Jail, Prisons, Crime

Executive Summary

Hickenlooper, Gardner, and other politicians tell us everything is rosy, but that's not what we hear from educators, cops, social workers, doctors, drug counselors, parents, and others in the trenches of the world's first anything goes marijuana free-for-all. It is not what we see in the streets.
Condit said the black market invading Colorado's national forests has grown so large the entire budget for the Pike and San Isabel forests would not cover the costs of removing and remediating cartel grows in the forests he helps supervise.

A team of law enforcement agents from the U.S. Forest Service, local police and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hike deep into the Plumas National Forest to help with cleanup and protect scientists who are studying illegal marijuana grow sites. Even after a site has been raided, growers can return. The nets are for helicopters that will lift tons of garbage out of the site. On this reclamation trip, teams ultimately cleaned up about 7 tons of garbage, 4,000 pounds of fertilize, and 4 miles of irrigation tube, and they found the carcasses of three black bears, one grey fox and several rodents and birds. This accounts for just four sites.
14,000 Pounds of Rodenticide
Hours north of Calaveras, deep in public forests along the California-Oregon border, 12 tons of plastic trash, thousands of pounds of fertilizers and more than 80 pounds of toxic rodenticides and pesticides lay strewn among towering pines and oaks—turning this Eden into a landfill.

Crime is common near pot shops, including assaults, robberies and shootings. On July 19, a security guard was killed and three other men were shot at a pot shop in L.A. during an attempted robbery. Gangs and drug dealers don’t view marijuana dispensaries as pharmacies. Rather, they see them as rival drug dealers.
When pot shops open in a business district, complaints of the business neighbors are numerous. Fights, drug use and street drug dealing increase in the area. This, in turn, affects the type of clientele in the area for neighboring businesses.
It is well known that homelessness has increased in Denver and Seattle after legalization. Also, drug dealing dramatically increases law enforcement costs. The San Diego Association of Governments published a report finding that 52% of males arrested tested positive for marijuana in 2015. Thirty-five percent reported committing crimes to support a drug habit.
The Denver district attorney warned in 2016 that every type of crime there increased after marijuana legalization: “The Denver Police Department is busier enforcing marijuana laws and investigating crimes directly related to marijuana, including murders, robberies and home invasions, than any other time in the history of the city.”
And it can get even worse. Pot industry profits are used to buy political influence.

“So called medical marijuana in other states has become a farce and a sham. The average user of smoked medical marijuana has no chronic illness and is a white male in his mid-30s with a history of drug and alcohol abuse. . . In the last 20 years and due to market demand, constant genetic engineering has increased THC potency in marijuana plants, and extraction-concentration methods are becoming extremely popular and widespread. become addicted.”Marijuana is the 2nd leading cause of impaired driving arrests. One in six adolescents trying marijuana will become addicted.
“In the city of Denver since the legalization of marijuana Denver Police Department is dealing with a 900% increase in the unlawful cultivation and manufacture of marijuana concentrate, and a 99% increase in unlawful distribution of marijuana and marijuana concentrate.
Marijuana is the #1 problem in Colorado schools. In school year 2015-16, 63% of all drug related school suspensions were for marijuana. 58% of all drug related school expulsions were for marijuana. 73% of all drug related school referrals to law enforcement were for marijuana violations. Youth past month marijuana use is 74% higher than the national average.

Now, as citizen groups attempt to put the brakes on the growing industry, a heated debate has emerged about the drug’s societal impact. Doctors report a spike in pot-related emergency room visits—mostly due to people accidentally consuming too much of potent edible pot products. Police face new cartel-related drug operations. Parents worry about marijuana being sold near their homes and schools. And less affluent communities like Pueblo struggle with the unintended consequences of becoming home to this emerging and controversial industry.
Groups serving the poor in Pueblo report a flood of homeless people arriving from other states. Local homeless shelter Posada, for instance, has witnessed a 47% jump in demand since 2014, including 1,200 people who reported to shelter workers that they came to smoke pot or get jobs in the industry, says Posada’s director, Anne Stattelman. She says her funding is tapped out. “It’s changed the culture of our community,” she says.
Since 2013, law officials say, they have busted 88 drug cartel operations across the state, and just last year law-enforcement made a bust that recovered $12 million in illegal marijuana. Adds Coffman: “That’s crime we hadn’t previously had in Colorado.”
Another surprise to many Coloradans is that a promised huge tax windfall to benefit schools hasn’t materialized. Of the $135 million generated in 2015, for example, $20 million goes to regulatory and public-safety efforts related to cannabis, $40 million funds small rural school construction projects, and the rest goes to youth drug prevention and abuse programs. That’s a drop in the bucket for a $6.2 billion education budget.
For a growing number of her neighbors, however, legalized marijuana is starting to feel like a really bad high.

