Colorado

The real cost in legalizing marijuana can be counted by the lives impacted- addiction, vaping, dispensing, traffic deaths, suicides, overdoses, … 
 

In the past three years, teen suicide in Colorado rose from 12.9 to 20.4 deaths per 100,000 adolescents ages 15-19, according to the report. Overall, that rate put Colorado as the sixth worst state.
Nationally, the teen suicide rate is up 25 percent. Colorado's 2019 rate is nearly double that nationwide, 20.4 compared to 10.5

Cannabis legalization has led to significant health consequences, particularly to patients in emergency departments and hospitals in Colorado. The most concerning include psychosis, suicide, and other substance abuse. Deleterious effects on the brain include decrements in complex decision-making, which may not be reversible with abstinence.

ED and urgent care (UC) visits with cannabis-associated International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes or positive urine drug screens for teenagers and young adults have increased since legalization, and the majority require behavioral health evaluation. A subsequent retrospective review by Wang et al. from 2005–2015 identified 4202 such visits for patients 13 to <21 years old to a tertiary-care children’s hospital system. Behavioral health evaluation was obtained for 2813 (67%) and a psychiatric diagnosis was made for the majority (71%) of the visits. 

Note:  If you look at the blue bar you will see that opioid deaths have more than quadrupled since medical marijuana was legalized in Colorado (in 2000). And deaths rose from 377 in 2012 (year mj legalized) to 504 in 2016. No evidence that legal marijuana is helping in Colorado- if anything it could be contributing to making the opioid epidemic worse!

But the conclusion is not supported by data. This study and others that conclude marijuana helps fight the opioid crisis do not consider the many other strategies that have been implemented to fight opioid abuse, including the PDMP, treatment and Narcan. Nor is there any proof people are substituting marijuana for opioids. And this particular CO research (below) flies in the face of the actual data/ facts!

Opioid deaths in Colorado have increased based on the data from Colorado Public Health and Environment Dept.

Study's conclusion does not seem to match data.

"Trust me, if the data was coming back and we saw spikes in violent crime, we saw spikes in overall crime, there would be a lot of people looking for that bottle and figuring out how we get the genie back in," he said. "It doesn't seem likely to me, but I'm not ruling it out."

An 11-month-old Colorado boy’s death from a heart condition was likely related to ingestion of marijuana, two Denver doctors have concluded, but the precise link remains unclear.

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.

“Legalization will NOT stop the crimes committed by users who have no jobs to support their habits and prey upon you and I to get that money for their hit/fix.”
And while marijuana may very well have medicinal purposes, it’s not just the drug that makes our controlled substances dangerous and a significant crime and socio-economic issue in our country. The people involved in the illegal operations where drugs (including marijuana) are grown/produced, trafficked and transported, distributed to the TENS of THOUSANDS of dealers and MILLIONS of customers, are NOT good people! THOUSANDS of people are viciously murdered in Mexico every year as organizations vie for control over the markets and territory. 

The Post reported a 40 percent increase in the number of all drivers, impaired or otherwise, involved in fatal crashes in Colorado between 2013 and 2016. That’s why the Colorado State Patrol posts fatality numbers on electronic signs over the highways.
“Increasingly potent levels of marijuana were found in positive-testing drivers who died in crashes in Front Range counties, according to coroner data since 2013 compiled by The Denver Post. Nearly a dozen in 2016 had levels five times the amount allowed by law, and one was at 22 times the limit. Levels were not as elevated in earlier years,” The Post explained.
All drivers in marijuana-related crashes who survived last year tested at levels indicating use within a few hours of the tests.
The Post found fatal crashes involving drivers under the influence of alcohol grew 17 percent from 2013 to 2015. Figures for 2016 were not available. Drivers testing positive for pot during that span grew by 145 percent, and “prevalence of testing drivers for marijuana use did not change appreciably, federal fatal-crash data show.”

