Legalization Endangers the Safety of Local Communities

States that have legalized marijuana have discovered the social costs to local communities and the State are overwhelming. Drug use leads to rising healthcare and social services costs, as users face substance abuse and addiction, hospitalizations, overdoses and accidental poisonings, and the lives of the sickest and most vulnerable are endangered. The economic success of employers and communities are threatened, employees' jobs and futures are jeopardized; and schools are immersed with student behavior and abuse problems and poor academic performance. Pedestrians and drivers are put at risk from crashes, injuries and deaths from impaired drivers. Law enforcement becomes harder and more costly.

While all of these societal problems, and more, have been discussed, public safety is endangered in ways the public rarely hears. We'll look at just four examples: explosions and fires; crime and drug cartels; on the road; and environmental dangers.

Explosions, Fires and Chemicals Endangering Communities

Explosions and fires have been increasingly reported at marijuana facilities that are making high THC tinctures and oils for edibles and vaping. Few communities realize how the extraction methods being used to make these products jeopardize lives and homes. The most common extraction methods typically use ethanol-based solvents, supercritical CO2 (which requires expensive equipment for the high-pressurized and high-heat technique), propane or butane. Butane extraction is the most common and popular method among harvesters because it is the cheapest and doesn't require as specialized of equipment.

The solvent-based extraction process is extremely dangerous and has caused meth lab-like explosions, resulting in serious burns. Extraction explosions are being reported across the country and are increasing.

University of Colorado Hospital's Burn Trauma Intensive Care Unit saw a ten-fold increase in patients admitted from extraction burns between 2010 and 2014. After legalization, Colorado had a 167% increase in explosions at THC extraction labs in a single year, with 32 explosions in 2014 resulting in more than 30 injuries. Nearly all (94%) of these explosions had occurred in residential areas.

These are happening at State licensed marijuana growing and processing facilities, where massive amounts of hazardous chemicals and solvents are used. They've resulted in explosions and fires, such as at Arizona's Development Services' medical marijuana facility in 2018; and chemical spills, such as at Copperstate Farms in Snowflake, Arizona that sent 16 people to the hospital. Growing numbers of safety incidents at cannabis facilities have jeopardized the lives and property of people in the surrounding community, as well as the lives of first responders. It was the topic of concern among safety consultants at a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society.

On May 17, 2020, eleven firefighters were seriously injured after an explosion at a cannabis extraction facility in downtown Los Angeles, where butane was being used for cannabis extraction. An explosion ripped through a Santa Fe medical cannabis dispensary extracting THC a few years ago, sending two people to the hospital with third-degree burns.

Between 2012 and 2018, Oregon had over 30 explosions at extraction labs. During just the two years between 2015 and 2017, 87 extraction burn victims in Oregon required treatment at burn units. A New York fire fighter suffered critical injuries in a marijuana facility fire in 2018 and a NY Battalion Chief died when an illegal home operation exploded.

Illegal facilities are also the source of explosions and fires. Production of concentrated THC is soaring on the black market, especially in California where the legal market is dwarfed by the underground network selling cheaper products across the country, according to the DEA. It reported that at least 19 people have been killed and 126 people injured from illegal extraction lab explosions in California since 2014.

In Battle Creek, Michigan, 80 people were left homeless after their apartment building was destroyed after an extraction lab explosion.

Marijuana grow houses have replaced meth houses as neighborhood menaces and public safety hazards, becoming a negative quality of life issue for communities across the country − from explosions and fires, chemicals and other pollutants, molds covering walls, odors and constant generator noises, dangerous illegal diversion of electricity to avoid police detection from high meter reads, water diversion, massive property damage concealed from new homeowners and landlords, criminal activity, and lowered property values. These problems have skyrocketed in States that have legalized marijuana, which not only allow grows for "personal use" but incentivize illegal operations.

Legalization Increases Crime, Black Market and Drug Trafficking

Marijuana legalization is directly related to more illegal drug activity, drug trafficking, a soaring black market and criminal activity. Increasing demand for pot, along with legalization regulations and taxes, universally make illegal pot more profitable.

