
Six Months After Legalizing Marijuana, Two Big Things Have Happened in Colorado - ca98am79
http://mic.com/articles/92449/six-months-after-legalizing-marijuana-two-big-things-have-happened-in-colorado
======
danielweber
The linked data shows 19 murders in the first five months of 2013, 11 murders
in the same period in 2014.

First, this is very noisy data to make any predictions from. (I guess it's a
good thing to have so few murders that it's hard to make generalizations.)
March 2014 alone had 5 murders compared to three last year.

Second, this isn't a 52.9% drop, even if you exclude May, which makes the drop
from 17 to 9. It's a 47.1% drop.

This is a very low quality article.

~~~
DatBear
They just worded it wrong, really... It should say it's 52.9% of what it was
in 2013, meaning it is a 47.1% drop.

But linking to data for 5 months and then only using the 4 you want to use to
skew numbers seems pretty ridiculous to me.

And then in the same page there's data for drug/narcotics violations which
isn't even mentioned because it is going up (21% more) even though there are
supposedly plummeting marijuana convictions. Also they stated that the crime
rate in Denver is going down, yet the data shows the exact opposite.

Whole article seems like cherrypicking at its finest.

~~~
danielweber
It's just the first thing I honed in on when I was checking the article. I
could start talking about significant digits but I don't think it's necessary
to really put more work into this.

~~~
DatBear
Yea, I just read the article again and it seems more ridiculous than I thought
at first glance.

------
miles_matthias
I live in Denver and work in Boulder, and honestly, I haven't noticed any
change in people. The murder rate going down is awesome and having the state
earn revenue is awesome, but the biggest misconception people have about
Colorado right now (thanks to the media) is that it's a wild west of pot
smoking lazy people stumbling around and acting up.

But really, there's been no change in how people act. The people that have
always smoked it (hippies in the park and normal people at home) are still
smoking it, and the people that don't smoke (myself included) still don't
smoke.

So no lifestyle changes for the majority of the people in the state (except
the people that get jobs now thanks to the legit industry and hopefully some
lives saved by quality controlling the stuff) AND we get all the benefits.

Let's go national with this thing.

~~~
julienchastang
Long time Boulder resident here. In regards to change, the homeless/transient
situation in downtown Boulder and beyond has gotten completely out of control
[1]. I now see transients/homeless where I did not in the past. I am not
certain the marijuana laws are the reason for so many transients coming to
Boulder, but it could be a contributing factor.

[1] [http://www.dailycamera.com/News/ci_26064136/Boulder-
councilm...](http://www.dailycamera.com/News/ci_26064136/Boulder-councilman-
merchants-warn-of-downtown)

~~~
chenelson
Of course you're seeing transients/homeless where you didn't in the past. The
City Council is playing Whac-A-Mole: the police blocked off significant
portions of the downtown library green areas and patrol the river. Where do
you expect them to go?

Besides, Boulder has been hostile to recreational marijuana. Denver had retail
shops open on the 1st of January...it took until March or April for multiple
shops to open. I doubt a couple months of legal weed has spiked the
population.

Boulder, like San Francisco and Seattle, has always had a significant homeless
population. The big change I've seen in Boulder is Conservatism and
intolerance. Take Patti Adler, for example.

------
munificent
Since the statistics in that article are terribly misleading, I took the
effort to make a chart with some more data:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1waFpYd7jK9nUcb1VbPOL...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1waFpYd7jK9nUcb1VbPOLjZx81LJ_SmKa-8bJEXz4GyA/edit?usp=sharing)

It's based on the raw data here:

[http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/720/documents/statistics/20...](http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/720/documents/statistics/2012/XCitywide_Reported_Offenses_2012.pdf)
[http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/720/documents/statistics/20...](http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/720/documents/statistics/2013/XCitywide_Reported_Offenses_2013.pdf)
[http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/720/documents/statistics/20...](http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/720/documents/statistics/2014/XCitywide_Reported_Offenses_2014.pdf)

Personally, I can't see any noticeable effect on crime except that drug
violations and crimes against persons seem to be up this year. Or maybe I just
didn't do a great job on the chart?

~~~
lowmagnet
The point in the article was unclear; I think they meant to say something more
along the lines of "crime didn't go up by eleventy-thousand percent" rather
than "crime went down".

------
xienze
> According to government data, the Denver city- and county-wide murder rate
> has dropped 52.9% since recreational marijuana use was legalized in January.

I think it's probably a stretch to link these two things together...

Also, it sounds like the government is already writing checks based on
"predicted" income levels 4x what they are today.

I think legalization is a good idea but I wish people would give things a
couple years before drawing meaningful conclusions from the data.

------
rwl
This sounds like a great outcome, and I support legalization for basically
these reasons. More revenue for state governments, less violence, less law-
enforcement time wasted on drug offences, and less crowding of prisons with
non-violent drug offenders are all good things.

