With any law or constitutional amendment, there are always — always — unintended consequences. Here in Missouri, we are fortunate. We can learn from other states.
The state of Colorado was the first to vote and make the recreational use of marijuana legal. That was in 2012.
This gives us 10 years’ worth of data to educate ourselves before we vote on Nov. 8 on whether or not to follow in Colorado’s footsteps and legalize the recreational use of cannabis in the Show Me state.
Let’s start with safety on our highways.
Research in 2021 by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), as reported in Newsweek, “found that the number of injury and fatal crashes in California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington rose considerably in the months following the relaxation of marijuana laws. In those states combined, there was a six percent increase in injury crashes and a four-percent increase in fatal crash rates compared to other Western states where recreational marijuana use was illegal during the study period.”
In 2009, nine percent of all traffic fatalities in Colorado involved operators testing positive for marijuana. By 2016, the number doubled to 20 percent showing marijuana does kill both the user and the innocent.
Logically this means that if it passes in Missouri, we can expect our car insurance rates to rise. If you can afford an increase in your rates, vote yes.
Proponents of Amendment 3 assure us that this law will not make weed use available for anyone under 21. Studies show that will not be the case. Data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed pot use by youth 12 to 17 two years after legalization in Colorado increased by 20 percent. Over the same period, the national average of teen pot use dropped four percent, making teen use in Colorado 74 percent higher than the national average — number one in the nation.
If you don’t mind your children and grandchildren using cannabis, vote yes for legalization next month.
We have heard time and time again that marijuana is a harmless drug. Not so. According to a recent study published in BMJ Open Respiratory Research, “cannabis use in the general population is associated with heightened risk of clinically serious negative outcomes, specifically, needing to present to the ER or be admitted to hospital.”
Colorado studies agree. In Colorado, emergency room visits related to marijuana increased from 8,197 in 2011 to 18,255 in 2014.
Colorado also saw an increase in teen suicide victims, with marijuana as the number one drug found when toxicology is reported (2016-2021). Of teens ages 15–19 who died of suicide in 2018, marijuana was present in 37 percent of the cases.
Passage of this Amendment will result in your neighbors making more trips to the ER and possibly some of the children you know dying by suicide. I can’t believe anyone wants this.
On a lighter note, in June of 2017, Colorado had 392 Starbucks, 208 McDonald’s and 401 retail marijuana stores.
Perhaps the most disturbing unintended consequence Colorado has had since they legalized marijuana use is the rise in the black market for marijuana.
According to a story published in June 2021 in The Denver Post, “In myriad press conferences and interviews over the past seven years, federal and local law enforcement officials have been adamant that illicit marijuana is growing in Colorado and other states that have passed legalization.”
“Every time our task force puts their line in the water, they find something,” John Kellner, the district attorney for Colorado’s 18th Judicial District, said about investigating black market marijuana. “It’s a matter of how many resources we can spare and law enforcement can spare to put into it. Because every time we go fishing, we catch something.”
In 2019 a group of doctors released a statement opposing the recreational use of marijuana. It said, “We need to learn the lessons from history to ensure that any legalized marijuana product does not become the Big Tobacco of the 21st Century. States that are rushing towards legalization of recreational marijuana are ignoring how profit-driven corporations hooked generations of Americans on cigarettes and opioids, killing millions and straining public resources.”
Follow the money for Amendment 3. This is not a grassroots effort. It’s financed by companies looking to make millions. They don’t care about teen use, traffic fatalities or ER visits. They care about money.
What do you care about?