One widespread side effect of marijuana legalization across the country is that it has fueled, rather than eliminated, the black market. With legalization, both "medical" and recreational, it is quickly recognized that selling illegally is vastly more profitable than legal pot sales. Anywhere pot is legal, a black market and criminal network is boosted.

In California, years after recreational marijuana Proposition 64 passed in 2016, the black market was selling twice the amount of legal sales in 2019, and expanding, according to market research. California's Department of Cannabis Regulation has cited more than 3,000 illegal marijuana businesses, but as soon as an illicit business is shut down, they reappear. The agency said there are more illegal cannabis shops in Los Angeles alone than all of the licensed shops in California. United Cannabis Business Association found that around 2,835 dispensaries in California alone were operating without a license by the end of 2019. A Santa Ana Cannabis Association board member resigned after reporting that half of its members were selling illegally.

 Illegal sales can always undercut the licensed retailers, avoid fees, taxes and other regulatory costs and sell pot at lower prices. This has led to dispensaries and "medical marijuana" card holders and growers illegally selling their stashes and bypassing State regulators. But it has also led to a rising black market, drug trafficking, drug cartels, gang and crime problems. Those very same States that grow most of the domestically-grown pot in the U.S. – California and Appalachian States – are also the primary bases of drug trafficking operations, transporting marijuana to major markets across the country. Vast organized groups, gangs and dealers distribute the drugs in local areas, where smaller mid-level growers and local dealers, organized groups and street gangs handle retail sales.

Colorado appears to have become the epicenter of black market marijuana, said U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn, after Colorado legalized it and allowed a certain number of plants to be grown for personal use, as nine other States have done. A three year investigation showed that illegal marijuana trafficking skyrocketed after voters approved recreational use. Allowing small scale home grows simply opened the door to huge illegal operations. They found massive operations in 247 homes and eight businesses, seizing more than 80,000 illegal plants and 4,500 pounds of harvested marijuana. These weren't in bad neighborhood, either, but in middle- and upper-class neighborhoods all over Denver.

Trafficking and abuse of marijuana are the leading drug threat to the U.S., according to National Drug Intelligence Center reports. The pot legalization movement has succeeded in increasing demand for marijuana, beyond what can be grown domestically, with most foreign-grown pot coming from Mexico followed by Canada. Mexican drug trafficking organizations and criminal gangs control most of the smuggling and transport from Mexico and within the U.S., while Canadian-based organized crime and Asian criminal gangs control most of the marijuana smuggled from Canada. While marijuana is the most frequent illicit drug smuggled, these organized gangs also traffic cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

 

Dangerously, legalization increases rival factions of organized black market dealers. According to the DEA in its latest National Drug Threat Assessment, criminal trafficking organizations with substantial experience, equipment and resources can produce up to 18 pounds of pot per plant every year, earning as much as $5.4 million from just 100 plants. Large scale criminal organizations launch their operations in legal pot States transporting drugs across the country, and are also involved in other criminal activity, including money fraud and international money laundering and trafficking multiple drugs. Detecting and dismantling these illegal operations has become increasingly dangerous for law enforcement as they are heavily armed and booby-trapped. Mexican drug trafficking organizations have expanded their operations and moved in, realizing lucrative cultivation and dispensary businesses without crossing the border. "A marked increase in narco-terrorism throughout Mexico has been driven, in part, by the kidnapping and forced servitude of Mexican nationals in working the illicit cultivation operations in northern California and elsewhere," the DEA said.

According to law enforcement, financial backing for some marijuana businesses flow from illicit sources, using long-standing black market techniques to keep profits from marijuana businesses and undercut tax revenues anticipated by State governments.

            Texas is the main entry and distribution center for drug traffickers. According to the DEA, FBI and South Texas HIDTA, Texas is the primary entry point and most lucrative drug smuggling corridor for Mexican drug cartels smuggling drugs across the border − more than any other border State. Texas also serves as the storage and distribution point for a wide variety of illicit drugs, including marijuana, heroin and meth. The National Drug Intelligence Center warned in its October 2003 Texas Drug Threat Assessment that Texas would continue to serve as a major destination and shipment point for illicit drugs for drug cartels. Texas accounts for more marijuana coming into the country than any other border State, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.

