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.” …

[ConservingFreedom]

Criminalizing them has done more to enrich criminals than to deter use - after all, who would be undeterred by the risks inherent in those drugs themselves yet deterred by the fairly remote chance of arrest?

[Impy]

So if they sold crack at 7/11, less people would use it then use it now?

[ConservingFreedom]

They don't sell hard liquor at any 7/11 I know of - why would they sell legal crack there?

And who said anything about less people using? I said the disincentive of illegality pales in comparison with the inherent disincentives.

[stephenjohnbanker]

” So if they sold crack at 7/11, less people would use it then use it now?”

LOL......crickets.

The fact is, we let 30 million scumbags into this country,
and we have a dumbed down youth. We can’t AFFORD to legalize drugs.

[ConservingFreedom]

crickets.

Wrong - see the post before yours.

The fact is, we let 30 million scumbags into this country, and we have a dumbed down youth. We can’t AFFORD to legalize drugs.

Can we afford to keep enriching criminals by keeping drugs illegal? On the flip side, if we can't afford to legalize drugs can we afford to keep the addictive mind-altering drug alcohol legal?

[stephenjohnbanker]

I wish Jim would get rid of you pro drug FReepers, especially newbies like you. People MURDER every day for narcotics, but almost never for a beer. And why should we want to make it easier for children to become addicts? Drugs are a scourge on America. If you can’t see this, you are obtuse.

[ConservingFreedom]

I wish Jim would get rid of you pro drug FReepers,

There are no "pro drug FReepers" - only pro freedom FReepers like me and pro Nanny State FReepers like you.

People MURDER every day for narcotics, but almost never for a beer.

Beer is legal, hence cheap, so users can afford it without committing crimes - another good argument for drug legalization.

And why should we want to make it easier for children to become addicts?

Since well before any state had legalized pot, teens have reported that they could get it more easily than beer or cigarettes ... which is to be expected since legal sellers card and illegal sellers don't.

Drugs are a scourge on America.

Despite the War on Drugs, which is a greater scourge - just as Prohibition was a greater scourge than alcohol.

[Impy]

I’m not moved when alcohol being legal is mentioned as a reason to legalize anything else. It’s a pretty irrelevant augment. Is it “fair” to potheads, one might ask? I don’t really give a crap.

That the world’s most popular (by far) and historically popular (by far) drug is legal and trying to ban it was a failed experiment is not relevant when talking about legalizing weed, or smack, or crack. The fact is if you legalize any of those their usage would increase, possibly by a whole hell of a lot. That would cause major problems that we don’t need. While it’s true that booze causes major problems we don’t need, that’s not a reason to make the problem worse.

So sign me up for some “statism” when it comes to keeping the dregs of society from getting stoned and spreading misery to the rest of us. If you (not YOU personally but a figurative “you”) wanna leave your kids at home, buy (not rent) a farm and go out there and snort cocaine till you think you’re Tony Montana and you start milking the chickens and plucking the cows, go right ahead (and hope PETA doesn’t find out). If you’re out in the world, sorry no. Your freedom stops when it infringes on the rights of others.

[stephenjohnbanker]

” pro Nanny State FReepers like you. “

Troll alert.

[saleman]

The war on drugs causes plenty of “problems we don’t need”.

There are plenty of laws on the books to regulate the “drugged” behavior you reference. And regulations. And rules. DUI for instance. Drug tests for employment. But the very drug laws you say we need, well a lot of people think that they cause more harm that good. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are pro-drug. I could mean that they are against the money machine that is the court and prison system. And/or that they are against our prisons being filled with non-violent drug offenders.

There is no doubt that American citizens liberty is being infringed every single day by the War on Drugs. Some are not for that. Some are. There could be a debate on that except if you lean on the side of freedom then you are considered by many to be a drug addict or in favor of drugs. Or, to use the Global Warming crowds words, a denier.

[GOPsterinMA]

Amen.

[Secret Agent Man]

There are plenty of laws already banning alcohol for age groups, places, times, etc. There are places where there are dry counties still in existence.

You seem to believe alcohol is equal to crystal meth or crack. You wouldn’t say a light beer is equal to everkleer. Variation in how we treat different substances is common sense. It denies what is seen in the real world.

[Impy]

I don’t agree that the problems caused by making drugs illegal are greater than the problems that would be caused by making them legal. Nor do I agree that abuses in the “war on drugs” are a reason to legalize them, rather than simply ending the abuses. If cops were being overzealous in in hunting child rapists I would not suggest legalizing child rape as the solution.

[sargon]

Your freedom stops when it infringes on the rights of others.

Yes, and Freedom starts when it DOESN'T infringe on the rights of others.

