Seated in a yellow chair, Jake Browne was carefully rotating a marijuana bud between his fingers. “I’m looking for bugs, mildew, things I wouldn’t want to ingest,” he said, leaning forward to hold the nickel-size flower up to the light. He paused, then took a sip of water from a cup with a Miley Cyrus hologram down its side. “This looks clean,” he concluded.
The Times said marijuana should only be available to people over 21 years old.
The New York Times has called for the federal government to repeal its ban on marijuana. They likened the federal law outlawing the drug to the failed prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s and ’30s. (Video)
The most dramatic decrease was in the number of homicides.
Overall crime rates in the city of Denver are down more than five months after legal marijuana sales began in Colorado, despite dire predictions by anti-marijuana activists. Rates of violent crime are down, as well as burglaries, leading to an overall decrease in crime of 10.6 percent, according to the Denver Department of Public Safety.
Colorado Department of Transportation’s “Drive High, Get a DUI” campaign.
Legal sales of recreational marijuana began in Colorado on January 1, 2014. Since then, state agencies have made a big push in regard to so-called stoned driving. Witness the Colorado Department of Transportation’s “Drive High, Get a DUI” campaign, which features a series of public-service announcements with a light touch.
If a blood screen detects five or more nanograms of THC er milliliter of blood in a person’s bloodstream, that individual is considered legally under the influence of drugs.
Late last year Colorado and Washington state each passed ballot measures legalizing marijuana for recreational use. While one legal challenge was resolved another was just beginning. Before, marijuana was simply prohibited. Now it has to be regulated. With their new legal standards for possession and use, Colorado and Washington now have to draw hard lines on a rather hazy landscape, creating legal standards not just for for taxation and licensing, but also some far more nebulous questions, like how much marijuana is reasonable for a single person to possess, and even what constitutes legal intoxication. Meanwhile, forty-eight other states are watching closely to see exactly how they do it.