Speaker: Pot Stores Outnumber Fast-foods in Colorado

OCEAN CITY – Kevin Wong painted a dire picture of legalized marijuana in Colorado during a presentation at the Flanders Hotel Feb. 1. 
Wong is a strategic intelligence analyst with the Rocky Mountain High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federally-funded organization under the office of national drug control policy.
He said at the outset of the meeting that he attended to present factual data to lawmakers, community members, and law enforcement officers. It was clear where he stood on marijuana legalization.
“I apologize,” he said “What we’ve done in Colorado has an effect on all of you. I used to be proud to say I came from Colorado,” he said.
Speaking at the Cape-Atlantic Bridge Coalition’s legislative breakfast meeting, to a room with a strong contingent of law enforcement officers, Wong said he sees himself as law enforcement.
He began his presentation with photos of three people, Kristine Kirk, Luke Goodman, and Levy Thamba, whose deaths have been tied to overdoses of marijuana through edibles since Colorado legalized the drug for recreational use in 2012.
Kirk was shot to death by her husband, and her family has filed a lawsuit against the company that manufactured the THC-infused candies he ate before the crime.
Goodman and Thamba were both young visitors to the state who died by their own hands after eating many times the recommended doses of the drug.
Colorado was among the first states to allow medical marijuana, by all accounts a much looser version than New Jersey’s medical marijuana law, approved in 2010.
In a ballot measure, Colorado became the first to legalize the drug for recreation use for adults, but not the last. Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Maine, and Massachusetts each have some form of legalization on the books this year, and most states allow medical marijuana, under a variety of rules.
The drug remains on the federal government’s Schedule 1, reserved for drugs with the highest potential for abuse, and offering no medical benefits.
In a lengthy presentation, Wong pointed to the difficulties in keeping marijuana away from school children, especially when its edible forms are all but identical to gummy bears, chocolate bars or cookies.
In some instances, including in the cookies consumed by Thamba, the recommended dose is one-sixth of a cookie. Often, inexperienced users will feel no effect and go on to take a dose many times what was recommended, which could be one cookie or chocolate bar.
There is a move to make one serving of the legal edibles a single dose, which could reduce that danger.
Wong also pointed to intoxicated driving, and the difficulty for law enforcement personnel to determine if someone is stoned (under the influence of drugs or alcohol).
A breathalyzer will tell an officer the blood alcohol percentage of a driver, but the available tests for marijuana only say whether it is present in someone’s system. Someone would test positive days after smoking or ingesting after the drug has worn off.
He showed images of fatal accidents in which a driver had been under the influence of marijuana, and said in many cases; pot and alcohol were both detected after fatal accidents. 
Colorado’s referendum has also meant a spike in drugs crossing state borders, he said. Tons of marijuana have been seized on highways heading out of state. Colorado’s potent strains of marijuana are worth several times more an ounce when sold illegally on the East Coast, and in addition to driving it across state lines, it is being shipped through legitimate delivery companies.
There are boxes at the airports in Colorado where a tourist can drop off marijuana before boarding a plane, but he said much of the drug is still carried back from ski trips and other visits.
By all accounts, the marijuana industry has exploded in Colorado. According to Wong’s data, there are 516 medical marijuana facilities in the state, and 424 recreational shops. He compared that to 322 Starbucks franchises and 202 McDonald’s.
“Here’s a fact, a scary fact: You’re more likely to find an edible or a joint before you can find a Happy Meal or a cup of coffee,” he said.
Wong also showed photos of apartments and houses that were destroyed in explosions, caused in attempts to use butane to create an even stronger form of the drug. Concentrations in what are called “dabs,” “honey oil,” or “butter” can be 80 or 90 percent THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), the active ingredient in marijuana.
Assemblyman Robert Andrzejczak (D-1st), who attended with Assemblyman Bruce Land (D-1st), said he did not favor legalization, but if he were on the fence, Wong’s presentation would have dissuaded him.
Freeholder Jeffrey Pierson spoke of joining the military in 1961, and returning to Wildwood to find a drug he’d never heard of, marijuana, gaining prevalence.
But the current drug laws had at least one skeptic in the meeting. Longport Mayor Nick Russo, that borough’s public safety director, who said he had a lot of experience in law enforcement, brought up something Wong had mentioned early in the meeting about the War on Drugs. Wong raised the question of whether it is possible to win a war on human behavior. 
Russo pointed to a report from New York City, where there were 50,000 marijuana arrests in a year. He said that took officers’ time from other tasks, including violent crime and terrorism prevention.
Meanwhile, he said, heroin remains firmly illegal and is more available than ever, and doing real damage to communities.
“Don’t tell me that the war on drugs is a success. It’s a failed policy,” he said. He said education is the way forward.
Natalia Wilber, a Healthy Community Coalition coordinator with Cape Assist, one of the presenters at the event, said her organization is working on education in schools, churches, and communities, trying to keep the next generation away from drugs.
“It may not look like we’re winning at the moment, but we’re working very hard,” she said.
Others in attendance were critical of medical marijuana, and one man, who said he has been clean for years but had been a serious addict; said pot is a gateway to more serious drugs.
Another person asked Wong if there were any positives to legalization. He said it brings millions in taxes to the state budget, although he said it was not enough to make a big impact. It also has increased property values as more people move into the state. But he also said some conventions have decided not to return to Denver.
He described legalized medical marijuana as a first step toward legalization, and that legal cocaine would be next on the ballot.
Wong urged those at the breakfast to remain involved at the state and community levels. He described Colorado’s experiment with legalization as building a plane while trying to fly it.
“We didn’t know what we were doing. We just did it,” Wong said.
For information, and a copy of Wong’s presentation, visit www.rmhidta.org and click on “reports.”
To contact Bill Barlow, email bbarlow@cmcherald.com.