Colorado Springs Head Scratching Fight Against Recreational Marijuana
November of 2012 was a historic victory for opponents of the War on Drugs as Colorado voters amended the constitution to allow the sale and recreational use of marijuana. Washington and California shortly followed after Colorado in her footsteps to also legalize the devil’s lettuce. Since then, marijuana legalization has rippled across America even reaching republican majority states such as Montana, Alaska, and Missouri. However, in Colorado where this all started, recreational sales are still not allowed everywhere in the state, including Colorado’s second largest city Colorado Springs. In the legalization of marijuana, lawmakers at the state level gave power to local officials to outlaw sales in their city/county. Despite many attempts to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana, they’ve all come up short with the most recent attempt failing last November of 2022. The Mayor of Colorado Springs, John Suthers claims that Colorado’s second biggest city is better off without the additional tax revenue and job creation that comes with recreational marijuana claiming “The cost that’s passed on to the health care system, to our schools, to our correctional facilities … far exceeds any economic benefit from [recreational marijuana.]”. Proponents of marijuana legalization efforts claim that legalization of marijuana frees up resources in the criminal justice system to focus on more serious crimes, yet here is the Mayor of a major city in the state that started it all claiming otherwise.
With the legalization of marijuana, there are more than enough cases and data to reach a conclusion on whether or not legalization burdens the criminal justice system or not. With Colorado Springs being the second largest city in the state of Colorado, it would be fitting to compare crime rates to Colorado’s largest city, Denver. Unfortunately, the data I have available to me is county specific rather than city specific so I cannot compare the cities directly. Oddly enough Colorado Springs sits in El Paso county and shares a seat with Pueblo which does allow the sale of recreational Marijuana. However, El Paso County and Denver County are extremely identical in population at 731,641 and 717,632 respectively making both a good case study when it comes to crime rates.
Mayor Suthers claims that recreational marijuana sales burdens correctional facilities falls flat on its face when it comes to drug related convictions. From 2014 to 2020, Denver County has experienced a 72% drop in Drug Equipment violations and a 35% drop in Drug/Narcotic violations. On the other hand, El Paso County has experienced a 5% increase in Drug Equipment violations and a 8.6% increase in Drug/Narcotic violations in the same time period. It’s not just Denver County that has experienced success in this department, Boulder County to the north has also experienced similar success with a 43.3% and 16.15% reduction in Drug Equipment violations and Drug/Narcotics violations respectively. Denver and Boulder Counties have both freed up resources for other criminal issues that affect residents.
One could argue that the differences can be explained by the fact surrounding cities and municipalities allow the sale of recreational marijuana affecting the drug crime rates in El Paso County. It makes sense that there would be more drug related crimes in a county where the largest city has harsher drug laws. However, do the harsher drug laws reduce violent crime in El Paso County? That data says that is not the case. While Denver County and El Paso County have both experienced an increase in Crimes Against Persons from 2014–2020, Denver County has experienced a smaller increase at 10.6% compared to El Paso County’s 18.3%. El Paso County spends more resources on both drug and violent related crimes compared to Denver County.
There may be legitimate reasons to keep recreational sales of marijuana out of Colorado Springs, however strain on criminal justice resources is not one of them. It only makes more sense to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana in Colorado Springs given the fact it is till easily attainable in nearby communities. Those that wish to consume marijuana will most likely just travel to Pueblo or Manitou Springs which both are only a short distance away. Legalizing recreational marijuana sales will not only likely free up criminal justice resources on drug related crimes, but would bring in more revenue to the city that could perhaps be used to purchase more resources to fight crime. Marijuana is already available to Colorado Springs residents, whether it is legal or not, so might as well benefit from the sales.
