend what I write. As I said, I wouldn't ban alcohol, just regulate the usage of it better. It is insane that our society puts up with multiple offense drunk drivers.

[DiogenesLamp]

For example “Drugs push themselves.”

This is wrong from an epistemological standpoint.

It is absolutely correct from a physiological chemistry standpoint. It might not dovetail with your own personal philosophy but the reality is that it is in fact true.

Your comment reminds me of what Reagan said about Economists.

"An economist is someone who sees something happen in practice and wonders if it would work in theory."

In fact it is drama queening.

Saying that "Drugs push themselves" is drama queening?

The stuff binds to receptors in the human brain because plants have mutated to produce substances similar to the endocrinal secretions of the animals which eat them. These substances work on humans just as well as they do on the animals for which the plant originally developed it as a deterrence system.

The plants are just trying to make the predator leave them alone, and if they can produce a poison or a disorienting toxin, it helps the plants survive. Humans have perverted the process by seeking out this toxin for the sole purpose of using it to alter their consciousness.

It is not "Drama Queening" to point out that these narcotic chemicals were created specifically to addict and kill predators, of which humans are now one.

[DiogenesLamp]

Anthrax can be self administered too.

But never is.

Not intentionally anyway, but has been by accident. Anthrax is too obviously a death sentence. Drugs are not so obvious, at least not in the short term.

I have known plenty of people whom arrived at the same point with drugs as they would have with Anthrax. It just took a little longer.

Not similar - a heroin user can cough in my face all day long, and lick all my silverware, and he won't make me a heroin user.

Perhaps not doing that, but he can certainly spike your food and turn you into one. Besides, laws are not all about YOU. They are about most people.

Have you known any drug dealers? I have. I've known lots of them. They work at hooking people. You know why? Because when they get someone hooked, that's a slave. They don't care that these people abandon their responsibilities, what they care about is harnessing that earning power for themselves.

[DiogenesLamp]

"Victims", for the most part, only of your own bad choices. Don't want to take up their burden? Don't!

Once again, the point has escaped your grasp.

By "Victims", I mean WE TAXPAYERS who have to foot the bill for mommy and daddy who are too busy chasing drugs to work and pay their OWN bills and take care of their OWN children. (Or themselves.)

THAT is what I mean by Victim, and WE don't have a choice about this. Your "Freedom Seeking" drug addicts are FORCING us to pay for THEIR CHOICES.

You guys are all about "Freedom" as long as someone else is paying the bill you leave behind.

If you can pay your own bills, and don't have to take taxpayer money to indulge your habits, then you might begin to have an argument. Since this is seldom the case, you don't.

[DiogenesLamp]

Not just the drug problem, but the gun problem,

What is the "Gun" problem? Not enough to go around? Or are you referring to something else?

[DiogenesLamp]

where was this picture taken?

The Platzspitz in Zurick Switzerland where they tried a "legalize drugs" experiment. It became a killing field with dead bodies showing up in the park every other day for awhile.

They ended it because it was a complete failure.

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/11/world/amid-growing-crime-zurich-closes-a-park-it-reserved-for-drug-addicts.html

[fr_freak]

lol

[ConservingFreedom]

Yes, all the drugs were legal back in Franklin's era, but there was not major and widespread abuse going on.

Exactly my point.

Asserting equality between Franklin's era and the post Civil War period

I never did that.

The major market was in China, and that's where the British concentrated their efforts. It was far easier to ship opium from India to China than it was to ship it to the United States.

They wanted Tea and Silk and Porcelain and Gold from China. What did they want from the United States? Pretty much Cotton. Most of our other products they could make just as well themselves.

Also, the British at that time were highly racist, and considered it perfectly acceptable to turn loose the demon of drug addiction on those "heathens". They could do so with impunity and very low chances of bad ramifications coming back to bite them. Not so had they tried shipping that crap to the United States.

Though the Emperor of China could not make his plea reach the Queen's ear, we had no such problem, and if Queen Victoria had heard that the British were shipping poison to her brethren in the United States, she would have quickly called the East India company to an accounting.

Oh, so you mean the spread of addiction is NOT a simple matter of physiology, as you appeared to be claiming earlier? I agree.

Looks like the addiction experts are right to say culture and environment are important factors.

If you think "culture" will protect you from hard drugs,

My awareness of their effects will protect me from hard drugs.

you haven't taken a look around you lately. Did you happen to see this pic?

Many times - it seems to be one of your favorites. What do you imagine it proves? What it proves to me is that legalizing sale and use in one small area will concentrate sale and use in that area, which is almost certainly not a desirable outcome.

[jpsb]

"Marijuana on the other hand, is a relatively recent addition to the available pharmacopeia"

Marijuana has been used as an agent for achieving euphoria since ancient times; it was described in a Chinese medical compendium traditionally considered to date from 2737 B.C. It also has a long history of use as a medicinal herb. Its use spread from China to India and then to N Africa and reached Europe at least as early as A.D. 500.

The first confirmed written record of whisky comes from 1405 in Ireland. In the Irish Annals of Clonmacnoise in 1405, the first written record of whisky attributes the death of a chieftain to "taking a surfeit of aqua vitae" at Christmas. In Scotland, the first evidence of whisky production comes from an entry in the Exchequer Rolls for 1494 where malt is sent "To Friar John Cor, by order of the king, to make aquavitae", enough to make about 500 bottles.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes, all the drugs were legal back in Franklin's era, but there was not major and widespread abuse going on.

Exactly my point.

No, that isn't your point. In 1770 supply was severely limited. It was NOT POSSIBLE to support a large addiction demographic at that time. YOUR POINT is that in conditions of plenty of supply, people would still behave as they did in the 1770s, and that is utter nonsense.

You are falsely conflating the conditions of one era which were very different, with the conditions of our time period where supply issues wouldn't be a restriction.

Asserting equality between Franklin's era and the post Civil War period

I never did that.

You most certainly did. It is implicit in your argument.

Oh, so you mean the spread of addiction is NOT a simple matter of physiology, as you appeared to be claiming earlier? I agree.

Yes, it *is* a simple matter of physiology. The stuff is addictive and it will addict. The only role culture will play is HOW FAST IT WILL HAPPEN. It will happen regardless of culture, but culture may slow down the infection or speed it up depending upon what that group of people believe.

Looks like the addiction experts are right to say culture and environment are important factors.

Oh they are factors, but they are not significant factors to the eventual result. They only slow or accelerate the effect, they will not stave off the effect.

Many times - it seems to be one of your favorites. What do you imagine it proves?

Given that it was taken during one of the most famous experiments (and in a Western Culture) to legalize drugs, it proves that if you legalize drugs you will create a zone of hell. It was a real world experiment, and it didn't go your way. It proved your argument is crap.

What it proves to me is that legalizing sale and use in one small area will concentrate sale and use in that area, which is almost certainly not a desirable outcome.

This is the argument that communists used to explain why communism didn't work. It's because it wasn't universal. If you would just make it universal, it would work, but it can't work piecemeal.

To which any sane person would respond, "if it won't work on a small scale, by what leap of logic can you imagine it working on a large scale?"

[DiogenesLamp]

Marijuana has been used as an agent for achieving euphoria since ancient times; it was described in a Chinese medical compendium traditionally considered to date from 2737 B.C. It also has a long history of use as a medicinal herb. Its use spread from China to India and then to N Africa and reached Europe at least as early as A.D. 500.

If you were keeping up with the context you would realize that the demographic being discussed is American, and the contrast was with Alcohol.

Again, compared to Alcohol, Pot is a newcomer to the American Demographic. It was implicit in the discussion to anyone paying attention.