JLM, I know you to be thoughtful and intelligent with respect for the truth. If you are looking for the truth it’s important to check the sources of your information. SAM does have a dog in this fight and has provided you with accurate data that is not truthful. The data you show provides trends from a reputable source, NSDUH from 2010-2011 to 2014-2015. The chart is labeled “Since legalization, put use in Colorado has steadily climbed, well outpacing the national average”

Marijuana was legalized in Colorado in 2014 so only the last data point is relevant to the legal market. SAMHSA/NSDUH has more recent data https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUHsaeShortTermCHG2016/NSDUHsaeShortTermCHG2016.htm. That data shows your most recent data point 16.57%, has declined to 15.92%. A more “truthful” reading of this data would be “In Colorado, legalization of pot has halted the increase in its use”

To the sales numbers that you present; it is true that the sales of legal marijuana have increased over the period of 2014 to 2017. You ask “If sales increase by 2.5X doesn’t that have to indicate more users or more use per existing user?” Only if legal sales represent the only source of marijuana use, in other words, marijuana use was non-existent prior to legalization. Obviously this is not true. Marijuana is procured through both legal and illegal channels. One of the primary reasons to legalize marijuana is to eliminate the black market. Sales of legal marijuana is growing primarily because the black market is shrinking. I don’t have the numbers but I’d bet illegal marijuana use is far higher in Texas than in Colorado.

Some more data: https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/CDPHE.pdf
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/baa81e208293e53896d4cf77a8aea0ce97474f67e372e48b747c89329add00b1.jpg

https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdphe/adult-marijuana-use-trends
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f963e064978fbaed7854ce732823610a420ebfb605e292bce9695ac77609b73c.jpg

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/marijuana/marijuana-use-among-colorado-teens-declines-again-government-report-shows

In Colorado there are both proponents and opponents. The information is not all rosy and I fully recognize that. That said, the impression and communication that Colorado’s experience is disastrous is simply not true.

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As I indicated, I have no dog in this fight and do not really care what the conclusions are. I found the information interesting and alarming.

It defies credulity when I read something like: “Past-month marijuana use among adults and adolescents has has not changed either in terms of the number of people or the frequency of use.”

Not sure what “past-month marijuana use” as a qualifier means or why it is important, but the notion that the legalization of recreational marijuana has not increased in terms of the number of people or the frequency of use seems obviously areithmetically nonsensical when one considers that the gross revenue from sales are as follows:

2014 – $683,523,739
2015 – $995,591,255
2016 – $1,307,203,473
2017 – $1,507,702,219

Surely that sales trend indicates that the number of users of recreational marijuana has increased since the legalization of recreational marijuana, no? If sales increase by 2.5X doesn’t that have to indicate more users or more use per existing user? How else could it increase?

Anecdotally, I can tell you that I see it with my own eyes when I am in Steamboat.

The attached graph seems to indicate that Colorado use exceeds national use. Is there a way to see it otherwise?

The discussion about marijuana and, in particular, in Colorado is one of the most intellectually dishonest discussions I have ever witnessed.

Again, I am not a zealot on the subject, but I do have a genuine respect for the truth.

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6d6bf688034790f8ce2cbf490283d3ad14fdb408097f8050e53c87e0a961388b.png

The data is in the sources I listed.

A good source of information is the reports published by the Colorado Retail Public Health Advisory Committee. It contrasts your data:

High schools have been hit hard:
1. High schools report a 71% increase in drug violations amongst students during school hours. This has happened in an environment in which all other violations have markedly decreased.
2. Suspensions for drugs have increased by 45%.
3. Colorado ranks first, by a wide margin, in the country for the rate of marijuana use amongst teenagers.

The advisory committee finds:
1. Past-month marijuana use among adults and adolescents has not changed since legalization either in terms of the number of people using or the frequency of use.
2. Based on the most comprehensive data available, past-month marijuana use among Colorado adolescents is nearly identical to the national average.

The most recent report can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0tmPQ67k3NVQlFnY3VzZGVmdFk/view
Certainly a lot of cautionary data in this report but highly factual.

The biggest concerns at the Governor’s office (related to marijuana) include
– black and gray market, sometimes sourced from home grows
– diversion to other states, gray market and looping (purchases over daily limit)
– law enforcement, laws are complex and fluid making enforcement difficult

Disclosure: employed in cannabis mandated testing industry, non-user, close to legislative and public policy in CO, father of 21 & 23 yo kids so well acquainted with problems and shifts in drug challenges.

Susan, could you state those stats in hard numbers rather than percentages so those of us interested can judge true impact? (The problem with percentages: If the are two incidents of cats climbing trees and suddenly there are four that’s a 100% increase, but it’s still four incidents of cats climbing trees).

Hard numbers would tell the true story better. Thanks.

SAM: Smart Approaches to Marijuana. See the link under Susan’s post.

Your post sounds good.

When I was in grad school, there was a couple, both profs, one of them one of my profs, who had a daughter, pretty, brilliant, accomplished, 17, on her way on Amtrak or some such to start her freshman year at Princeton. She never got there. She was killed in a train wreck. IIRC, the claim was that one of the operators of the train was on marijuana. Bummer.

> I am a supporter of SAM.

What is that? Sorry to ask, but I have a thingy about undefined acronyms.

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Wow!

BRC
http://www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com

I have detectives paying cash from their own pocket because they often have to handle unknown white substances.
So potent there have been overdoses after cops get some on their finger then touch a mucous membrane