re: Five years later, Colorado sees toll of pot legalization

This is such blatant propaganda. The United States average for homelessness is 195 per 100,000. Colorado has a homeless rate of 197 per 100,000. A state like Utah has a rate of 266 per 100,000, where weed is still illegal. And in general, the West Coast states have a much higher rate of homelessness. Ascribing an increased rate of homelessness to solely marijuana legalization alone is dishonest, and brazenly so.

In terms of fatal crashes, in 2016, 33% of those fatalities were directly caused by alcohol. In fact, the number of fatalities from traffic accidents in 2017 was lower than the numbers of fatalities from 2002 to 2004, and again ascribing the increase from a the lowest total fatalities, in 2011 with 447, to marijuana alone is again dishonest.

Certainly a roadblock to widespread legalization is a testing method for drivers who are high versus drivers who have marijuana in their system, but when more than a third of traffic fatalities are related to alcohol, it seems that solely describing the problem as related to marijuana legalization is an attempt to link a problem that has existed before marijuana legalization.