Facts don’t support Pearce claims

IN THE Albuquerque Journal Sept. 21 article, “N.M. voters back legal marijuana,” Republican (U.S. Rep. and) gubernatorial candidate Steve Pearce is reported as saying other states have struggled with some downsides, such as driving while intoxicated and use by young people. He is completely wrong about the facts.

Actually, a University of Texas-Austin study, published June 2017 in the American Journal of Public Health, concluded marijuana legalization has not increased overall traffic fatality rates nor the total number of non-fatal crashes. A study from the year before found: “Instead of seeing an increase in fatalities, we saw a reduction, which was totally unexpected,” said Julian Santaella-Tenorio, the study’s lead author and at the time a doctoral student at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. Furthermore, Colorado State Patrol reports a decrease in the number of driving impaired accidents since marijuana was legalized. Finally, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that while marijuana negatively impacts several skills needed for safe driving, it’s “unclear whether marijuana use actually increases the risk of car crashes.”

Pearce is also factually inaccurate claiming states that legalize marijuana have struggled with the downside of use by young people. Instead, according to data released recently by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, marijuana use by young people remains largely unchanged since legalization of adult-use cannabis. And (fewer) youths in Colorado, 19 percent, currently use marijuana than nationally, 20 percent. California’s Departments of Health and Education recently released data showing marijuana use by adolescents continues to decline in California.

Pearce needs to heed Mark Twain, “Get your fact first, then you can distort them as you please.” Or as Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

PATRICIA M. MONAGHAN Albuquerque