Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper said recently that the state has not experienced any of the troubles he predicted would happen because of recreational marijuana, but a new report, which was put together by none other than the federal government, attempts to convince whomever is willing to pay attention of a pending apocalypse.
According to a report from CBS Denver, the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (RMHIDTA) has just released a new report detailing what it would have people believe are the perilous woes stemming from legalization since 2013. The federal agency is eager to distribute the contents of the report to other states considering legalization and nervous parents all over the country, especially since it paints quite a horror show.
Inside the document are tales of increased marijuana-related traffic deaths, skyrocketing emergency room visits, and the rampant influx in youth marijuana consumption rates.
Tom Gorman, who oversees the RMHIDTA, in Colorado, says that all of the data was compiled using “national drug usage surveys, highway transportation statistics and police investigations.”
You can read the full report here.
But the marijuana advocates who had a heavy hand in getting Colorado’s Amendment 64 in front of voters argue that the data used to create the report has all been cherry picked and perhaps even made up in an attempt to build a case against the future of legalization.
“This is a report produced by an organization that campaigned against the initiative to regulate marijuana in Colorado, and its head was a spokesperson and financial donor for that political campaign,” Mason Tvert, director of communication for the Marijuana Policy Project explained to MERRY JANE. “Moreover, it’s an organization who has a vested financial interest in keeping marijuana illegal in as many states as possible.”
Tvert said the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area is not a credible source for what is happening with respect to legal weed in Colorado, as the agency is known for pushing misleading details and even complete fabrications to give off the illusion of a strong case.
“They claim teen marijuana use is skyrocketing, but even the researchers who conducted the very survey they cited say that teen usage rates in Colorado have remained unchanged,” Tvert said. “They talk about an increase in “marijuana-related" traffic accidents, but concede that marijuana might not have played any role in the incidents. Most Coloradans agree that regulating marijuana is working, and this group of narcotics officials is doing everything it can to keep voters in other states from finding out.”
