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.
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.
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.
Agreed. I'm pro decriminalization and/or legalization, but a 52% drop in the murder rate due to the legalization of marijuana doesn't even pass the laugh test let alone the kind of analysis people are proposing here.
The notion that decriminalization has caused a drop in murders is specious, anyone claiming that it was cause a spike in serious crime was clearly wrong which is the point he is making. He clearly disclaims that this isn't proof of a long-term correlation.
I think that this _may_ miss the point, though I do appreciate the accuracy.
One of the arguments against legalization is that once marijuana is legal, we would see a significant _increase_ in crime.[1] So a __statistically__ insignificant result is not a __politically__ insignificant result.
1: From TFA: ""Expect more crime, more kids using marijuana and pot for sale everywhere," said Douglas County Sheriff David Weaver in 2012."
If the police have become 10 times more scoundrelly after decriminalization, isn't that something other states should consider when passing similar laws?
Certainly! Too many bored cops are not a benefit to the community. Drug legalization laws should definitely have police force reduction measures, whether that's a direct population-ratio requirement or just a diminution of funds.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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".
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
"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.
People, especially those in their early 20s, tend to not pay attention to the serving size for alcohol, sometimes to the point of death. Those drinking for the first time often experience a hangover.
People, especially those of retirement age, tend to ignore the serving size for aspirin, to the point of 30k deaths per year.
THC is still rolling with a zero body count.
The patriarchy cannot save us from our own ignorance.
True, but we are talking about things like candy bars. Kids can pick up a candy bar and not realize that a candy bar that contains THC is any different than a regular candy bar. Not to mention that the candy bar may contain extreme dosages of THC.
Where are "kids" going to find these "candy bars" with "extreme" doses of, what, 100mg of THC? Where are their parents? Can these kids read or are we talking about toddlers? What are the consequences? Are they similiar to aspirin, the Clorox under your sink, or the pathongenic microrganisms in the streams that course through the city? Of course not.
Again, zero body count but tons of fear about something people have been doing since there were people.
Oh, and regulations mandate all edibles be served in child-resistant packaging.
But seriously, I live and work in Downtown Denver and have seen no change for the worse, and frankly haven't heard any evidence that any of the assumed negative effects (ie: increase usage among teens and youth) have happened. Denver is one happy (and healthy) city.
Legalization is a no brainer that is simply being held up nationwide due to outdated moral inertia.
I've been following all the legalization news closely since I live in Denver. The FUD from opponents of legalization are that it will negatively affect children since access will increase. The 'hey mister' won't be only for alcohol anymore but for cannabis too. Many edible products seem to be targeting children with products like gummy bears, hard candies, brownies, sodas, etc. This would increase the likelihood of accidental ingestion but also seems to be purposefully targeting children's interests similar to cigarette cartoon advertising. The issues around advertising, specific products, and increased access for children most likely will be an ongoing problem that will require additional legislation to resolve.
Second there is a big fear of increased DUI. The framework for legalization required that there be a penalty for DUI, which has been pegged at 5 nanograms of THC per millimeter of blood. This has its own problem, primarily that somebody who is no longer under the influence can still test positive if they are a heavy user. Officers need better tools at their disposal to determine if a driver is actually a danger while driving. This seems no different than legal pills that people also drive while under the influence. This might be a technology problem since there is no way to tell if a person is under the influence of cannabis.
The third big fear is that organized criminal elements will be attracted to the legal market in an attempt to launder their black market sales. There was a big bust of legal grows and dispensaries earlier this year which was supposedly related to cartel sales out of Miami. This seems like the real reason the DEA should be involved in cannabis legalization. So they can determine who is playing by the rules and who is trying to subvert them.
Without much quantitative data, the qualitative affects of legalization seem to have a positive impact on people's lives and the general communities around Denver in my personal opinion.
I do wonder what people think is going to happen to children who accidentally ingest the stuff. AFAICT there's not a lot of danger compared to alcohol.
I absolutely am not suggesting kids should be allowed pot, just that I think the hysteria is overstated.
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.
I agree, and I suspect that it's likely "a cop stops $unsavory_character and wants to charge him with something; as his possession of marijuana is no longer illegal, he must choose something more contrived."
> 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.
Click through the link provided to see the raw data. Murder figure looks a little cherry picked. It went from 17 to 9. It was a very cold winter on top of that. Temperature is highly corralled with crime.
According to the Denver city data, there were 19 murders in the Denver city area through May last year, and 11 this year. That's better, but implying that to be a statistically significant phenomenon related to marijuana legalization seems intellectually dishonest. Especially when the overall crime numbers for more common crimes don't seem to show any consistent patterns.
>> Of course, crime rate of illegal marijuana dropped when it was legalized.
I think this is a more important point than either you or the author realize. Yes it seems obvious, but was it worth calling marijuana users criminals in the first place? If you stop arresting all these people, and negative side effects don't increase, why were they getting arrested to begin with? Getting arrested is a huge deal and impacts your future job prospects, not to mention the short term aspects of possibly being jailed, etc. If that all happens before legalization, but not after legalization, can we really justify the seemingly arbitrary consequences in these people's lives? All other things being equal, getting a bunch of people arrested and calling them criminals is not necessarily better than leaving them be and calling them normal.
> 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.
Reducing the 52% drop to a 47% drop doesn't change the point much.
edit - though I agree that the data isn't good enough to really support any conclusions yet. That would take about ten years and several different cities.
Besides a failure to understand which number is which is a percentage change, the data they link to shows a 24% increase in crimes against people.
