Right now the State of Colorado is being sued by the States of Nebraska and Oklahoma. Recently the Solicitor General for the Obama Administration weighed in on the lawsuit and said that it should be dropped. That hasn’t stopped Nebraska and Oklahoma from continuing to pursue the lawsuit. Now Kansas’ Attorney General wants to quantify how much Colorado marijuana legalization is affecting the State of Kansas. The Attorney General has put out a survey to law enforcement and prosecutors across Kansas to try to gather data. Per The Cannabist:
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt is gathering data from local law enforcement agencies in an effort to measure the impact of Colorado-purchased marijuana on the state.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that Schmidt has sent more than 500 survey forms requesting information to county and district attorneys, as well as police departments. He said he would make the survey results public when they are compiled later this year.
“There are numerous and persistent anecdotal accounts of marijuana acquired in Colorado and illegally transported into Kansas causing harm here,” Schmidt said. “But because of technology limits, the confirming data is elusive. Since Colorado’s experiment with legalization is affecting Kansas, we need to know more about what is actually happening here so policymakers can make informed decisions.”
As activists were quick to point out – Colorado doesn’t have a marijuana problem, Kansas has a prohibition problem. Marijuana existed in Kansas long before Colorado legalized and if hypothetically speaking Colorado completely went back to prohibition (hypothetically for the purpose of this article, don’t freak out, I don’t support it), marijuana would still exist in Kansas.
I haven’t seen the results of the survey yet, but I will almost guarantee right now that the data isn’t going to have much integrity. Marijuana that didn’t come from Colorado will be included, the numbers will be inflated, and the ‘damage’ caused by the marijuana will be overly exaggerated. That’s why the artificially inflated ‘street value’ of marijuana is always so high – it helps when it comes time to put together agency budgets and spread reefer madness.