Merely possessing a contraband item, or being under the influence of one, does not infringe on anybody's rights.

Advocating imprisonment for possessing the wrong plant or medicine is as totalitarian as it gets. Such reasoning is used to justify numerous Tyrannical laws, and the only thing left wing authoritarians and right wing authoritarians apparently disagree on is whose version of Tyranny should prevail.

If somebody is smoking, drinking, or recreating, and NOT infringing on anybody else's rights, then they shouldn't be subject to arbitrary imprisonment, no-knock warrants, and other such unconstitutional follies.

The phony War on Drugs is one of the most Tyrannical, unconstitutional abominations ever conceived. It's a totalitarian's wet dream. Those who embrace it embrace Tyranny, all the while taking pride in their own shallow concept of Liberty.

Those on the Right cannot decry the authoritarian tendencies of the Left while simultaneously endorsing the same theories of nanny-state arbitrary Law which the Left embraces.

I'm not interested in submitting to statists from any side of the political spectrum. Their Tyranny is antithetical to true Liberty, and they simply disagree on who the individual or collective Tyrants should be. Majority Tyranny is just as evil as other varieties, often even moreso.

Embracing contraband law is tantamount to embracing the same notions of arbitrary authority that are used to destroy true Liberty, and I, for one, reject such Tyranny, regardless of which side of the phony political spectrum it comes from.

Infringement of someone else's rights is where legitimate authority begins and ends.

In the absence of such infringement, each individual's vision of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is subject to their own interpretation, and does not have to conform to anyone else's narrow-minded concepts. This is the only way it can be in a truly Free society. All else is Tyranny.

And that is true whether you're talking about legal drugs such as alcohol (clearly the worst drug on the face of the earth) or illegal plants (LOL) such as marijuana.

One cannot support both inherently Tyrannical contraband law and Liberty. The rationalistic somersaults exhibited in those who try to do so are both amusing and alarming.

So, yes, my Freedom (and yours) stops when it infringes on the rights of others, and it similarly begins, in all its challenging manifestations, whenever that is NOT the case.

[ConservingFreedom]

if we can't afford to legalize drugs can we afford to keep the addictive mind-altering drug alcohol legal?

Is it “fair” to potheads, one might ask?

That's not what I asked.

That the world’s most popular (by far) and historically popular (by far) drug is legal and trying to ban it was a failed experiment is not relevant when talking about legalizing weed, or smack, or crack.

Those bans have failed in all the ways Prohibition did.

Your freedom stops when it infringes on the rights of others.

Using alcohol or other drugs doesn't in itself infringe on the rights of others.

[ConservingFreedom]

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

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

There are plenty of laws already banning alcohol for age groups, places, times, etc. There are places where there are dry counties still in existence.

All of which I support regarding drugs other than alcohol.

You seem to believe alcohol is equal to crystal meth or crack. You wouldn’t say a light beer is equal to everkleer.

But I could say Everclear is comparably damaging as meth or crack.

To get back to the original subject: would you say pot is as damaging as Everclear?

[Secret Agent Man]

not all pot is equal either. i wouldn’t claim every strain or pot product is as potent as another.

my point in discussing alcohol was to state nonobdy becomes an instant alcoholic after one drink. crystal meth and crack and other hardcore drugs, it does happen. users tell you that themselves. they are strong and potent enough to hook someone after just one use.

you have to work and drink awhile to become a genuine alcoholic. that’s the difference between drugs and alcohol. drugs are geared and processed for no other purpose but to make you a permanent user and hook you so that you feel so bad you can’t give it up. over 90% of alcohol users use alcohol and do not feel this way and can use alcohol responsibly and socially and if they don’t want to drink, feel no compulsion to have to do so.

[ConservingFreedom]

not all pot is equal either. i wouldn’t claim every strain or pot product is as potent as another.

Nor I.

my point in discussing alcohol was to state nonobdy becomes an instant alcoholic after one drink. crystal meth and crack and other hardcore drugs, it does happen. users tell you that themselves.

I've heard many alcoholics say they loved their very first drink and wanted more and more; do all meth and crack users say that? I think the difference is less than you imagine.

Do we agree that pot is not generally addictive after one use? Do we further agree that it should therefore be treated more or less like alcohol?

[Secret Agent Man]

Based on the negatives being reported where it’s legal, I am not there yet.

I am interested in researching and utilizing the anti-cancer properties of marijuana because of the evidence that exists in its ability to kill off a variety of cancers - brain and melanomas.

[ConservingFreedom]

Do we agree that pot is not generally addictive after one use? Do we further agree that it should therefore be treated more or less like alcohol?

Based on the negatives being reported where it’s legal, I am not there yet.

What negatives have you seen that don't also apply to alcohol?