I don't know why anyone thought this was a good enough article to upvote. Someone out there is working on a good article about the effects of legalization on crime rates. This isn't it.
To be honest, beyond the obvious fall in weed related arrests I wouldn't expect legalisation of the stuff to have much of an effect on crime either way above the background noise level, at least in the short term. You might be able to tease something out with a long term epidemiological study, but that will take a lot of time and a lot of data points. I could be wrong but I suspect that reality will be stubbornly a lot more boring on this particular topic than either the doomsayers or the evangelists will like. On a long term, I could see some real and lasting benefits from the reduced arrests and incarcerations and the social identity effects of dissociating the use of the drug from crime.
On the one hand, it was a stretch to frame the benefit as a "drop in crime". On the other hand, the secondary benefits flowing from the drop were worth touting, namely the first-order cost and time savings of processing arrests, running through the court system and incarceration.
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.
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.
> 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.
> Why would DC legalizing pot set up a battle with Congress - does Congress need to sign off on DC legislation?
Yes, all DC Council legislation is subject to Congressional review before it becomes law. (Government of the capital district is a Congressional power under Article I of the Constitution.)
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.
>Drugs are a person by person issue. Now you might say, yeah, if it wasn't x substance, it'd be y.
Alcohol addiction comes to mind as another substitute that is depressing to watch or be the victim of. Does anybody know if marijuana side effects tend to induce violence or impaired decision making as compared to alcohol?
First, quit referring to it as "dope" since that is heroin, not marijuana. I suspect you know that but, for whatever reason, you've got a beef with people that don't have the iron skull you apparently have.
I guess I'd like to know what you think about people on depression/anxiety/bipolar meds since you have such a strong opinion on what a makes up "clear head"?
My grandma, who was born in 1901, used to refer to any substance considered illegal as "dope." Of course, she had her 4oz hot-toddy every evening and smoked 2 packs per day. Most people that follow the mainstream view of controlled substances do not care about the nuances; drugs are bad (unless sold by big pharma).
Of course, but the same is true for alcohol, and prohibition doesn't exactly seem to work there.
In all cases encouraging individual responsibility and providing frameworks to help people get their shit together when things do go bad seem to be more viable in the long run.
This is related to why I find things such as the anti-suicide nets on the Golden Gate Bridge slightly perverse. You really need to be asking why people want to do it rather than just taking the means away.
This New Yorker article[0] makes a pretty compelling case that the Golden Gate nets would be very effective; it's somewhat of an unusual case in that it's such an iconic suicide destination. [0]http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/10/13/031013fa_fact?cu...
Do people still jump if the nets are there? Surely they just go and find somewhere else.
The only people that seem to claim it would make a difference are those that jumped off something without protection, somehow survived, and in the process had the epiphany, but that seems ever so slightly unlikely to occur if there's a net in the way.
Suicide is a more general problem than substance abuse. Providing frameworks to help people would not be 100% effective and a 'lapse' on the suicide front is something that one is less likely to be able to recover from than a lapse on substance abuse. So I don't see why anti-suicide nets are 'perverse.'
It is really hard to see people we care about struggle with addiction.
But WHAT they are addicted is not the problem; it's their broken brain that needs fixing. Spending $1.5 trillion trying to stem the supply of a substance is about as stupid as making all negative social-interactions illegal (everything MUST be awesome!) so depressed people won't get sad.
You could attribute that to most things we observe as a society. Let us all reflect on the solitary anecdotes that fuel many technology arguments, especially iOS vs Android in recent years.
"All of my friends says iOS sucks and have moved to Android!"
"That can't be, all of my friends hated their Galaxy phones and moved to iPhone!"
I'm sorry that someone close to you is dealing with that struggle, but I have two questions:
1) Do you think that your friend was at all dissuaded by current US drug policy? Of course this is impossible to know for sure, but I'm curious to hear your view.
2) Is having their door kicked through in the middle of the night by SWAT, and being sent to prison in any way advantageous to someone struggling with addiction?
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.
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?
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
I think it's pretty easy to argue that this is a states rights issue and should be left to the states. Nothing they could do would stop the momentum that we have in Colorado.
Not to mention that'd you'd be putting tens of thousands of people out of a job if you tried to "crack down" on one of the fastest growing industries in the country (where it's legal). Job creators.
It is also pretty easy to argue that the feds need to just make it legal and then let the states go from there. Just like with alcohol where various states have slightly different rules but, for the most part, you can get booze just about where ever and when ever you want.
Well, they wouldn't have to retroactively do anything, since marijuana is still a federally controlled substance, and federal law still considers its sale and consumption illegal.
The only thing that stopped the dispensary raids on California dispensaries was discretion. The law hasn't changed substantially enough that what they're doing is still considered kosher to the federal government.
As it stands, the next president, whatever his party, could simply decide to resume those raids, and would be perfectly within their statutory purview to do.
That said, I agree with the assertion that it is a states' rights issue, but SCOTUS precedent extends the power of the Interstate Commerce Clause to include much more than this, so according to current precedent, states rights only exist where the federal government expressly abdicates making a policy decision, which isn't something our federal government is terribly good at doing.
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".
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.
It is misleading only in that the spending should have been per capita. I don't think that changes the point though which is that however much you spend it is just money wasted. As far as I am concerned money shouldn't be thrown away when the approach obviously isn't working no matter how much you think the goal is worth it. For the record I don't agree that the government should ban substances outright, just make sure they are labeled properly for the harm they do.
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.
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.
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.
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.