Illegal marijuana drug trafficking indictments and criminal convictions are increasing, not decreasing with legalization, according to U.S. Attorney Offices. For example: eleven indicted in October 2020 in Washington State were operating in 27 locations; drug traffickers of marijuana and methamphetamine were convicted in Texarkana, Texas last June; a sophisticated marijuana smuggling ring was indicted in Pennsylvania operating across the country using the U.S. Mail; and the large marijuana conspiracy led by a Dallas business tycoon and other defendants were indicted in December 2020, with police seizing $5 million in drug proceeds.

            Property and violent crime increase in legalization states. Despite pot lobby assertions that legalization reduces violent crime, States have seen homicides generally increase with legalization. Between 2008-2018, Colorado's statewide property crime rose 38% and violent crime increased 42%, according to the Rocky Mountain HIDTA. After "medical marijuana" commercial sales began in 2009, Denver's homicide rates rose 71% between 2010 -2019, rising to 8.6/100,000. (To put this rate into perspective, Austin's murder rate in 2019 was 3.2/100,000.) Seattle's violent crimes increased 28% between 2010 and 2020.

While most large cities in the country saw an average four percent decline in violent crime rates between 2017 and 2018, Denver's and Seattle's both grew nine percent.

            Prisons filled with minor marijuana offenders is a myth. In contrast to popular urban legends claiming millions of nonviolent marijuana offenders are behind bars, marijuana itself is not the driver of incarcerations. Legalizing marijuana also has little effect on the number of people incarcerated, even for drug offenses. Even back in 2010 before pot legalization efforts started in most parts of the country, only 0.7% and 0.8% of State and federal prisoners, respectively, were in for marijuana possession only, according to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. The legend of prisons filled because of simple possession was fiction.

While nearly half of all federal offenders are incarcerated for drug-related offenses, according to latest figures of 2017 U.S. Sentencing Commission data, 99% of those were for drug trafficking. These are the "most hardened major drug dealers," said Rick Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government. "There are not people caught with a joint or two, but rather those who trafficked tons of marijuana and other narcotics."

In contrast, only 0.46% of federal prisoners incarcerated for drug offenses were in for possession of marijuana (92 in the entire federal prison system out of 19,750).

Texas already has a drug problem. Currently, about a quarter of all Texans admitted for substance abuse treatments are there for marijuana alone, and most of those are young adults, according to University of Texas at Austin, Addiction Research Institute. Methamphetamine is the #1 drug abuse threat in Texas and has steadily increased since 1998, with 40% of admissions for substance abuse treatment suffering from meth abuse alone, and another 28% also using marijuana.

By all evidence to date, legalization will only increase Texas' drug problems, increase drug trafficking, and increase crime. Simultaneously, it will make it harder for law enforcement to protect citizens. These are just some of the reasons that the Sheriffs' Association of Texas and the Texas Police Chief Association oppose the legalization of marijuana.

"Texas doesn't follow, it leads, and the marijuana lobby knows that we don’t want it," said the Sheriffs' Association of Texas. "Too much evidence points to the dangers of decriminalizing marijuana, and none indicates any medicinal value to smoked marijuana," they said. Given the overwhelming evidence on the harms associated with cannabis to users, children and the overall societal costs, governments and society should stand firmly against any change that would relax the law on the use of cannabis, they said.

Endangering Public on Roads and Highways

The increase in impaired driving, accidents and fatalities with legalization of marijuana are well documented, with marijuana the most reported drug, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Since recreational marijuana was legalized in Colorado in 2013, traffic deaths where drivers tested positive for marijuana had increased 135% by 2019, while overall Colorado traffic deaths increased 24%, according to Colorado State Patrol.

The latest figures from Colorado showed that traffic deaths where the operators tested positive for marijuana have increased 59% since 2014. In 2019 – 101 drivers, 22 pedestrians were killed, 20 public transportation passengers and 6 bicyclists died from marijuana-impaired operators. Many of these drivers and operators were also using alcohol and other illicit drugs.