Since the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado in 2013 traffic related marijuana deaths have increased 48%, marijuana related emergency room visits have increased 49%, and marijuana related calls to the poison center have increased 100%. According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in 2015 statewide homicides in Colorado rose 14.7% over the previous year.
Pueblo, Colorado had the highest homicide rate with 11.1 killings per 100,000 residents. Aurora, Colorado’s homicide rate more than doubled from 2014. Additionally, more places in Colorado were robbed and more thefts occurred, especially vehicle theft. A total of 193,115 vehicles were reported stolen, up 27.7% in 2015 from the previous year. In 2015, sexual assaults rose 10% in Colorado with Denver, Aurora, Lakewood, Westminster, and Pueblo all reporting higher numbers as well. The letter also notes:
In the city of Denver since the legalization of recreational marijuana the number of crimes in Denver has grown by about 44%, according to annual figures the city reported to the National Incident Based Reporting System. In 2015 in Denver alone crime rose in every neighborhood in the city. The murder rate hit a decade high, 1059 more cars were broken into, there were 903 more auto thefts, 321 more aggravated assaults and 2321 more homes were broken into compared to 2014.

Friends, I make no bones about not being politically correct; neither do I apologize. But I would be the first to acknowledge that uneducated/unemployed weed-smoking/drug-crazed young black males are single-handedly responsible for the huge spike in the homicide rate. And this is being seen all across the country.

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By the end of 2014, the number of total crimes was 24 percent higher than in 2012. Property crimes increased 14 percent from 2012 to 2013, and the 2014 data was 26 percent higher than the pre-pot legalization period.

Adolescent marijuana use, particularly consistent use throughout adolescence, is associated with perpetration or both perpetration of and victimization by intimate partner violence in early adulthood. These findings have implications for intimate partner violence prevention efforts, as marijuana use should be considered as a target of early intimate partner violence intervention and treatment programming.

In response to inaccurate statistics from pro-marijuana groups and proposed legislation in South Carolina; the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) conducted the following research:
On April 16, 2015, the South Carolina Department of Corrections reported that of the more than 23,000 inmates presently incarcerated, only ten (10) of those inmates had been convicted of possession of marijuana.  All ten (10) inmates were incarcerated for multiple violent offenses, traffic violations, probation violations or negotiated plea bargains.  None of the ten (10) would have been incarcerated at the South Carolina Department of Corrections without other more serious violations accompanying the possession of marijuana offenses.  
     Between April 16, 2015 and July 6, 2015, SLED made random inquiries of seven county detention centers throughout the four regions of the state.  The total inmate population for the seven detention centers was 3,017.  Of those 3,017 inmates, only six (6) (.001%) were incarcerated for possession of marijuana. 

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, in their 2013 National Drug Threat Assessment Summary, noted,“Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCO) and criminal groups will increasingly exploit the opportunities for marijuana cultivation and trafficking created in states that allow ‘medical marijuana’ grows and have legalized marijuana sales and possession.“ Meaning that marijuana legalization may well increase criminal gang activity.

More than 40 states have reported seizures of Colorado marijuana and THC products, according to the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. The federally funded task force also reports that seizures involving Colorado marijuana bound for other states have risen nearly 400 percent, from 58 incidents in 2008 to 288 in 2013 — the year before Colorado’s marijuana retail stores opened. That is consistent with Denver police records showing a nearly 1,000% spike in the amount of marijuana officers have seized — 937 pounds in 2011 compared to a little more than 4 tons last year.