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

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Most OTers think there are no consequences whatsoever to legalization

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you OK with the consequences of the 21st amendment?

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Visitors to Colorado remark about a new agricultural smell, the wafting odor of pot as they drive near warehouse grow operations along Denver freeways. Residential neighborhoods throughout Colorado Springs reek of marijuana, as producers fill rental homes with plants.

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None of this is true. OK media just trying to make CO look bad because they don't like weed being legal so close to their border.

Here's the real story....

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DENVER — The Colorado Department of Revenue says marijuana shops in the state made a record $1.51 billion in sales of medical and recreational cannabis, edibles and concentrate products in 2017.

Data released Friday say adult-use sales topped $1.09 billion during the year, with the remaining $416.52 million coming from medical marijuana.

Data say the state collected upward of $247 million in taxes and fees revenue from marijuana sales.

The previous record was in 2016, when marijuana shops did $1.3 billion in sales. Sales were $996 million in 2015.

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LINK

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Five years of retail pot coincide with five years of a homelessness growth rate that ranks among the highest rates in the country.

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Amazingly stupid point.

Are they suggesting pot causes homelessness

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If marijuana is in your bloodstream then you are still intoxicated

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I know you’re joking but there’s probably some baws on here that think case. No, if thc is in your system that doesn’t mean you are still high or experiencing any kind of effects from it.

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TIL pot causes homelessness

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The assertion isn’t exactly that it causes homelessness, it is that those who are already homeless relocate there.

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Residential neighborhoods throughout Colorado Springs reek of marijuana, as producers fill rental homes with plants.

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I assume it would be illegal to use residential space for commercial production applications. That's not a side effect of pot.

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Are they suggesting pot causes homelessness

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The pot draws the homeless to Colorado, so they can get their weed fix. I'm sure an increase in homeless in Denver is due to mass homeless migration and not a rapid upshoot in housing costs.

That seems to legitimately be the argument.

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No, if thc is in your system that doesn’t mean you are still high or experiencing any kind of effects from it.

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No, if you have THC in your system, it has some psychoactive affect.

Drug tests don't test for THC though, they test for a metabolite after the THC is broken down that has a long half life and stores in your fat cells.

What does thc stand for? Totally high concentration or something?

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Last week marked the fifth anniversary of Colorado's decision to sanction the world's first anything-goes commercial pot trade.

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Being a first mover means you're going to attract the best and the worst that marijuana has to offer.

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Five years of retail pot coincide with five years of a homelessness growth rate that ranks among the highest rates in the country. Directors of homeless shelters, and people who live on the streets, tell us homeless substance abusers migrate here for easy access to pot.

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Something like this would qualify as the worst of it.

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Five years of Big Marijuana ushered in a doubling in the number of drivers involved in fatal crashes who tested positive for marijuana, based on research by the pro-legalization Denver Post.

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This is useless without context.