The percentage of daytime drivers in Washington State under the influence of marijuana doubled to one in five after marijuana was legalized, according to biological studies reported by the Washington Traffic Safety Commission in 2018.

Environmental Damage and Pollution

Both commercial-scale cultivation and illegal grows are proving environmental disasters. The cannabis plant is an exceptionally thirsty plant, needing about 22 liters of water per plant per day during the growing season. It's also extremely vulnerable to plant diseases, mold spores and fungi, especially when grown indoors. Growers typically use large quantities of chemicals, rodenticides, fertilizers and pesticides, none of which are regulated in cannabis cultivation.

Marijuana cultivation has become an environmental crisis in many States which have legalized marijuana, from California to Colorado, with far reaching environmental damage, according to a recent review in the academic JSTOR Daily. It's become a serious pollution problem, and communities are left to clean up waste from runoff and contaminated groundwater and landfill. The environmental damage to the land can take years to mitigate, as California has found.

With legalization of "medical marijuana," grow operations have popped up everywhere, including backyards, closets, trailers, attics, basements and bedrooms in homes and neighborhoods. But most are illegal. California grows 60-70 percent of all U.S. domestic-grown marijuana, followed by the Appalachian States of Kentucky and Tennessee. These legalized States are also the main sources for illegally-grown, black market marijuana in the country, accounting for 80% of all outdoor grown illegal pot seized by the DEA. California alone accounted for one-third of the illegal outdoor grows seized by the DEA in 2001 and 2002.

Illegal grows covered a third of California State parks and 40% of its national forests in just the first decade after legalization. Illegal grows are concentrated in sensitive watersheds and protected species habitats, impacting the environment − from forest clearing, erosion, diverting surface water, chemical pollution of watersheds and poisoning wildlife.

Illegal grows on public lands has been an ecological disaster in California. California accounts for two-thirds of the illegal grows in national forests identified by the National Forest Service. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife got rid of 1.6 million illegal plants being gown on public lands in 2018 alone. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, each marijuana plant grown on public lands diverts 900-1,200 gallons of water per season, affecting fish and wildlife. While they believe they're able to discover only a fraction of illegal grows in the State's forests, at just seven sites in 2014 they removed massive amounts of extremely toxic pesticides and chemicals (8,188 pounds of fertilizer, 128 pounds of rodenticides and 560 gallons of insecticide left at the sites), 8,000 pounds of garbage, and 8.5 miles of irrigation pipes that had diverted 68 million gallons of water from watersheds.

Since the passage of Compassionate Use legislation, according to AIBS research, "cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes and the black market have increased dramatically." Illegal marijuana production in northern California watersheds doubled just between 2005-2015 but enforcement efforts have been complicated by minimal local regulation of medical markets. Enforcement has been especially impeded by the dangerous threats of violence associated with black market marijuana cultivations.

Marijuana legalization has only increased the problems of illegal cultivation. California Governor Gavin Newsom said illegal grows "are getting worse, not better," and even redeployed National Guard troops to go after illegal cannabis farms in 2019.

While marijuana cultivation can have significant negative collateral effects on the environment, discussions of this damage have been neglected and current attempts to regulate marijuana are inadequate, said researchers with the American Institute of Biological Sciences. Looking at California, they found a mix between the semi-legal "medical" and black markets all causing environmental damage.

Indoor greenhouses use about 3 billion liters/km2 of water per growing season and when grown outdoors, marijuana requires twice the water of other crops such as wine grapes. In drought ridden areas of the Southwest such as New Mexico, small rural communities are raising concerns that State licensed medical marijuana growers are straining local water supplies.

Illegal indoor grows are more costly enterprises and less able to evade detection. Still, States with legalization also lead in illegal pot grown indoors. California, Washington and Florida, accounted for half of DEA seizures in 2000 and 2001 of illegal pot being grown indoors. During subsequent years, Texas and Oregon surpassed these key states. The equipment used in indoor grows adds another source of chemical pollution runoff. In one California county alone, over 1,000 gallons of diesel spilled from diesel generators used for indoor grow lights into one stream that went unreported by locals for fear of repercussions.

