San Diego County has banned pot dispensaries in its unincorporated areas, but the Sheriff's Department can't enforce the ban, because the locations that are shut down just re-open. Spring Valley has become the Wild West for illegal pot shops.
Read MoreStay in the know with the latest on our fight against the legalization of marijuana
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What voters really mean when they say they support marijuana legalization→
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Given more options from which to choose, respondents’ support for legalization dropped by a third, from 60 percent to 40 percent. Apparently, some of the poll respondents who had previously expressed support for legalization assumed they were being asked about the legality of medical marijuana or of personal marijuana possession. The “60 percent support” was thus actually a mix of people who supported legalization and those who opposed it but wanted marijuana to be accessible to severely ill people, opposed criminal penalties for personal consumption, or both.
Read MoreColorado politicians ignore major pot problems
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If Hickenlooper and Gardner cared to lead on this issue, they would tell the world about the rate of pot-involved traffic fatalities that began soaring in their state in direct correlation with the emergence of legal recreational pot and Big Marijuana. They would talk about Colorado's status as a national leader in the growth of homelessness, which all major homeless shelter operators attribute to commercialized, recreational pot.
Read MoreWho is really in Prison for Marijuana?
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Many of those in prison for marijuana entered a guilty plea to a marijuana charge to avoid a more serious charge. In the US, just 1.6 percent of the state inmate population were held for offenses involving only marijuana, and less than one percent of all state prisoners (0.7 percent) were incarcerated with marijuana possession as the only charge.
Read MoreMexican drug cartels may use legal marijuana to take over Northern California pot trade.→
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Part of the legalization argument is that regulating and taxing marijuana could give California enforcement agencies the funds they need to eradicate illegal farms. But Gabriel thinks it will take years before enforcement can put a dent in the illegal grows that he estimates pop up by the hundreds every year. He points to Humboldt County, about five hours northwest of Calaveras, where authorities are combing through 2,300 applications for growers who want to start selling in California’s recreational market. But there are also an estimated 12,700 illegal farms in the county.
Read MoreThe dirty tricks of Big Marijuana→
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Although supporters of recreational pot had the gall to argue that legalisation would lead to decreased use by teenagers, regular use of marijuana among children between 12 and 17 has been above the national average and is rising faster than the national average.
Nor did legalization reduce black market marijuana activity in Colorado. Last year the state’s Attorney General, Cynthia Coffman, told the media: “The criminals are still selling on the black market. ... We have plenty of cartel activity in Colorado (and) plenty of illegal activity that has not decreased at all.”
Homelessness has surged by 50 percent from the time recreational pot was legalized. Surveys at Denver shelters estimate that about 20 to 30 percent of newcomers have moved to Colorado so that they can have easy access to the drug.
Read MoreAs legalization of pot ramps up in California what should citizens be considering?
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The “medipot” industry has been lawless. Those willing to break the law are not likely to obey new, weak and unenforced regulations. Local law enforcement throughout the state, including our own Chief Zimmerman pled for banning commercial pot drug dealing operations. Most jurisdictions in the state have listened. Sadly several cities, including San Diego City, have not.
Read MoreBlowing Smoke: The Real Facts About Marijuana
/The pot industry has many lies and half truths that are recycled again and again. It is time to take them on point by point.
Read MoreMarijuana use is associated with an increased risk of prescription opioid misuse and use disorders→
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New research suggests that marijuana users may be more likely than nonusers to misuse prescription opioids and develop prescription opioid use disorder. The study was conducted by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, and Columbia University.
Read MoreGet Out Your Checkbook: What Legalized Marijuana is Going to Cost→
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With such overwhelming support, one could assume that legalization has clear benefits for everyone. That assumption is not only costly, it could prove to be dead wrong.