But surely there have been downsides, too, even if they're not the ones that
fear-mongerers predicted. Can anyone in Colorado speak to what those are?

~~~
akmiller
I'm not in Colorado but I saw one of the downsides the other day which is the
manufacture of items like candy bars with multiple serving sizes of THC in the
one bar. People aren't paying much attention to the serving sizes and there
appears to be no restrictions in place yet on how much can be in a given food
item. I'm in favor of legalization but there may need to be some more
restrictions in place on how much THC could be included in any one item.

~~~
derwiki
But on the plus side, you can't overdose on THC (like alcohol, cocaine,
heroin, etc). I will note that you can still do stupid things that endanger
your life.

~~~
xienze
> But on the plus side, you can't overdose on THC

Sure, but you can still have a pretty bad time if you take too much and/or are
very sensitive. It's known to cause tachycardia in some people, which is not
something to be taken lightly.

~~~
math0ne
Yes! The government should regulate to prevent you from a "pretty bad time"
good use of everyone's time!

~~~
xienze
"Pretty bad time" is a euphemism for "could have serious negative health
consequences." Yes, people can and do have very negative reactions to
marijuana. Been there, done that.

------
binarymax
The second point seems like it is a stretch. Of course, crime rate of illegal
marijuana dropped when it was legalized.

What I'd really like to see if related crime has dropped or increased - such
as DUI, Theft, Assault, etc.

\--Edit-- Thanks all for pointing out the piece I skimmed over :) ...However I
am still very curious to smaller offenses and misdemeanors. It will be years
before we see good statistics, but those elements will be politically crucial
in pushing for wider adoption.

~~~
pavanky
> According to government data, the Denver city- and county-wide murder rate
> has dropped 52.9% since recreational marijuana use was legalized in January.
> This is compared to the same period last year, a time frame encompassing
> Jan. 1 through April 30.

This was the second paragraph of the crime section.

~~~
jws
That statistic is cherry picked from a list of 36 at
[http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/720/documents/statistics/20...](http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/720/documents/statistics/2014/XCitywide_Reported_Offenses_2014.pdf)
and has a relatively low sample size.

If you can't find a statistic to cherry pick for your argument in a list of 36
you have a very bad argument.

• Arson has doubled since legalization! Bunch of flaming stoners.

• Embezzlement is down 88%! Who knew this was all society needed to fortify
people's fiduciary responsibilities.

------
noddingham
I hear this kind of stuff every day on the radio and other news sources living
in Colorado.

Here are some things to consider:

1) Only the revenue is really important to the politicians - there has been
virtually no talk about using the money for rehabilitation programs, and only
a little talk about using the money for drug education. So far the only
tangible outcome I've heard was a proposed $3 million to be used to hire ~100
government personnel to handle administrative tasks related to marijuana sales
and regulation. Given the fights that we see among politicians when it comes
to spending other sources of revenue, I don't see it being any easier to get
this new revenue spent appropriately either.

2) Correlation vs Causation re: lower crime. Who's to say it's not due to the
beautiful sunny spring and summer that we have here in CO or the fact that it
kept snowing in the mountains longer this year so people skied more? The one
thing I have observed is that legalizing marijuana didn't convert a lot of
non-users into users so at first blush it does not appear that legalizing
marijuana has turned the state into a bunch of potheads (although I tire of
hearing things like "Denver is the Silicon Valley of weed").

3) Because there's still no good research out on the effects (long, short,
casual use) of marijuana (THC specifically) there is a lot of concern over the
substantial increase in the amount of edibles, elixirs, and other marijuana
infused products which can be purchased that are not well regulated or
identified. The same argument can be made for the vapor/e-cig industry.
Clearly identifying how much THC a product contains and what affect that will
have on a person is much needed and should hopefully come about from the bills
that Hickenlooper signed into law in May.

As others have said the reason you aren't hearing any news from Seattle/DC is
because they do not have everything in place to allow stores to open up.
Colorado moved quickly to both decriminalize as well as create regulations,
tax structure, etc., which the other states have not done yet. Many states are
watching CO to see how this plays out and based upon the revenue figures that
are being released as long as there isn't a significant increase in directly
correlated crime, I don't think the politicians will be able to turn down the
money in the long run.

------
chipgap98
> This November, it's all but certain that D.C. will vote on a marijuana
> ballot measure and even pass it, setting up a battle with Congress to
> legalize.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this vote. The marijuana
debate is in a completely different place than it was 16 years ago when
Congress blocked the counting of the votes for medical marijuana in D.C., but
I could still see them interfering with the vote again.

~~~
r00fus
Why would DC legalizing pot set up a battle with Congress - does Congress need
to sign off on DC legislation?

~~~
bladegash
Yep.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_home_rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_home_rule)

~~~
ihnorton
Relatedly, the motto on D.C. license plates is "Taxation without
representation":

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Washingto...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Washington,_D.C._license_plate.JPG)

------
chrisgd
Once more data comes in, I would like to see crime and revenue compared with
crime and revenue in areas that instead legalized casino gambling.