Current levels of secrecy have blocked recognition of the growing environmental impacts, and marijuana legislation doesn't earmark any resources towards environmental protection or remediation, AIIBS wrote. Marijuana legalization across the country doesn't even consider the costs to the environment. That leaves local communities footing the bill and the environmental consequences to public lands, parks and communities left unsolved.

Legalization = Regulation = Bigger Government

Legalization has this popular mystique that everyone will suddenly be free to use pot and do their own thing. It isn't about personal freedom. That's not what legalization does.

Legalization of marijuana legalizes a "regulated marijuana market." To be more accurate, marijuana legalization would be called marijuana regulation.

Legalization of "medical" or recreational marijuana creates a huge bureaucracy of new governmental agencies, departments and budgets, new regulations and more taxes. It means Bigger Government. The government will "regulate" pot, tracking as many plants and users as possible, institute licensing fees, enact enforcement measures and fines, to get more tax revenue… to grow even bigger government budgets.

Legalization is the antithesis of those who believe in limited government, and want smaller government and lower taxes.

As every political savvy person understands, behind every regulation is a special interest profiting. The legalization issue can be viewed as another progressive effort to expand government, not build prosperity, and redistribute wealth to make marijuana interests rich at the expense of people. The massive amounts of money involved in pot only invites corruption at every level. And as has already been seen, the real winners will be drug dealers and pot businesses.

To coin a term used by Cathie Adams, former president of the Texas Eagle Forum and now on the national board, marijuana is the new "Green Agenda." As Adams has written extensively, progressive "Green Agenda" policies ignore science, kill jobs and industries, redistribute wealth and lower our standard of living.

Marijuana was already regulated – the cheapest and most limited government way, simply by being illegal.

The Reality of Marijuana Tax Revenues

The main political argument for legalization being used by the marijuana lobby is the promise of more tax revenues. Yet, tax revenues promised by marijuana advocates never actually materialize. 

            Net drain in Colorado. Before Coloradans voted in 2012 to legalize pot, they were initially promised it would bring the State $60 million in tax revenue. Not so fast, said economists. A Colorado State University study concluded that the predictions were so unrealistic, the costs of growing marijuana would have to be twice estimates, which would raise the retail price so high, users would flood into the black market. Instead, the study concluded that while there is some revenue, it would not be a panacea going forward and there wouldn't be a significant amount left over relative to the State's budget.

"Revenue from marijuana taxes will contribute little or nothing to the State's general fund," the report concluded. Economists also found the State had made assumptions about consumption to set their revenue estimates without any known data to base it on. Being a cash business would also make it next to impossible to follow the money.

Sure enough, Colorado raised only one-third of even the most conservative projections after its legalization, leaving the burden of regulatory enforcement and increased health and social costs to the taxpayers to bear. Even though revenues are highest just after legalization, according to Colorado State University’s Futures Center, tax revenue from marijuana sales in 2014 constituted only 0.4% of Colorado’s general fund revenue. It concluded that marijuana tax revenues are unlikely to cover the incremental State expenditures related to legalization. Marijuana could be a net drain on the State’s budget, they said, meaning funding for education, roads and other top priorities could be diverted to regulating marijuana.

As the years have gone on, marijuana legalization has, indeed, proven to be a net drain on the State. In the latest figures, marijuana tax revenues represented a mere 0.85% of Colorado's FY 2019 budget, according to Governor's Office of State Planning and Budgeting data. The nominal contribution to Colorado's State's budget was offset by the social costs and problems that go along with rising drug use. These costs are overwhelmingly negative to the quality of life for local communities.

Colorado Christian University's Centennial Institute found in 2017 that every dollar gained in tax revenue from pot sales cost State taxpayers $4.50 to mitigate the effects − including DUIs, hospitalizations, treatment for cannabis use disorders, burns, low birth weight babies, employer costs, etc.. And no price tag can be placed on the 139 THC-related traffic fatalities or 180 suicides that year.

In every State that has legalized marijuana in some form, the costs to local communities and the States have exceeded promised tax revenues, which cover a tiny fraction of the costs they impose.

