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Retsudvalget 2013-14
REU Alm.del Bilag 408
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COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL

Law Enforcement in Colorado:

The Marijuana Experiment

by John Suthers, Colorado Attorney General

September 10, 2014



Thanks to Jim Tierney for the invitation



For those of you who think that legalization of marijuana

is just an issue for Colorado or Washington – don’t be

smug – well funded, well organized and very strategic,

it’s coming to every state in America



I watched the legalization movement unfold in Colorado

over a 14-year period and identified a clearly

recognizable game plan. It starts with recognition of

limited medical marijuana, moves to expanded medical

marijuana and once that is exposed as a joke, you move

to legalization. It’s my view that virtually every state is

somewhere on the spectrum of this progression.

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

While I have been largely supportive of decriminalization

of marijuana efforts – lessening consequences – I have

and continue to oppose legalization. I believe

legalization will adversely impact youth marijuana use

rates over the coming years and exacerbate overall drug

use rates in the future. (explain

–

use function of

perception of risk) – Historically 1 in 6 kids under 18 who

smoke marijuana become addicted – Likely go

considerably higher now that most strains of marijuana

for sale recreationally in Colorado have THC levels

exceeding 15 percent. In the Woodstock days it was

about 3 percent. Of the 2.4 million people in U.S. who try

marijuana for the first time each year, 58% are under 18.



Colorado History

Amendment 20 passed in 2000 – called for limited

medical marijuana – available to people who

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registered with the health department and had a

physician’s letter indicating marijuana may help with

a debilitating medical condition including cancer,

HIV, and chronic pain – Could grow your own or

have a caregiver grow it for you – caregiver had to

have significant responsibility for your care – health

department established a guideline indicating that

each caregiver could only have a limit of 5 patients

– By 2007 there were only about 1700 patients on

the health department registry and a legalization

campaign failed at the ballot by a 60-40 margin in

2006 but in 2008 and early 2009 things changed

dramatically – In a lawsuit a court held the state

Board of Health could not limit the number of

patients per caregiver by guideline, they had to

enact a rule. At a hearing attended by 1,000

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marijuana proponents and lasting twelve hours, the

Board of Health voted 4-3 not to impose the

limitation; this caused marijuana proponents to

decide to become a caregiver for hundreds if not

thousands of patients and to advertise for the

patients. At the same time in early 2009 President

Obama’s justice department issued the Ogden letter

indicating that if people complied with state medical

marijuana laws, federal law enforcement would not

interfere – these two things caused the medical

marijuana roles in Colorado to swell to over 60,000

In the 2010 legislative session the debate was to

legislatively recognize medical dispensaries or limit

caregivers to five patients – The legislature decided

to recognize dispensaries and over the next year

the roles swelled to 130,000 – The demographics

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were frankly, not surprising – The median age was

39, 70 percent male, 30 percent female, 97 percent

cited chronic pain – The average age of people with

debilitating medical conditions is approximately 70

and only a few more males than females are

impacted – It was largely viewed as a joke and

people recognized it as such and the stage was set

for legalization campaign in 2012 – The campaign

had two major points – spending way too much on

enforcement (5,000 arrests – not really) – we can

support public schools with the tax money we would

generate – passed 55-45 percent – cities can opt

out – the vast majority have – big part of

Amendment 64 is that you can grow your own in

your house – up to six plants. I think this is proving

problematic for the industry.

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We’ve spent the time after passage developing a

regulatory scheme – done the best we could while

still trying to comply with the constitutional language

which was very deliberately drafted – As I’ll indicate

later, a big problem has been edibles – there’s no

ownership connection required between grow

operations and retail and I believe this will cause

there to be much more diversion out of the state.

So where are we today? Industry says things are

going great – minority marijuana group led by an

activist lawyer is suing to have the 25% tax declared

illegal under the 5

Amendment right against

incrimination – Others are beginning to assess

impact of legalization – While it’s still early, the

information I’m about to give you comes from a

recently released report by the Rocky Mountain

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High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area group and a

Centennial Institute Policy Brief.



