{"id":8508,"date":"2018-10-26T18:59:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T18:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/?p=3249374"},"modified":"2018-10-26T18:59:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T18:59:49","slug":"colorados-anticipated-marijuana-report-details-youth-usage-driving-and-crime-over-the-last-5-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/colorados-anticipated-marijuana-report-details-youth-usage-driving-and-crime-over-the-last-5-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado\u2019s anticipated marijuana report details youth usage, driving and crime over the last 5 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/colorados-anticipated-marijuana-report-details-youth-usage-driving-and-crime-over-the-last-5-years\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<div><img src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/colorados-anticipated-marijuana-report-details-youth-usage-driving-and-crime-over-the-last-5-years.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Five years after Colorado legalized marijuana, young people are not smoking more pot than they used to, organized crime is on the rise and it\u2019s a mixed bag\u00a0as to whether legal weed has led to more dangerous driving conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Those are some of the highlights from a much-anticipated baseline report on the impacts of marijuana legalization released Friday by the\u00a0Colorado Division of Criminal Justice. The data provide glimpses for the first time into how legalization has impacted several highly charged subjects, including usage among young people, crime, health and driving impairment.<\/p>\n<p>For the most part, industry participants saw the report as favorable for the state\u2019s legalization efforts because it did not identify any glaring issues or unearth major surprises.<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Freedman, who served as Colorado\u2019s first \u201cmarijuana czar\u201d and now is a consultant for other governments considering legalization, called the five-year study \u201cthe most even-handed report out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The most troubling trend, Freedman said, is the driving while high.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think more than anything we need to combat that perception about driving while high,\u201d he said. \u201cJust because you\u2019re driving slowly on the highway doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s safe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pot advocates found the report encouraging.<\/p>\n<p>Kristi Kelly, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group, found public safety trends going in the right direction, saying the statistics show pot is not proving to cause more crime as many feared. She acknowledged that bad actors are a problem, but said as a whole the legal industry wants to follow state law and cooperate with enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt really stood out to me how marijuana legalization can have a positive effect on public safety,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the report drew criticism from the anti-marijuana crowd.<\/p>\n<p>While the report did not find an increase in pot-use among young people,\u00a0Diane Carlson of Smart Colorado, a group that battles commercialization because of the drug\u2019s effects on youth, warned that the high THC levels in recreational marijuana still present a danger to children.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOfficial state data raises concerns that Colorado youth are being exposed to much more potent marijuana products, which can harm their developing brains,\u201d Carlson said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n<p>This report \u2014 which also includes data on marijuana-related topics such as crime, hospitalizations and ER visits, usage rates and more \u2014 is the end product of a 2013 bill passed by the state legislature to study the impacts of marijuana legalization. Analysts gathered data from a range of sources, including the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the Colorado Hospital Association and the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is exactly the kind of data collection we need to inform our regulatory and law enforcement framework,\u201d Gov. John Hickenlooper said in a news release. \u201cWe now have that ever-critical baseline from which we can spot trends so Colorado\u2019s leaders understand where our efforts are succeeding and identify areas where we need to focus additional research, resources or even new policy.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related right\" \/>\n<p><strong>Education<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Colorado has not experienced an increase in marijuana use among young people, although it was the single most common reason for school expulsions in the 2016-17 school year, the first year it was broken out as its own category.<\/li>\n<li>Marijuana also has not impacted graduation rates or dropout rates in Colorado. Graduation rates have increased while dropout rates have decreased since 2012.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Driving<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The number of drivers in fatal crashes who tested above the legal limit of THC, marijuana\u2019s active ingredient, decreased to 35 in 2017, down from 52 in 2016.<\/li>\n<li>The number of citations for marijuana-only impairment stayed steady between 2014 to 2017 at around 7 percent of all DUI arrests. That\u2019s roughly 350 citations out of nearly 5,000 DUI arrests each year, the report said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Arrests<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Total marijuana arrests dropped by half during a five-year period, decreasing to 6,153 in 2017 from 12,709 in 2012.<\/li>\n<li>Marijuana possession arrests \u2014 the majority of all marijuana-related arrests \u2014 were cut by more than half during the same period, dropping to 5,154 from 11,361.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Crime<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pot grown illegally on public lands \u2014 an indicator for the size of the black market \u2014 also is on the rise with 80,926 plants seized in 2017, a 73 percent increase in five years.<\/li>\n<li>Organized crime cases almost tripled in five years, increasing to 119 in 2017 from 31 in 2012.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Health<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Rates of hospitalization with possible marijuana exposures increased steadily from 2000 through 2015.<\/li>\n<li>The number of adults who use marijuana increased between 2014 and 2017, with men getting high more often than women and young adults ages 18 to 25 the most frequent users.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/cdpsdocs.state.co.us\/ors\/docs\/reports\/2018-SB-13-283_report.pdf\">full study<\/a> can be found online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<p>Five years after Colorado legalized marijuana, young people are not smoking any more pot than they used to, organized crime is on the rise and it&#8217;s a mixed bag as to whether legal weed has led to more dangerous driving conditions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6811,6813,77,6814,6933,6815,2437,6886,9,5019,1,3,61,1736],"tags":[6816,6818,2655,6819,6934,6820,2443,6889,5022],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8508"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}