Pubdate: Tue, 18 Feb 2014
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR)
Copyright: 2014 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
Contact: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform/
Website: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/25
Note: Accepts letters to the editor from Arkansas residents only

DEEP IN THE WEED

You-Know-Who Lives in the Details

IT'S HARD to avoid the news about marijuana these days. You could get 
a contact high from all the stories coming out of Colorado alone. 
Last week, some government outfit with a long name put out a report 
about weed's making its way out of that state, where it's now legal, 
and into other states where it's definitely not.

Goodness, who could have guessed that such a thing could happen? 
Except maybe everybody. If only Horace Greeley were writing 
editorials today, one of them might be headed, Go West, Young User!

Alarming? Nah. Defenders of marijuana's legalization point out that 
there's a simple solution to the problem: Just legalize pot 
everywhere and there'd be no problem with trafficking it in from 
Colorado. Why didn't we think of that? And imagine the "solutions" 
that await the underground trade in crack cocaine and heroin too. Cool, man.

The long-named outfit that issued this government report is 
officially called-patience-the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug 
Trafficking Area. (Whew.) It's connected to the White House's drug 
control office and has been studying where all that Colorado weed 
ends up. Some of it snakes its way across the country clear to 
Florida. USA Today, which published a story about the report, quoted 
sources as saying that drug cartels would seem to be moving in on 
this Colorado business, too. Yes, those cartels. From Colombia. USA 
Today linked to the report through the, ahem, RMHIDTA (Rocky 
Mountain, etc. and et al.). If a body doesn't mind looking into the 
details, which is where Old Ned lives, you can find some interesting 
reading there, even if it was published by a government agency. The 
details don't always make the headlines, but some of these should:

- -From 2006 to 2011, the number of traffic deaths decreased by 16 
percent in Colorado, which is par for the course. The country as a 
whole saw a similar drop. (Thank you, seat belts.) But during the 
same time, traffic fatalities in Colorado in which drivers tested 
positive for marijuana increased 114 percent.

And that was before marijuana for "recreational" use became legal. 
Who knows how high the numbers will climb in a few more years?

- -Way back in 2006, drivers with dope in their system were involved in 
28 percent of the fatal car crashes in Colorado. By 2011, with only 
medical marijuana legally available, that number had increased to 56 percent.

- -When asked in 2011, nearly a quarter of the high-school kids in the 
Boulder County School District said they were marijuana users. They 
didn't say they had tried it once. They didn't say they knew somebody 
who did. They told a survey they were the users. One out of four. 
Again, that was back before marijuana was legalized for general use. 
That's three times the national rate. The Boulder County School 
District needs an intervention.

- -At one Colorado hospital alone, Children's in Aurora, more than 
1,375 kids younger than 12 were treated for unintentional ingestion 
of marijuana between 2005 and 2011.

Tell us again how the kids won't get in the stash if only medical 
marijuana is approved here in Arkansas. On second thought, don't 
bother. Some of us never bought that line even before the stats 
started coming in from Colorado. It may be because of something 
called common sense, which isn't all that common in this debate.

EVERY WEEK that goes by, there seems to be another news story out of 
Colorado about marijuana and its effects in and on that state. And far beyond.

And every week we get another reason to doubt the good judgment of 
those pushing for "medical" marijuana in this state. You can see how 
well that's turned out in Colorado.

You might have heard that there are a couple of outfits in Arkansas 
trying to get medical marijuana on the ballot again. Maybe as soon as 
this fall. The next time somebody asks you to sign a petition to 
legalize medical marijuana, ask them how things are going in 
Colorado. If they say things are going just great, you might be 
pardoned for wondering just what they're on.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom