Colorado’s Recreational, Medical Marijuana Sales Giving Millions To Schools While Crime Rates Are Down

The taxes imposed on both medical marijuana and recreational marijuana sales have apparently been pulling in a lot of money to Colorado’s education system. Also, against all predictions made by law enforcement, Colorado’s crime rate has supposedly dropped since marijuana legalization went into effect.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, a poll on Florida’s medical marijuana amendment scheduled for this November shows that even many seniors and conservatives believe that medicinal implements of cannabis are worthwhile. On the Federal level, even one Republican recently proposed a Federal bill to legalize pot and consider it a controlled substance similar to certain medications like painkillers. But the medical angle is still openly being disputed, with a study from Harvard researchers claiming that even occasional recreational marijuana users have “significant brain abnormalities.” Of course, the caveat to this statement is that researchers are not sure if the changes in brain structure are positive or negative, so they’re working on another study to tackle that particular question.

Speaking of questions, everyone wants to know whether Colorado’s marijuana laws is helping or hindering the state, and already the results are under dispute. For example, in March alone, the sale of recreational marijuana netted $19 million and 10 percent of that — $1.9 million — will go toward education. According to PolicyMic, Colorado’s marijuana sales from the 97 recreational marijuana dispensaries will make $30 million this year in pot taxes alone, although some people believe this underestimates the potential for the market. In addition, medical marijuana is not included in these figures, although medical marijuana is not taxed nearly as heavily as recreational legal weed.

The city of Denver is also reporting that crime is down by 10.6 percent compared to January of this year. The biggest change is the number of murders, which has dropped by 52.9 percent. Overall, crimes rates in the Colorado city are down, although the number of crimes related to arson have jumped by 135 percent. Of course, this is hardly a long term study so it’s difficult to say whether or not legal weed played a positive role in these results.

Of course, not everyone is claiming that Colorado’s marijuana legalization has been a success. Law enforcement officials are claiming that cannabis-related crimes are on the rise:

“In one report, officials said a Denver man who, hours after buying a package of marijuana-infused Karma Kandy from one of Colorado’s new recreational marijuana shops, began raving about the end of the world and then pulled a handgun from the family safe and killed his wife. Hospital officials also said they have been treating a ‘growing number’ of children and adults sickened by potent doses of edible marijuana. Sheriffs in neighboring states also complained about stoned drivers streaming out of Colorado and through their towns.”

Overall, do you believe the implementation of recreational marijuana in Colorado has been a success or a failure?