------
panzagl
It will be interesting to see how the economic benefits hold up- Colorado has
a history of boom and bust, whether from mining, ranching, military, tech, or
tourism. It also has a history of making decisions during the boom that are
unsustainable throughout the bust. As prices drop and more states legalize my
guess is that the economic benefits will prove relatively modest.

------
badman_ting
Pre-legalization: "Crime will go up." Post-legalization: "Crime went down, but
not because of the weed thing."

Well, okay then.

------
prostoalex
There was a pretty informative round table on cannabis business hosted on
Jason Calacanis' This Week in Startups
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zZ8RgfTFzA&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zZ8RgfTFzA&feature=youtu.be&a&utm_content=bufferc7b72&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer)

One useful quote from there is not to get euphoric over revenue figures -
first few months "people are not buying marijuana, people are buying freedom".
A variety of things, such as novelty effect, natural curiosity and even social
currency accumulation (people who live in Colorado/Washington brag to their
friends outside of those states) motivate the first purchases, you have to
look at longer timeline to properly extrapolate the expected sales.

~~~
chenelson
People aren't purchasing freedom, they're purchasing convenience. And this
isn't a new product. Also, as prices fall in the legal retail trade, shouldn't
we expect more competition with the black market?

~~~
eob
Both groups exist.

Think of the "buying freedom" bump as the bump that happens when a new
restaurant opens. A lot of people buying pot for the first time (or the first
time in a long time) probably don't really care about pot that much. Not
enough to break the law to buy it. It's just fun to try something new.

Replacing "Pot" with "Norwegian Cuisine" is maybe a useful exercise. I'm in
the group that doesn't care much about either (from the consumer standpoint).
I wouldn't break the law to smoke pot, nor would I break the law to eat
Norwegian food. But if either was suddenly legalized, of course I'd go try
them out a few times, why not?

~~~
chenelson
But that's my point...you're talking about a "few times" and not volume. Sure,
some (at least 1) may purchase freedom, but compared to the convenience crowd
(think Starbucks), freedom is a rounding error.

BTW, prior to legalization, there were more Medical Marijuana dispensaries in
Boulder than coffee shops.

------
tzs
> According to government data, the Denver city- and county-wide murder rate
> has dropped 52.9% since recreational marijuana use was legalized in January.
> This is compared to the same period last year, a time frame encompassing
> Jan. 1 through April 30.

They need to also compare with demographically similar cities and counties
that did not legalize marijuana. Crime is often heavily influenced by national
or broad regional factors. You have to identify and account for this when
trying to figure out how much of an affect a local factor (such as marijuana
legalization in your state) had.

------
kenjackson
Curious, have we seen similar data in Washington/Seattle -- another place
where it was legalized?

~~~
larrykubin
Here in Seattle, things are moving slowly. The first stores haven't even
opened up yet.

~~~
ozten
Yep. The first store is scheduled to open next Tuesday
[http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023970923_potlicense...](http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023970923_potlicense2xml.html)

------
todd3834
A few months ago, one of these discussions came up and someone presented some
interesting data on negative effects this had on students and the drop out
rate. Sorry I do not have a link to the discussion but I would love to see if
someone had that data.

------
transfire
I worry about what will happen when the next GOP President takes office. Will
there be a sudden federal crackdown? If that happens then I think it is
inevitable that the US will devolve into a tyranny --just as Plato said, all
democracies ultimately do.

~~~
derwiki
Could a new GOP president retroactively charge dispensary customers with
illegal possession?

~~~
dragonwriter
It wouldn't be "retroactively" any more than all criminal prosecutions (which,
in the absence of precrime legislation, necessarily address events in the
past) are.

Subject to the applicable statutes of limitations, as long as the federal laws
are on the books, yes, people who committed offenses at a time when the those
offenses were not prosecutorial priorities of the executive branch could be
charged when the prosecutorial priorities of the executive branch change.
That's sort of the key distinction between "prosecutorial priorities" and
"laws".

------
Throwaway1224
the graff with the addiction rate vs. drug control spending is misleading.
while the addiction rate is constant, the population is growing, meaning the
total number of addicted people would be rising.

graff graff.

~~~
k__
I thought the problem with drugs isn't the addiction but the black market.

The people get addicted anyway, but now the money needed to cure them goes
where it can help and not to the mob.

~~~
jessaustin
I suspect it will be like the lottery money that was supposedly destined for
the public schools, and it will just turn into a slush fund the legislature
and governor can spend as they please.

------
martin1b
It's a long stretch to argue a decline in crime is attributed to drug use.
Spin the numbers however you wish, it doesn't take a mathematician to figure
out the truth... If I were in law enforcement, I'd feel pretty slighted that
drug users figured out how to take credit for some of my work.

~~~
gknoy
Perhaps it's more related than you think: If pot is legal, police can spend
their valuable time policing other things, and making a difference in those
areas.

------
notastartup
Why isn't this happening here in Vancouver? What more proof do we need?

