A
new report from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area (RMHIDTA) gathers together all the horrible things
that have happened in Colorado since the state began loosening its
marijuana laws in 2001. The result falls short of the terrifying
effect the authors presumably were hoping to achieve. The
introduction presents the report as an objective attempt to
“document the impact of the legalization of marijuana for medical
and recreational use in Colorado,” with an eye toward informing the
“ongoing debate in this country concerning the impact of legalizing
marijuana.” Given the provenance of the report (a government agency
that would not exist without drug prohibition), readers may be
skeptical of this just-the-facts pose. It becomes increasingly
risible as you wade through the document, which considers
only bad effects of legalization, down to the uniformly negative
“related material” and “comments” listed at the end of each
chapter. Judging from this report, no one in the United States
thinks legalization has been anything short of a disaster. Here are
some of the more subtle ways in which the RMHIDTA distorts
Colorado’s experience:
Drugged Driving. The very first page of
the report emphasizes that “traffic fatalities involving operators
testing positive for marijuana have increased 100 percent from 2007
to 2012” and that “toxicology reports with positive marijuana
results for driving under the influence have increased 16 percent
from 2011 to 2013.” Later the report notes that “traffic fatalities
in Colorado decreased 14.8 percent from 2007 to 2012,” a period
that includes the commercialization of medical marijuana. Although
it’s possible the drop would have been sharper without medical
marijuana, knowing that traffic fatalities are declining in
Colorado tends to undermine the impression that relaxing pot
prohibition results in more blood on the highways. Here is another
relevant fact that the report not only downplays but omits
entirely: “Testing positive for marijuana” does not necessarily
mean a driver was under the influence at the time of the crash, let
alone that marijuana contributed to the accident. Positive test
results include marijuana metabolites that can be detected long
after the drug’s effects have worn off as well as THC levels too
low to affect driving ability. The RMHIDTA indirectly
acknowledges that point with this warning:
THIS REPORT WILL CITE DATASETS WITH TERMS SUCH AS
“MARIJUANA-RELATED” OR “TESTED POSITIVE FOR MARIJUANA.” THAT
DOES NOT NECESSARILY IMPLY THAT MARIJUANA WAS THE CAUSE OF THE
INCIDENT.
Actually, those terms do imply that, which is why they are so
misleading. When you see a chart like the one on page 11 of the
report, showing a 24 percent increase in “marijuana-related
fatalities” in the three years after the medical marijuana industry
started to take off, you can be forgiven for thinking there was a
24 percent increase in marijuana-related fatalities. But that
change could simply reflect a general increase in marijuana
consumption, which would result in more fatally injured drivers and
more DUID arrestees “testing positive for marijuana,” whether or
not they were impaired on the road.
Underage Use. As I
noted last week, data from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey
(YRBS) indicate that marijuana consumption by Colorado teenagers
has been declining more or less steadily since the state began
lifting its blanket ban on cannabis. The RMHIDTA prefers the
National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), presumably because
it shows an increase in underage pot smoking. Specifically, “there
was a 25 percent increase in youth (ages 12 to 17 years) monthly
marijuana use in the three years after medical marijuana was
commercialized (2009) compared to the three years prior to
commercialization.” Nationwide, according to NSDUH, that number
rose by about 12 percent during the same period. The bigger
increase in Colorado is consistent with the idea that diversion
from legal buyers is boosting marijuana use by teenagers. But it is
inconsistent with the Colorado-specific data from the YRBS, which
the RMHIDTA does not cite at all.
Emergency Room Visits. “From 2011 to 2013,” the
report says, “there was a 57 percent increase in
emergency room visits related to marijuana.” Furthermore, “The
percent of all hospitalizations that were marijuana related
increased 91 percent from 2008 to 2013.” Or to put it another way,
the share of “hospitalizations that were marijuana related” rose
from 0.96 percent in 2008 to 1.74 percent in 2013, while the share
of emergency room visits that were “related to marijuana” rose from
0.62 percent in 2011 to 0.87 percent in 2013. Judging from these
figures, it does not seem like hospitals are being overrun with
marijuana-related cases. But even those tiny numbers exaggerate the
scope of the problem, as revealed by these notes:
INCREASES [in E.R. visits] OBSERVED OVER THESE THREE YEARS MAY
BE DUE PARTLY, OR COMPLETELY, TO INCREASES IN REPORTING BY
EMERGENCY ROOMS.“MARIJUANA-RELATED” IS ALSO REFERRED TO AS “MARIJUANA MENTIONS.”
THIS MEANS THE DATA COULD BE OBTAINED FROM LAB TESTS, SELF-ADMITTED
OR SOME OTHER FORM OF VALIDATION BY THE PHYSICIAN. THAT DOES NOT
NECESSARILY IMPLY MARIJUANA WAS THE CAUSE OF THE EMERGENCY
ADMISSION OR HOSPITALIZATION.
Again, don’t make the rookie mistake of assuming that
“marijuana-related” incidents are related to marijuana.
Marijuana-Related Exposures. OK, these actually
do involve marijuana—specifically, marijuana accidentally ingested
by little kids (5 or younger). There was a
“268 percent increase” in such cases in the
three years after 2009, compared to the three years before then. In
less impressive raw numbers, that’s an increase from about five to
about 18 kids a year in the entire state, which suggests that
adults are generally being pretty careful about keeping their
marijuana edibles away from children.
Treatment. Marijuana-related drug
treatment admissions fell from 7,194 in 2009 to 6,082 in 2013. Here
is how the report describes that 15 percent drop: “Marijuana
treatment data from Colorado in years 2005–2013 doesn’t appear to
demonstrate a definitive trend.”
Crime. The RMHIDTA says people who claimed
that crime dropped in Denver in the first six months after
recreational sales began are wrong. “Actually,” says the report,
“reported crime in Denver increased 6.7 percent
during that time period” (January through June of this year,
compared to the same months in 2013). That is true overall, but
there were
drops in several kinds of violent crime, including murder (38
percent), robbery (5 percent), and forcible sex offenses (19
percent).
[Thanks to Wes Melander for the tip.]
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