Read MoreCity Council Supports Big Marijuana, Ignores Communities, Mayor, and Police Chief
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6 councilmembers ignored the police chief’s and mayors concerns. They ignored the facts and figures from Colorado showing the true cost of that state’s marijuana industry. They ignored the recommendation of their own city staff. Six councilmembers ignored their own constituents, the regular people from underserved communities who took the time off from their jobs and from their families to speak out at City Hall.
Read MoreTraffic fatalities linked to marijuana are up sharply in Colorado. Is legalization to blame?→
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The number of drivers involved in fatal crashes in Colorado who tested positive for marijuana has risen sharply each year since 2013, more than doubling in that time, federal and state data show. A Denver Post analysis of the data and coroner reports provides the most comprehensive look yet into whether roads in the state have become more dangerous since the drug’s legalization.
Read MoreMarijuana devastated Colorado, don’t legalize it nationally→
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Our country is facing a drug epidemic. Legalizing recreational marijuana will do nothing that Senator Booker expects. We heard many of these same promises in 2012 when Colorado legalized recreational marijuana.
In the years since, Colorado has seen an increase in marijuana related traffic deaths, poison control calls, and emergency room visits. The marijuana black market has increased in Colorado, not decreased. And, numerous Colorado marijuana regulators have been indicted for corruption.
In 2012, we were promised funds from marijuana taxes would benefit our communities, particularly schools. Dr. Harry Bull, the Superintendent of Cherry Creek Schools, one of the largest school districts in the state, said, "So far, the only thing that the legalization of marijuana has brought to our schools has been marijuana."
Read MoreLegal weed isn't living up to all of its promises. We need to shut it down→
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Today, a growing class of well-heeled lobbyists intent on commercializing marijuana are doing everything they can to sell legal weed as a panacea for every contemporary challenge we face in America. Over the past several years we've been barraged by claims that legal pot can cure the opioid crisis, cure cancer, eliminate international drug cartels, and even solve climate change.
Read MoreTHC can't help PTSD, experts say→
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For every military veteran appearing in a Colorado public meeting to advocate for the right to use marijuana to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, mental health professionals throughout Colorado estimate they've worked with thousands whose pot use made their PTSD - and their lives in general - much worse.
Read MoreMarijuana laws hard and expensive to enforce→
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While serving on Gov. John Hickenlooper’s task force to implement Amendment 64, I quickly learned that we were changing more than our laws, we were engaged in a huge paradigm shift which was the creation of what would be a new marijuana culture. To this day, Colorado law enforcement struggles with the litany of conflicts created by “legal marijuana.”
Read MoreMarijuana abuse linked to increased MI risk→
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Washington – Marijuana abuse was independently associated with an eye-opening doubled risk of acute MI in a large, retrospective, age-matched cohort study, Ahmad Tarek Chami, MD, reported at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology.
Read MoreIn Colorado, It's Still The Wild West For Home-Grown Marijuana→
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Since 2014, when Colorado’s legal, recreational marijuana sales began, Rist Canyon residents say they’ve seen the arrival of a handful of new neighbors. These newcomers buy a plot of land, and rather than build a house and move in, they put up greenhouses or start planting marijuana right in the ground.
Read MoreCountering the Threat of Legalized Marijuana: A Blueprint for Federal, Community, and Private Action
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Recent reporting indicates that the Federal government will be taking a more serious approach to the marijuana threat and the enforcement of our nation’s drug laws. This is a welcome and long-overdue development, as the state-level legalization of marijuana is bringing with it significant and foreseeable costs. Decades of experience have taught us the damage that accompanies drug use; embarking on a legalization course that assuredly leads to higher levels of prevalence will increase the damage greatly as use broadens and intensifies.
Read MoreNo One Serves Jail Time for Smoking Pot→
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A currently hip cause is to rail against sentencing pot smokers to jail time. It sounds good considering alcohol is legal, smoking pot is not considered harmful to others, and our jails are already overcrowded, straining taxpayers’ wallets. The only problem is there isn’t a shred of truth to it.
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