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06-27-2014, 07:49 AM | |
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After 6 months, legal pot in Colorado a mix of highs, lows
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news...ing-up06262014
DENVER - Nearly six months after Colorado became the first in the world to sell legal recreational marijuana, industry advocates are playing up the high points -- specifically an economic boom and crime in Denver actually declining. "I think a lot of people are looking at Colorado, and when you see crime going down, that’s a huge sign of success," said Michael Elliot, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group. "I think so many things people were scared about have been shown to be nonsense." The first four months of recreational pot sales has brought in nearly $11 million in tax revenue, demand for real estate has gone up, and the marijuana industry estimates there are currently 10,000 people working in the business. On Thursday, the state announced that during 20 undercover operations to test if pot shops would sell to minors, not a single store sold to a child. "The Division prides itself on ensuring public safety; we are pleased with the results and will continue to monitor the businesses to ensure that the compliance efforts are maintained," said Lewis Koski, Director of the Marijuana Enforcement Division. But while the state hasn't gone up in smoke, not everyone agrees Colorado is better off and safer. The state's largest provider of community detox centers, Arapahoe House, reported this week that DUI admissions involving marijuana have nearly doubled since legalization. In 2013, 8 percent of admissions were accused of driving under the influence of marijuana, and now that's up to 15 percent. "We're only seeing recreational legalization in it's infancy, but it's already having an impact on public safety," said Araphoe House spokeswoman Kate Edmundson. 7NEWS found small children continue to get their hands on marijuana, particularly edibles. The Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center said, so far this year it's had 19 calls from people reporting pot ingestion by children younger than 5 years old. Children's Hospital Colorado said it's treated 11 kids who've ingested edibles marijuana, six of whom have become critically ill. |
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06-27-2014, 09:56 AM | #76 |
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06-27-2014, 09:57 AM | #77 | |
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06-27-2014, 09:59 AM | #78 |
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No, I don't. Like I said, I suppose we'll see.
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I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you? |
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06-27-2014, 10:00 AM | #79 | |
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But, does anyone really think that they won't try to get involved? That they'll just accept the loss of revenue?
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I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you? |
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06-27-2014, 10:01 AM | #80 |
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I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you? |
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06-27-2014, 10:05 AM | #81 | |
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They make the vast majority of their money on meth now. Heroin is their 2nd most profitable product. They have marginalized the Colombians because it's pretty much impossible to ship their cocaine across the Caribbean like they used to so they rely on the Mexicans to buy most of it. Weed has been a declining profit source for them for a long time. The spread of high quality domestically grown weed has been killing that for awhile. The Mexican cartels can't replicate the quality because of the shipping methods that they have to use (which degrades the weed tremendously). |
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06-27-2014, 10:10 AM | #82 |
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10,000 fewer drug arrests.
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06-27-2014, 10:19 AM | #83 | |
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What's more important however, is how many accidents have occurred due to using pot while driving? We don't have enough information from the OP to draw any sort of conclusion. I'd much rather know whether or not pot related accidents have increased. Pot DUI's have gone up. Ok. That doesn't tell us anything other than more people are being busted, and as Daface pointed out, that could simply be because of new methods. In terms of public safety, we'll need to know how those pot DUI's have transferred into pot related vehicle accidents before anyone can claim that legalization has reduced public safety. And even that will still be hard to gauge if they're doing blood testing now that they weren't doing prior to legalization.
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06-27-2014, 10:20 AM | #84 |
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If anyone is REALLY interested in how things are going in Colorado, the Denver Post hosted a forum a couple weeks back with some of the big-name authorities on the legalization effort. They discussed a variety of aspects of "how are things going" in the 1.5 hour forum. You can view the whole thing here:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25...l-tuesday-june |
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06-27-2014, 10:23 AM | #85 | |
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If you really want to understand this thing, it takes time and effort to look into the nuances of everything. The media in general doesn't have a very good grasp of this thing, so you have to really dig in and learn for yourself. |
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06-27-2014, 10:31 AM | #86 |
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I'm in favor of decriminalization. But of course there's fewer drug arrests. That's a completely useless stat.
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06-27-2014, 10:33 AM | #87 |
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06-27-2014, 10:38 AM | #88 | |
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06-27-2014, 10:43 AM | #89 |
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I was in Denver for a a few days last week, and I fell in love, outside from that whole Bronco thing. My friend has lived there all his life, isnt a big smoker at all, but says so far so good on the pot law.
I dont smoke at ll, but I went to Euflora, which is a pot store (not dispensery) in the heart of downtown Denver. It was so cool. They had all the weed in little containers so you could smell it. Plus they had little Ipads next to each container with all the info on the weed, like how it was grown, what strains, the positive effects, negative effects and medical benefits. Ththe Ipads also had charts showing you levels of paranoia, or calmness, or energy levels. It made it easy to get exactly what the consumer wanted in their "high". They also had edibles, and pot water. I have never seen pot water, but they had it and they had 6 or 7 different flavors. The main issue the industry is having right now is banking, but the state is really trying to figure that out for the industry becasue its all cash right now and thats super dangerous for the employees and the stores. I think its an awesome thing, and quite frankly, its goign to be full blown legal everywhere within 10 years. So get use to it old crusty guys. Colorado is leading the way and ironing out all the wrinkles for the rest of us.
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06-27-2014, 10:44 AM | #90 |
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Your kids are certainly going to enjoy their teenage and young adult years, Donger.
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