Johnson: Colorado experience doesn’t square with legal pot fears

Marijuana legalization in Colorado has not had the negative societal effect that opponents of Initiated Measure 27 say it will have on South Dakota if voters pass it on Tuesday.

The group against marijuana legalization insinuate that out-of-state drug interests, not South Dakotans who signed petitions, are waging a campaign to endanger our children, families and communities.

Never mind that voters approved a similar measure by 54 percent in 2020 only to see it declared unconstitutional.

Certainly, there are negative societal and personal impacts to the misuse of any substance. But will legalization of marijuana make life in South Dakota worse? 

By now, most everyone probably has made up their mind, but here are a few final thoughts. 

One medical doctor said he dislikes marijuana, but is voting for it as a safety issue. Marijuana bought on the street today is sometimes tainted with fentanyl, a deadly drug that’s become more prevalent in the United States. At least with legalized pot, he said, there is a measure of quality assurance. 

Other medical providers worry about increased medical visits, and some police are worried about more crime.

Let us look at Colorado, which in 2013 legalized the retail sale and possession of marijuana to adults over age 21. In July 2021, the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice released a report on the impacts of marijuana legalization. 

As for youth impacts, it said, the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey results “indicate  no change in the past 30-day use of marijuana by middle and high school-aged youth between 2013 (19.7%) and 2019 (20.6%).”

The 2021 Healthy Kids report said that number had dropped to 13.3% overall, far below the national average of 22 percent.

In South Dakota in 2019, about 16.5 percent of our high school students used marijuana in the last 30 days, according to a SD Department of Health report.

Pot legalization in Colorado caused the rate of juvenile marijuana arrests to drop from 551 per 100,000 in 2010-2011 to 426 per 100,000 in 2019-2020.

The school drug expulsion rate dropped from 65 per 100,000 registered students to 23 per 100,000 in the 2019-2020 school year.

Certainly, there are a lot of good reasons to keep students off of pot, as drugs and alcohol are bad for teenage brains, or any brain for that matter. But the evidence that legalization will make problems worse appears to be lacking.

From a criminal justice perspective, legalization caused the total number of marijuana arrests to decline by 68 percent between 2012 and 2019. Court filings declined 55 percent. 

There was a 47 percent decline in misdemeanors and a 71 percent drop in petty offenses, the report said.

Traffic safety involving marijuana and alcohol is a justified concern.

Marijuana as a sole source of impairment increased 6.3% to 8.7% between 2014 and 2020 in Colorado. Marijuana combined with alcohol and other drugs increased from 5.7% of all driving under the influence charges in 2014 to 22.7% in 2020. 

The number of fatal accidents that involved drivers “with cannabinoid-only or cannabinoid-in-combination positive drivers increased 140 percent from 55 in 2013 to 132 in 2019.

“However,” the report said,  “note that the detection of any cannabinoid in blood is not an indicator of impairment but only indicates presence in the system.” Alcohol remains the biggest problem.

There are legitimate medical concerns.

Colorado saw “a significant rate increase in marijuana-related emergency department visits” but this has started to decline.

The number of calls to poison control also jumped from 41 in 2006 to 276 in 2019. Modern marijuana is much more potent than it used to be, causing some of those calls.

Surprisingly, the overall “rate of treatment admissions for those reporting marijuana as their substance of use has decreased from 222 admissions per 100,000 population in 2012 to 182 in 2019.”

Marijuana usage in Colorado did jump with legalization. 

In 2019 about 19 percent of adults used marijuana in the past 30 days compared to 13.4% in 2014. The 26–34-year age category used the most (29.4%) in the past 30 days. 

One thing legalization did do was line the Colorado state government’s pockets. Total revenue jumped from $67 million in 2014 to $387 million from 2,709 licensed businesses in 2020. Up to $120 million of that went to fund the state’s schools that  year.