After retail marijuana sales began in Colorado, the increase in collision claim frequency was 14 percent higher than in nearby Nebraska, Utah and Wyoming. Washington's estimated increase in claim frequency was 6.2 percent higher than in Montana and Idaho, and Oregon's estimated increase in claim frequency was 4.5 percent higher than in Idaho, Montana and Nevada.

She said she only smoked marijuana about four hours before putting the girls in the bathtub after taking a nap at around 3:30 p.m., the affidavit states.

We should approach mass marijuana production and distribution as we would any other large-scale public health problem. We should do what we can to limit exposure, and we should provide clear, unbiased education. In the case of prevention efforts being unsuccessful, we need to provide immediate treatment and assistance in stopping use. If we are going to use this as a medication, then we should use it as we use other medications. It should have to undergo the same scrutiny, Food and Drug Administration approval, and regulation that any other medication does. Why are we allowing a pass on a medication that very likely would carry with it a black-box warning?

Colorado Assistant Attorney General Michael Song:

• Song cautioned that doctors have to be tightly regulated, with means to punish those abusing the ability to recommend medical marijuana.
• Song said problems are arising as people, for example, eat a whole cookie, or worse, several, while they wait for the effects to hit. Then they wind up in emergency rooms stoned way over the edge.

The answer was cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, or CHS. It’s caused by heavy, long-term use of various forms of marijuana. For unclear reasons, the nausea and vomiting are relieved by hot showers or baths.
“They’ll often present to the emergency department three, four, five different times before we can sort this out,” said Dr. Kennon Heard, an emergency room physician in Aurora, Colorado.

DENVER - A 29-year-old Louisiana man who was also wanted in his home state has been formally charged with killing a homeless man in Denver while trying to steal marijuana and other belongings.

The Governor is now proposing new and significant budget cuts for this upcoming legislation session in the following areas:  capital construction for our schools, health and human services,  public safety/courts, healthcare including Colorado hospitals, and education including K-12 and higher education.  Areas that have experienced and reported increased negative impacts and/or costs associated with increased marijuana availability/commercialization.  

Areas mentioned where marijuana tax revenues will be spent highlight some of the negative impacts from increased marijuana availability/commercialization, and include:  

"Hiring of more mental health professionals in schools and child welfare caseworkers“

$18 million program to create affordable housing for the homeless" (Denver has reported dramatic increases in student homelessness as has other areas in Colorado.)

Governor Owens –
Four years ago, Colorado voted to legalize marijuana.
Colorado now leads the nation in the teen use of marijuana.
Marijuana edibles are marketed to children and marijuana-related traffic deaths have increased 62 percent.
 
Mayor Webb –
We were promised new money for education. Instead, that money has gone to marijuana regulation and the pot industry. Denver schools got nothing.
In one Colorado hospital, 50 percent of newborns tested had marijuana in their system.
Don’t repeat our terrible mistake.

“Ultimately, the school districts can figure it out,” Singer said, “or the state will figure it out for you.”  So far, some school districts — including Boulder Valley, Jefferson and Douglas County — are  working on policies or have produced them.

The exposures can make kids really sick, she said. The majority of the children had symptoms including sleepiness or trouble with balance, which typically goes away within six to 24 hours. But about 20 percent needed to be admitted to the hospital and 15 percent of cases were so severe they ended up in the intensive care unit. "Marijuana exposures in young children have resulted in respiratory compromise requiring the use of a ventilator and intensive care unit admission in a handful of cases,"

In Colorado, homeless programs are severely overextended, housing costs are skyrocketing and while marijuana might be legal, public consumption of it isn’t — which means those like Butts who don’t have private residences can still face harsh consequences for using it. It doesn’t help that marijuana jobs are difficult, if not impossible, to obtain by those struggling with homelessness. 

“I am going to get the highest I’ve been here,” he said between coughs of smoke, gazing across the rolling grasslands that stretched to hazy Rocky Mountain foothills far to the west. “This place is awesome. You don’t get anything like this in Texas.”

New data paint a grim picture of Colorado’s rising drug-related deaths.

