Colorado-0

"Marijuana legalization and commercialization is a failed policy and this new report details the impact on many of our populations already impacted by alcohol and tobacco use," said Bob Doyle, Chair of Colorado SAM and a public health professional with more than 20 years of experience in tobacco prevention.
Highlights of the survey included:

• 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 marijuana industry is getting rich while our communities, healthcare system, employers, and families pay the costs," Doyle added.

The raw cannabis plant has no medicinal value. For the same reasons people no longer chew bark to cure headaches but instead buy aspirin, there is no medical reason to smoke pot. The pharmaceutical profession exists to isolate active medical ingredients from herbs and plants (or synthesize them) and to provide safe, standardized doses with minimal side effects. This is how every other drug works. There is no scientific or medical reason to make marijuana an exception.

#no2pot

Where do the students get their marijuana? 38% reported they got from a friend who obtains it legally, 23% reported from their parents, 22% from the black market, 9% from medical marijuana dispensaries, 4% from medical marijuana cardholders, 3% from retail marijuana stores.

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.

"We were averaging 190 people a night. Now we are averaging 345 people a night," said Murray Flagg, the Salvation Army Intermountain Divisional secretary for social services.

Overall, traffic fatalities in Colorado decreased 14.8 percent, from 2007 to 2012. During the same five years in Colorado, traffic fatalities involving operators testing positive for marijuana increased 100 percent.

In 2007, Colorado traffic fatalities involving operators testing positive for marijuana represented 7.04 percent of the total traffic fatalities.  By 2012, that number more than doubled to 16.53 percent.

"One of the [arguments] for legalizing marijuana [in Colorado and Washington state] ... was to reduce the black market," said Tom Gorman, who heads a multi-state task force called the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. "In fact, the legalized marijuana has become the black market for other states."

No telling the potency of the "candy" this unsuspecting person consumed.  How many children are innocently eating this dangerous drug?

Down in Colorado's Front Range, the cluster of towns and cities that cling to the eastern edge of the Rockies, the scent of what has been dubbed a commercial “green rush” is hanging in the air – literally. On the road in from Denver airport, several of the state's estimated 800-900 legal growers have taken advantage of cheap warehouse space to open sophisticated indoor facilities, whose odour is clearly discernible by passing motorists.

"It's absolutely getting worse," said Tom Gorman, head of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area -- the agency that helps to halt drug transactions.

Investigators say the explosion happened Wednesday while the people were using butane to extract the intoxicating chemical THC from the marijuana plant.

Does nobody else see the multiple flaws and outright dangers associated with such an amendment? Does anyone else not recognize the fact that “medical marijuana” is a fantasy created for profit?

We welcomed in a new industry that knowingly promotes an addictive and harmful substance SO THAT PEOPLE COULD MAKE MONEY. The business of business is to make money and when there is money to be made people will signup no matter how messed up the means are. 
For these businesses to continue making the huge money they are making they will need to do two things: 1) engage new users, 2) convert current users to more frequent users.
Our weed in Colorado is so strong (20-30 percent THC in its smoked form) that we have a strain called “green crack.”
Our concentrates, which are advertised aggressively, are 80-90 percent THC, and are often smoked on a super-heated needle and puts the smoker on their back with one hit.  Our edibles come in gummies, fruit sodas, suckers, candy and yummy looking baked goods that are so potent that a single pot brownie in Colorado comes with a warning that it has to be cut into fourths before consuming.

Cannabinol, a remnant of marijuana, was found in 12.2 percent of those deceased drivers during 2010, (up from 4.2 percent in 1999). Pot was the most common non-alcoholic drug detected by those toxicology screenings.