It’s been a year since Colorado began allowing the sale of recreational marijuana and two important claims about successful legalization are increasingly being challenged.
It was said that regulation would provide a safer solution to the state’s drug problems. And it was also said that legalization would bring fiscal benefits because revenues would flow into the state treasury rather than being locked up in the black market.
In this special report, “Clearing the Haze,” Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board members Wayne Laugesen and Pula Davis, plus freelance reporter and legalization opponent Christine Tatum, examine health, social and financial issues associated with legal marijuana. The Gazette is a sister publication of the Washington Examiner. Tatum is married to an anti-pot doctor quoted in the stories.
Clearing The Haze makes the case that voters have been told legalization would reduce the number of criminals in prisons, and sluice money into education. But statistics suggest that few prisoners are behind bars for only marijuana-related offenses and legalization will do little to lower incarceration rates. Revenues from pot sales in Colorado have failed to meet projections and there is still a flourishing black market for medicinal marijuana being resold on the street to recreational users, the report agues.
It also points out that there are more arrests of people driving under the influence of drugs, more lawsuits against the state, and more problems in workplaces. Resources for the homeless have been hit, children are now more exposed to the drug, and more exposure during adolescence is likely to increase the number of lifelong addicts. Post-legalization trends in Colorado raise concerns because regulation has fallen short of the promises made by the state, Clearing The Haze argues, and there are also concerns for employers.
Leaders of the country’s biggest groups pushing for and against marijuana legalization surprisingly stand on a wide expanse of common ground, the report’s authors point out. Both camps say they do not want people jailed for drug use or possession of small amounts consistent with personal use. They also agree and disapprove of what public records show, which is that racial and ethnic minorities are arrested and convicted at higher rates than whites across many criminal categories, including drug possession and use. Both camps also favor law enforcement strategies that streamline low-level drug offenders into drug courts and treatment programs. They push for reforms of the criminal justice system that would give judges more flexibility in sentencing in specific, lower-level, nonviolent cases.
Similarly, advocates on both sides of the legalization debate say they want to see legal reforms that could help remove stigmas that may prevent low-level drug offenders with personal-use convictions from having housing, jobs and scholarships that help them lead productive and healthy lives.
Where the factions sharply disagree is on the question of whether marijuana legalization is needed to accomplish any of those goals.
Twenty-three states have some sort of medical marijuana program, but regulations vary widely. Minnesota, for instance, will have just eight medical marijuana dispensaries statewide when its program launches in July, and patients will receive medical cannabis only in a liquid, pill or vaporized form. New York’s program also only allows non-smokable marijuana.
Colorado lawmakers intend to address medical marijuana this legislative session. Among the issues expected to get attention are the oversight of caregivers (those designated by medical marijuana patients to grow pot for them) and doctors who approve patients for the registry. Does marijuana or some of its components have medicinal benefit? Early evidence indicates that it may, but more research is needed.
Medical marijuana sales in Colorado exploded after October 2009 after a federal memorandum revealed that resources would probably not be used to prosecute people involved in the pot business, which nevertheless remains illegal under federal law. Gazette research found the medical marijuana market continues to grow as the result of porous regulation and a favorable price differential against retail marijuana sales. The issue is big and complex and may derail legitimate efforts to conduct research on parts of the marijuana plant that could produce new, clinically proven medicines.
Go here to read the entire series: www.washingtonexaminer.com/special-reports/clearing-the-haze