And, two pager  http://www.coloradohealthinstitute.org/uploads/downloads/Drug_deaths_2_p...

CDA has determined that there are less than two hundred pesticides that can be legally used in the cultivation of cannabis

Fatal driving accidents have risen 122 percent between 2010 and 2014, according to the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission.

The science is clear and unambiguous—pot is a dangerous substance. It is not like alcohol at all. There is a reason it is classified as a Schedule I controlled dangerous substance, right along with heroin, LSD, and ecstasy. The American Medical Association, the American Lung Association, and other reputable doctors and scientists all reject legalization.

“I think the black market in general is still very active and Craigslist is a perfect example of the active black market,” Lauren Harris said.

On public record, one application for an indoor grow states they will use over 9,700 gallons a day at full production. The purpose of indoor growing is year-round full production, right? So that’s 3,540,500 gallons per year, or 5.36 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Imagine me putting that pool in my backyard, draining and refilling it every 10 weeks because it makes me a ton of money, keeps a lot of people stoned, and you voted for it.
Where is the outrage? Pot drains water & electric resources #Waste&wasted

January 2016 Update:
YOUTH USAGE: 
• In the two year average (2013/2014) since Colorado legalized recreational marijuana, youth past month marijuana use increased 20 percent compared to the two year average prior to legalization (2011/2012). o Nationally youth past month marijuana use declined 4 percent during the same time.
• The latest 2013/2014 results show Colorado youth ranked #1 in the nation for past month marijuana use, up from #4 in 2011/2012.
COLLEGE USAGE:
•Colorado college age past month marijuana use for 2013/2014 was 62 percent higher than the national average
ADULT USAGE:
•The latest 2013/2014 results show Colorado adults ranked #1 in the nation for past month marijuana use, up from #7 in 2011/2012.
• Colorado adult past month marijuana use for 2013/2014 was 104 percent higher than the national average compared to 51 percent higher in 2011/2012.

Recent federally funded reports show that: 
▪ The majority of DUI drug arrests involve marijuana.
▪ Youth consumption has increased.
▪ Drug-related suspensions/expulsions (mostly for marijuana) increased 32 percent over a five-year period.
▪ The number of college users has increased.
▪ Almost 50 percent of Denver arrestees tested positive for marijuana.
▪ Marijuana-related emergency room visits increased 57 percent from 2011 to 2013.
▪ Marijuana-related hospitalizations increased 82 percent since 2008.
Yet despite Big Pot’s $25 million cash infusion into the effort, voters rejected the spin that marijuana legalization is safe or in the best interests of citizens.

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/article43481448.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/article43481448.html#storylink=cpy
 

The overstuffed vehicles parked outside Pueblo’s Posada, a nonprofit organization that helps homeless families, have license plates from as far away as South Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida and Texas.
Those families have come in what social service agencies here see as a perfect storm: legal marijuana, Colorado’s Medicaid expansion (which extends coverage to all qualified adults under the 2010 Affordable Care Act), and Pueblo’s ranking as one of the least expensive cities to live in the US.
Is this what we want in Florida?

The impact of those changes can be seen not just in marijuana sales, but also in lives lost and harmed. In 2014, the report notes, there was a 32 percent increase in marijuana-related traffic deaths in Colorado compared with 2013. Marijuana-related traffic deaths increased 92 percent from 2010 to 2014.
In contrast, the increase in all traffic deaths during that time period was just 8 percent. Had it not been for marijuana-related traffic deaths, the state would have experienced adecline in traffic fatalities.
There's reason to think this problem won't go away soon. According to the report, an estimated 485,000 Colorado adults regularly use marijuana. Adults who consume marijuana almost daily make up the top 21.8 percent of that population — but they account for 66.9 percent of the demand for marijuana.

