Seven ways pot legalization has been a disaster in Colorado

Hat tip on this one to Cully Stimson at the Daily Signal, who dove into a report from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area to get to the truth about the social costs being wrought by this ill-conceived public policy. For those of you still making the rote, brain-dead argument that "the money spent on the War on Drugs hasn't been worth it," is this the result you wanted?

1. The majority of DUI drug arrests involve marijuana and 25 to 40 percent were marijuana alone. 2. In 2012, 10.47 percent of Colorado youth ages 12 to 17 were considered current marijuana users compared to 7.55 percent nationally. Colorado ranked fourth in the nation, and was 39 percent higher than the national average. 3. Drug-related student suspensions/expulsions increased 32 percent from school years 2008-09 through 2012-13, the vast majority were for marijuana violations. 4. In 2012, 26.81 percent of college age students were considered current marijuana users compared to 18.89 percent nationally, which ranks Colorado third in the nation and 42 percent above the national average.

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5. In 2013, 48.4 percent of Denver adult arrestees tested positive for marijuana, which is a 16 percent increase from 2008. 6. From 2011 through 2013 there was a 57 percent increase in marijuana-related emergency room visits. 7. Hospitalizations related to marijuana has increased 82 percent since 2008.

Legal marijuana means more people smoking marijuana (especially kids), which means more problems in the realms of crime, public health, driving hazards, school discipline. One of the most idiotic arguments in favor of pot legalization is that it "takes the crime out of it." It does no such thing. It creates so much undisciplined behavior on the part of people who are not the sharpest tools in the drawer to begin with, the result is far more overall criminal behavior, even if possession of pot itself is not something to be prosecuted. About that: If legalization is not supposed to lead to a rise in teens smoking pot, then how do you explain drug-related suspensions and expulsions up 32 percent in four years? Because it obviously does lead to more teens doing it. There is no way it could be otherwise. Any time you remove the sanction from a behavior, you get more of that behavior. More adults able to acquire pot legally means more people for teens to get it from. Come on. Don't be a moron. Use your brain for once, if you still have any of it left. And stop with the idiocy about how "the war on drugs failed" because it didn't result in fewer people doing drugs. Name one other criminal law that's judged in that way. Rapists are still at it. Anti-rape laws have failed! Are you really that stupid? The purpose of a criminal law is to impose a sanction on those who commit the crime, and to protect society from those same people. If more people are using drugs, the law hasn't failed. Those people have failed. And now we're seeing some of the social costs of changing the law to accommodate their failures.