Adult Marijuana Use

As of 2012 – 26.81% of 18-25 year olds in Colorado

had smoked in the last month – That’s 20% higher

than the national average of 22.37% and is a 36%

increase in the three years since 2009 - Frankly, this

number takes into account the liberalized medical

marijuana laws as opposed to legalization of

recreational use.

In a recently released report indicates 9% of all

adults in Colorado smoked marijuana in the last

month – That’s compared to 6% nationally – But

most notably a full quarter of that 9% of adults used

marijuana daily or more often – that’s opposed to

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16% nationally – In other words, Colorado has a

significantly higher rate of heavy users

Percentage of all adult male arrestees testing

positive for marijuana has risen from 41.6 percent in

2008 to 48.4 percent in 2013.



Adolescent Marijuana Use

Past month use of marijuana by 12-17 year olds in

Colorado climbed from 8.3% in 2008 to 10.5% in

2012, a 25 percent increase – The national rate is

7.5% so Colorado is over 30 percent higher – Once

again this number reflects the liberalization of

medical marijuana laws because legalization did not

come in until 2012 – Interestingly, past month use of

marijuana by 12-17 year olds is much higher in

states with medical marijuana than in those states

without – 9.4 percent versus 6.7 percent.

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6.5 percent of high school seniors nationwide

smoke marijuana daily.

Drug related suspensions and expulsions in

Colorado public schools have risen dramatically

from 3,736 in 2009 to 4, 933 in 2013 – Marijuana

related suspensions and expulsions have risen from

25 percent of all suspensions and expulsions to 41

percent in 2013 – That does reflect the first year of

legalization

Where do 12-17 year old adolescents get their

marijuana? 38 percent from friends who obtain it

legally – 23 percent from parents – 22 percent from

drug dealers – and 9 percent from medical

marijuana card holders

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

Impaired Driving

From 2007 to 2012, traffic fatalities in Colorado

decreased 14.8 percent – However during the same

time fatalities involving operators testing positive for

marijuana increased 100 percent from 39 to 78 – In

2007 marijuana impaired operator traffic fatalities

were 6.92% of the total – that’s risen to 16.53% of

the total by 2012 – Once again this reflects the

liberalization of medical marijuana laws

Marijuana related emergency room visits have

skyrocketed from 8, 198 in 2011 to 12,888 in 2013 –

Hospitalizations related to marijuana have risen

from 3,900 in 2007 to 8, 078 in 2013 – In 2009 two

children were hospitalized for marijuana ingestion –

In the first six months of 2014 we’ve had 12 children

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hospitalized for marijuana ingestion – The problem

there is edibles which I’ll talk about later

Rocky Mountain Poison Center calls for marijuana

exposure in children have tripled from 3.9 per million

in 2005 to 14.8 per million people in 2012 – once

again a pre-recreational marijuana number.



Diversion Out of Colorado

Colorado grown marijuana interdiction seizures

increased from 58 in 2008 to 288 in 2013 – The

average pounds per seizure of Colorado marijuana

increased from 2,763 in 2008 to 3,690 in 2013 –

Mail and FedEx and UPS seizures have more than

doubled - In 2013, 40 states reported seizing

marijuana packaged in Colorado

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

Edibles

Regulation of edibles has been particularly

problematic in Colorado – two horror stories – trying

to deal with through regulation without violating

constitution – similar problem with the THC content

– as you know, many times what it used to be



Hash Oil

A house explosion virtually every week – clearly

needs regulation – benefit to kids with severe

seizure disorders.



Conclusion

I’m encouraging Coloradans to think about how to

assess the success or failure of this experiment – I

would suggest that over the next several years we

evaluate the following:

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1. The impact on youth drug rates – probably

need minimum 5 years

2. The impact on school performance

3. Cost vs. revenue (so far only 1/3 of projected

revenues)

4. Reduction in organized crime/influence of

cartels – very little impact so far

5. Amount of diversion out of state

As for other states, I suggest you let Colorado and

Washington be guinea pigs – We should have a

much clearer picture of the overall impact of

legalization in the next few years.