Marijuana use by kids between the ages of 12 and 17 is 58 percent higher in Colorado than the national average, according to the RHMIDTA. The rate of use among college-age adults is 54 percent above the national average. Drug-related suspensions from Colorado schools jumped 34 percent from the 2005-2009 period to the 2010-2014 period, while alcohol-related suspensions stayed flat.
 "Everything they said would happen has not," says Gorman. "They said alcohol use would go down. Alcohol use went up. They said it would eliminate the (marijuana) black market. We are the black market. The trends show that legalization is not working."
 

“Telling someone to use marijuana for PTSD or any mental health problem is like telling them to go get drunk,” says one specialist who has treated the disorder among veterans and active-duty service members for more than 15 years.

Peer-reviewed journal Clinical Pediatrics, found that between 2006 and 2013, the marijuana exposure rate rose 147.5 percent among children age 5 and under. In that same period, the rate rose nearly 610 percent in states that sanctioned medical marijuana before 2000, the year Colorado followed suit.

Employers, law enforcement officials, educators and addiction treatment providers say Colorado has cooked up a poorly regulated THC-food fiasco that crisscrosses the country with the ease of exporting gummy bears in glove compartments, pockets and handbags. For taxpayers, the growing edibles market means an array of social costs — including hospitalizations, traffic accidents, school dropouts and lost work productivity — that state and federal officials haven’t fully investigated, estimated and made public.

In March of this year plants at several growing facilities in the Denver area had to be quarantined because of the misuse of “pesticides.” The pesticides, it turns out, were improvised concoctions of chemicals, including some unidentifiable mixtures. Cannabis growers have been left to improvise since no commercial pesticides are labeled for legal use on cannabis plants.
In 2014 and 2015, nearly $6 million in pot revenues have been distributed to local governments. But the cost of increased law enforcement, drugged driving incidents, fatal crashes, loss of productivity and a huge spike in gang-related crime bring into question the cost-benefit of those dollars. Teen drug-relatedschool expulsions are also on the rise. And the notion that prisons filled with minor drug offenders would be relieved of overcrowding—a selling point of legalizing marijuana—has been blown to smithereens. Denver’s homeless population has exploded since Amendment 64 went into effect. And there are indications that finite tourist dollars are going more to pot and less to Colorado’s iconic natural wonders.

The toxicology report showed that Goodman had THC in his system, but not at a level considered legally impaired. Edibles are a bit more dangerous just because they do have a longer absorption period and a slower drop than smoking," said Breckenridge Police detective Caitlin Kontak.

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.

"Marijuana is the 800-pound gorilla in the room, when in fact, 295 Coloradans died two years ago of prescription drug overdoses," he notes. 
In 2012, 36 drivers who tested positive for marijuana were involved in fatal car crashes, according the Colorado Department of Transportation. And 19-year-old Levy Thamba jumped to his death after consuming six times the recommended dose of a marijuana edible in April 2014

A study commissioned by Colorado's Marijuana Enforcement Division this year found that people who use marijuana almost every day account for about 22 percent of cannabis users in Colorado but consume nearly 67 percent of the marijuana used. Other studies have warned about a possible uptick in heavy marijuana use.

• 1 in 3 users are daily users
• Black adults in Colorado are using at almost 50% higher than the state average for adults; Hispanics have the lowest use rates
• Low income Colorado adults are using at higher rates than the state average
• Almost a third of 18-24 year olds are using marijuana
• Almost a third of gay and lesbian adults are using marijuana - more than twice the state average for adults
• Almost 1 in five reported driving after using marijuana

The emerging marijuana industry in Colorado is trying to appeal to teenagers by offering cannabis-infused soda, chocolate taffy and jujubes.

Lowe’s doesn’t want people acutely or sub-acutely under the influence of marijuana operating forklifts, using circular saws, cutting ceramic tiles, driving company trucks — or cleaning its toilets. And no, the company isn’t interested in lowering its hiring standards, either, said Amy, the friendly and always-approachable manager at my favorite Lowe’s store....  “We’re trying to find the best people to hire, and it’s really hard these days,” Amy the manager told me....However, one thing is certain: Lowe’s isn’t the only Colorado employer struggling to find drug-free workers to fill decent jobs.