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.” …

[Ken H]

Every pot smoker I ever hired, stabbed me in the back, one way or another. 0 for 10. Not a coincidence.

Sounds like someone is a slow learner. Have you considered drug testing your hirees?

[mountainbunny]

Thank you so much! I will look into the 13ers. Love hiking since I moved here.

Colorado is such a beautiful place.

[cuban leaf]

Are YOU stoned? Or did you forget the /s tag...

---

I was agreeing with you!

Now, pass the bong... ;-)

[cuban leaf]

First, it was still illegal in 2012. Second, if the pot-positive fatalities went up from 39 to 78, but the *overall* traffic fatalities dropped from 555 to 474, then where is your case against pot?

---

There isn’t one. That is why, though I’ve not touched it since 1977, I believe it should be legalized. People need to make their own choices.

[Impy]

http://www.chatsports.com/michigan-wolverines/a/Former-Michigan-player-Nearly-half-the-team-was-stoned-during-Appalachian-State-loss-10-2-3043

Missed this story from August, one former Michigan football player claims weed played a big part in their historic defeat at the hands of a 1-AA school back in ‘07, college football fans will remember that game.

Allegedly half the team got high just to see how easily they would still win. Note at this point Michigan was undefeated and a contender for the national championship.

[Theodore R.]

Such statistics mean nothing to CO people: I understand Sen.-elect Gardner is a CO aberration. Liberals won many other contested offices.

[Impy]

Republican’s did very well, except Hicklepooper stole the Governor’s race and the democrats stole enough seats to keep control of the lower House of the State Legislature.

[dfwgator]

The Gators sure have played like they were constantly stoned the last two years.

[Kickass Conservative]

Time to rename the State ‘Cheechorado”.

[Ken H]

Pot destroys brain function over time.

___________________________________________________________________

High school football can damage the brain in just ONE season - even if players never suffer a concussion, study finds

1 December 2014

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3232782/posts

___________________________________________________________________

So should we ban HS football?

[bluejean]

“Also, are people stoning today that used to get drunk?”

I haven’t noticed a huge uptick in stoned driving in the news - maybe because mellowing out, munching and sleeping are more stay-at-home behaviors than what alcohol tends to do? Hard to say. I do think pot has medicinal qualities (recent news with regard to autism, PTSD, migraines, etc).

I would have preferred that remained the emphasis rather than the recreational aspect but again, the govt spends outrageous amounts of money in the so-called war on drugs and they’ll never win. I would rather see them focus on the really awful stuff like crack cocaine, meth and herion. Some people will of course say “it leads to other things” - well maybe for some. Some people are content with it like some are happy with beer. If people want to go find the bad stuff, they’ll find it, legal or not.

I think pot is about the same as alcohol and booze is legal. You can drink responsibly and use marijuana responsibly. You can’t legislate every aspect of human behavior. Well you can certainly try but then you have tyranny.

They’ll nail down a test for driving under the influence. The control freaks are working overtime to get that figured out, we can be certain of that.

[eyedigress]

You see it.

Ban everything that everyone cannot participate in.

Ban America! It relies on self-preservation and the freedom to realize it!

Apparently that is now racist.

Liberals live in a world without a need to live.

[bluejean]

“Here is a list of diseases caused by pot smoking”

Oh horse puckies. They list the same crap for every endless commercial for FDA-approved drugs like Chantix, Abilify, blah blah blah every night during the “senior news hour” on TV.

“If you grow a third eye”, etc, see your doctor.

Gads, if you read the .2 font brochure that comes with every prescription you take you’d dump your meds down the toilet. Your list is pure hysteria. Not trying to be obnoxious, just saying that’s a bit over the top.

You can get any of that just by living on the planet.

[kelly4c]

Fellow ex-smoker, quit 8 years ago after smoking 20. Started at age 12 and at the end was at a pack and a half to two a day. Quit cold turkey with the help of a rehab place (yes I found one called Hazelden that was giving financial help to those who wanted to do the smoking cessation program but couldn’t afford the thousands it was at normal price.)

It was for seven days and I came out a depressed human being with anxiety issues lol. Went to my doc and he prescribed a years worth of refills of the Nicotine gum. THAT is how I got hooked and chew it religiously to this day. It was made to be used for only 3 months, as you probably know.

Anyways, I do have to take an occasional Xanax at bedtime because of anxiety issues and always used it very sparingly because I did not want to become too reliant on it. Even then it was scary when I ran out and couldn’t sleep all night only because I KNEW I was out lol. The gals in my dr’s office aren’t too quick on getting refill requests responded to, they actually put a note up in the office now that it could take up to 72 hours.

My doc only prescribes me 20 at a time, low dose, with no refills (have to have the pharmacy request it.) I find it a comfort just to know it’s there if I need it.

[chris37]

I did not know nicotine gum was 3 months only.

I only used one pack of it because at the time it was 50$ a box, so I could not afford another box. I think it definitely helped me through the initial week with no cigs.

I knew another gentleman at the time who had tried hypnosis, lasers of some sort, pretty much every gimmick there was with no success. However, later in his life he did quit on his own. But yep I still chew about a pack of gum each week these days.

As far as Xanax goes, the way I got addicted to it was at the time I was just straight abusing it like a complete frickin’ idiot.

I had no idea what the consequence of daily use was, and I had access to a near limitless amount. Large doses, Xanbars, which are 2mg each, which is a significant amount of the drug.

Of course, the more I abused it daily, the less the drug affected me in terms of getting me high, so I took more of it.

Then one day I was unable to resupply. about 2 days after that, I hallucinated for 3 months straight. No sleep for 3 months, not one minute. And that was just the least of what happened to me in that 3 months.

Needless to say, when you are taking that drug every day, to stop taking it cold turkey is to walk directly into Hell, and it can kill you.

However, if you only take it one pill at a time as needed for anxiety, which generally is the instruction, you will not suppress your CNS in such a way that to stop taking it causes CNS rebound syndrome, which is the worst thing in this world I have ever experienced.

Never, ever take it on a daily basis for any reason at all.

[ConservingFreedom]

one overdose of a hardcore drug and you can die.

Ditto for alcohol.

it’s far easier to happen to b/c nobody knows exactly what potency crap they are snorting or injecting. or what’s been added to it.

Another argument in favor of legalization: only legal products can be effectively regulated for potency and purity.

[ConservingFreedom]

perhaps not enough innocent people are dead yet to drive the change back.

Back to illegality of alcohol, or to illegality of pot?

[stephenjohnbanker]

” WTF?? How can you stay on someone else’ property without paying your rent/lease??? “

California protects ONLY the renter. The owner is at the mercy of the court. In other words, SCREWED!

[ConservingFreedom]

Statism is government telling you what people you can't evict from your own property - or what drugs you can't put into your own body.

[Impy]

Should we legalize crack and heroin too?