Editor's note: The new report from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, published through the National Office of Drug Control Policy, stands in contrast to other studies of legalization effects. We reported on two such surveys involving Colorado recently, from the British medical journal, The Lancet Psychiatry, and University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future study, which both found teen use declining with legalization.
The latest update on marijuana in Colorado is being called ominous by Ohio pot opponents and “ fear mongering” by advocates leading up to the Nov. 3 election, when voters will decide legalization here.
The Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area’s third annual report, released on Monday, showed the effects of legal marijuana in that state, including a 32 percent jump in marijuana-related traffic fatalities, big increases in emergency-room visits and hospitalizations, and greater pot usage by youths age 12 to 17.
The report, generated by the agency funded through the National Office of Drug Control Policy, also showed 40 percent more school expulsions, most of them marijuana related, since 2008; greater exposure of young children to the drug; a 2,000 percent increase in the number of Colorado mail parcels intercepted destined for other states; and 32 marijuana extraction-lab explosions in 2014.
