ONE YEAR AFTER POT WAS LEGALIZED, CRITICS REMAIN IN WASHINGTON
WASH. STATE: Still no useful data on usage, effects after yearlong legal sales initiative
Washington state’s first year of legal pot sales has brought in millions in new tax revenue, but critics have raised concerns over how that money’s been spent, and what effect legalization could have on public health.
The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs opposed the legalization initiative from the outset, and at the close of the first year of legal sales, executive director Mitch Barker still says it’s “bad public policy.”
“Our main concerns going in were increased access to underage people, which we think it has increased access to underage kids. I don’t have stats, so I guess time and statisticians will tell,” he said.
“I know at least anecdotally from the school districts we’re hearing from, they’re seeing a lot more overdoses, but a lot of that is probably tied to the fact that fewer kids are smoking dope and more are eating it, and they’re eating way more dosage units.”
Barker’s association is also concerned over the impact on marijuana-affected car accidents, but he said: “We’re going to have to wait and see what that looks like over time, statistically to see if it was an increase.”
Dr. Staci Hoff, director of research and data for the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, said her department just doesn’t “have the data we need” at this point to answer questions about any increases in marijuana-impaired drivers, but there was not a substantial increase in overall traffic fatalities for 2014.
Hoff said the Traffic Safety Commission hopes to release a new report in the next three to five weeks that will “finally get down to the question of what’s happened in 2014. Are people driving stoned?”
Roger Roffman, professor emeritus of Social Work at the University of Washington, was one of 10 co-sponsors of the 2012 initiative to legalize marijuana. But despite his support for legalization, he said: “From the public health point of view, the first year has been a disappointment.”
A specialist in addictive behaviours, Roffman said he supported legalization because he believed that if tax revenue from regulated marijuana could be put toward public education, treatment and research, it would be better for public health than prohibition had been.
Unfortunately, Roffman said, “an entire year went by from the opening of the stores without any of those tax revenues being used for that purpose.”
Roffman is still optimistic about legalization, and he said now, within recent weeks, money is finally starting to flow to those education, treatment and prevention programs for which it had originally been earmarked.
“Here’s the bottom line: I think over time, we will see the intention of the initiative actually play out,” he said. “But man, the rollout of it has been very disappointing.”