            California Dreamin' turned nightmare. Earlier predictions in California expected to collect $1 billion in taxes every year within a few years of legalization. Instead, they continued to see no growth in 2018. In fact, sales fell and were half a billion less than in 2017. “I have not counted on any revenue from marijuana,” said outgoing Governor Jerry Brown. “Who’s counting on the marijuana revenue? People said that to make it more plausible for voters.”

California’s projected marijuana tax revenue by July 2019 was nearly half of what was originally expected. By mid year 2019, the new California Governor again scaled back expected tax revenue through June 2020, $233 million lower than projected just four months earlier. The State collected $629.2 million in marijuana taxes in 2019; which represents about 0.3% of the State's FY 2019 budget. Licensed pot sales continue to be undercut by a thriving illicit market where consumers can avoid taxes that are close to 50% in some areas. Retail customers weren't the only ones finding ways around the higher costs of regulations. California Board of Equalization reported that two-thirds of dispensaries were intentionally evading taxes, distributing illegal drugs and laundering illegally acquired money.

            Activists' next move for "medical marijuana legalization. Not only does the tax revenue on "medical marijuana" prove nominal for States, but the next tactic of activists is to lobby for the elimination of taxes on "medical marijuana" altogether. They argue it is unfair to tax "medicines that people need." In 2016, California eliminated sales tax on "medical marijuana" and other States are following suit. New Jersey is lowered its tax rate on "medical marijuana" this year, eliminating the tax in July 2022

Truth In Numbers For Texas

The reality of marijuana tax revenues in Texas is already proving that predictions of windfall tax revenues with legalization are spurious. Texas Compassionate Use tax revenue was so small in 2020, it didn't even register on the Texas Comptrollers' 2020 budget report. Promises of really big money for the State if recreational pot is legalized are fiction.

If Texas follows Colorado taxation guidelines, it could bring in $1.1 billion every two years, according to marijuana proponents. That may sound like a lot but it translates to 0.39% of the State's entire 2020 tax revenue.*  

Regulating marijuana brings no real money to any State. Elected officials know that, or should.

By their actions, though, political leaders who support legalization reveal that they place a greater value on bigger government, larger departments and more taxes … than on children and their futures, or the health and safety of the communities they represent.

*(The State's total net tax revenue for 2020 was an estimated $138,267,043,000.)

In the Balance – Is Marijuana Good for Texas?

No serious science or evidence shows marijuana is good for the health of users, children or communities. None. In fact, children pay the highest price and they need us to make the right choices for them. "Our children are the future of our State and it is irresponsible of us, as adults to play fast and loose with their minds and their futures," said the Texas Sheriffs' Association.

"We can’t possibly know all of the costs of legalizing marijuana until it’s too late, but of what we do know, these costs are dreadfully steep," Calvina L. Fay, former Executive Director of Drug Free American Foundation, wrote in the Austin American Statesman. "Our children and society will pay. How so? We will become a weaker, more inferior society, riddled with tragic loss, the scourge of addiction, moral decay and diminished entrepreneurial capacity." That may sound extreme, but it's already becoming a reality in communities around the country.

The decision point for Texans on marijuana legalization is now. We won't be able to put the genie back in the bottle. If we do nothing and think it's inevitable, we will be complacently supporting legalization. By sitting back, we will be enablers of actions that have no credible science or evidence that they are anything but harmful, and that will hurt the most innocent and vulnerable.

Can we honestly say that legalization of marijuana will make our communities better and offer the brightest futures for our children? Is marijuana something Texas will be proud of? Do we want to live in neighborhoods, work in businesses, and send our children to schools that are filled with people doing drugs? Can we respect medical professionals and a healthcare system that abandons long standing scientific principles and code of ethics? Can we in good conscience say that we support drug use?

It's hard to answer "yes" to any of those questions. Taking a stand for what we believe is right isn't complicated. We can help educate our families and communities. We can speak out against new legislation that expands legalization and even call for the repeal of existing cannabis legislation. We can fight for the right to keep illegal drugs out of our own local communities and protect one another.

The responsibility to do the right thing is ours, whether we are parents, medical professionals, public leaders or average citizens. We all have a voice and a stake in what happens to our State, our communities and the futures we offer our children.

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By Sandy Szwarc, BSN