Some Colorado pols paint dark picture for legal weed
Some Colorado politicians, including a former governor and a sitting district attorney, are appearing in anti-marijuana campaigns in other states and offering dire warnings to voters as they blame pot for a host of issues ranging from murders to teen drug abuse to traffic deaths.
But critics say those warnings are based on inaccurate and misleading information. And crime reports from state and local law enforcement show that no direct link has been made between legalized marijuana and increasing crime in Colorado.
For example, the Colorado Department of Public Safety offered a disclaimer on using its data in a March 2016 report on the legalization of marijuana. The departments crime analysts said a lack of historical data, a decreasing social stigma and challenges to local law enforcement made it nearly impossible to translate any findings into definitive statements on the drugs impact.
Furthermore, the information presented here should be interpreted with caution, the reports executive summary said.
And the Denver Police Department found that marijuana legalization has not had a statistically significant impact on major crimes, according to a report provided to The Denver Post.
John Hudak, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institute who studies marijuana legalization, said much of the information being spread in the marijuana referendums is wrong or misleading.
The issue needs an honest discussion, but television commercials featuring former Gov. Bill Owens and former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb are not providing that, Hudak said. He also was critical of a letter Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey wrote to anti-pot organizations that are fighting legalization in California.
If you have to rely on false data or lies, youre probably not winning the argument, said Hudak, who maintains a neutral position on legalization.
In one television ad being aired in Arizona, Owens and Webb tell voters that Colorado leads the nation in teen use of marijuana, that traffic deaths related to marijuana are up, that pot is marketed to children and is leading to an increase in babies born with THC in their systems.
On top of those problems, the states education system has failed to reap the promised financial benefits of legalized marijuana, the ad says.
Dont repeat our terrible mistake, Webb says as the commercial ends.
The commercial relies heavily on a report written by the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federally funded agency that fights the illegal drug trade. However, that report has been criticized for manipulating data, and Hudak called it garbage.
Other reports indicate the anti-pot commercials may be stretching the facts.
A recent Healthy Kids Colorado study found teenage use of marijuana has remained flat and is in line with the national average.
State highway data has not proved that marijuana has made roads less safe, and the number of people arrested for driving under the influence of marijuana dropped between 2014 and 2015, the state patrol has reported.
As for revenue for education, three members of Colorados legislature on Monday joined a pro-pot group in releasing a counterclaim to the commercial.
In a news release from Yes on 205 in Arizona, Sen. Pat Steadman and Reps. Millie Hamner and Jonathan Singer, all Democrats, said more than $138 million in marijuana tax revenue has been distributed to the Colorado Department of Education.
Webb told The Post on Monday that he did the Arizona commercial because I chose to. Webb said he also has been invited to speak out against marijuana in Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada.
While Webb said he supports medical marijuana, he believes Colorado moved too quickly on recreational pot, approving it without fully understanding the societal impacts.
I think there needs to be a lot more testing and analysis that needs to be done before we enter into this full scale on the ...
