--- title: Marijuana Is the New Normal description: Face it: marijuana is legal, crime is down, traffic fatalities are declining and fewer teens are lighting up canonical: https://time.com/3514137/marijuana-legalization-colorado-new-normal/ author: Nick Gillespie article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-16T21:48:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:50:50.145Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Pot Is the New Normal og:description: Face it: marijuana is legal, crime is down, traffic fatalities are declining and fewer teens are lighting up og:url: https://time.com/3514137/marijuana-legalization-colorado-new-normal/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3cbbab8ad4a6fcf6/6987612dcd68481e12097239/453564370.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4256 og:image:height: 2394 og:image:alt: Demand for marijuana edibles is pushing several Colorado manufacturers to expand their facilities or move to larger quarters. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Pot Is the New Normal twitter:description: Face it: marijuana is legal, crime is down, traffic fatalities are declining and fewer teens are lighting up twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3cbbab8ad4a6fcf6/6987612dcd68481e12097239/453564370.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Pot Is the New Normal > Sponsored content. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Nick Gillespie](https://time.com/author/nick-gillespie/) ## Nick Gillespie Oct 16, 2014 9:48 PM UTC  Steve Herin, Master Grower at Incredibles, works on repotting marijuana plants in the grow facility on Wednesday, August 13, 2014 in Denver, Colorado. Steve Herin, Master Grower at Incredibles, works on repotting marijuana plants in the grow facility on Wednesday, August 13, 2014 in Denver, Colorado. Kent Nishimura—Denver Post via Getty Images by [Nick Gillespie](https://time.com/author/nick-gillespie/) ## Nick Gillespie Oct 16, 2014 9:48 PM UTC If you want to know just how crazy marijuana makes some people, look no further than the race for governor of Colorado, where Democratic incumbent John Hickenlooper [is neck and neck](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/governor/co/colorado%5Fgovernor%5Fbeauprez%5Fvs%5Fhickenlooper-3837.html) with Republican challenger Bob Beauprez. They’re high-profile examples of a growing backlash against pot, even as none of the scare stories about legal weed are coming true. Drug-addled addicts embarking on crime sprees? Not in Denver. Stupefied teens flunking tests in record numbers? Uh-uh. Highway fatalities soaring? [Nope](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/08/05/since-marijuana-legalization-highway-fatalities-in-colorado-are-at-near-historic-lows/). About the worst you can say so far is that New York _Times_ columnist Maureen Dowd [wigged out](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/opinion/dowd-dont-harsh-our-mellow-dude.html?%5Fr=0) while high. But she does that from time to time when she’s sober as a judge too. Neither Hickenlooper nor Beauprez has cracked 50% with voters, which makes sense since neither candidate can stomach the fact that 55% of Coloradans voted to legalize recreational pot in 2012\. “I’ll say it was reckless” to legalize pot, [averred Hickenlooper](http://kdvr.com/2014/10/06/hickenlooper-colorado-reckless-to-legalize-marijuana/) at a recent debate. Beauprez goes further still. When asked if it’s time to recriminalize marijuana, he said, “Yes, I think we’re at that point … where the consequences that we’ve already discovered from this may be far greater than the liberty … citizens thought they were embracing.” In fact, sales and tax revenues from legal pot [continue to climb,](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/14/colorado-marijuana-revenues-hit-a-new-high/) and more people now buy recreational pot than medical marijuana, even though the former is taxed at much higher rates. Pot has kicked about [$45 million](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/14/colorado-marijuana-revenues-hit-a-new-high/) into tax coffers since it became legal this year and is projected to come in between [$60 million and $70 million](http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Saving-Money/2014/0923/Marijuana-legalization-could-mean-millions-in-tax-revenue-for-Florida-Alaska-and-others) by year’s end. Murders in the Denver area, where most pot sales take place, are down [42%](http://mic.com/articles/92449/here-s-the-lawless-hellscape-colorado-has-become-six-months-after-legalizing-weed) (so is violent crime overall, though at a lower rate) and property crime is down 11.5%. There’s more bad news for alarmists: Pot use by teenagers in Colorado [declined](http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/08/despite-legalization-colorado-teenagers) from 2001, when the state legalized medical marijuana, to 2013, the last full year for which data are available. When medical marijuana was introduced, critics worried that _any_ form of legalized pot would increase usage among kids, but the reverse happened. It remains to be seen if that trend continues in the face of legal recreational pot, but Colorado teens already use dope [at lower rates](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/marijuana-usage-down-in-t%5Fn%5F1865095.html) than the national average. So much for the Rocky Mountain High state. Yet Colorado pols are in good company in harshing on legal weed. The [recovering addict](http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/20/194536/recovering-drug-addict-patrick.html) and former Congressman Patrick Kennedy heads Safe Alternatives to Marijuana (SAM) [and categorically argues](http://learnaboutsam.org/acting-in-the-best-interests-of-public-health-and-safety/), “we cannot promote a comprehensive system of mental-health treatment and marijuana legalization.” Researchers who find that regular marijuana use among teenagers correlates with [mental problems](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2782906/The-terrible-truth-cannabis-British-expert-s-devastating-20-year-study-finally-demolishes-claims-smoking-pot-harmless.html), [academic failure](http://reason.com/blog/2014/09/15/how-much-pot-does-it-take-to-turn-a-teen) and other bad outcomes get plenty of ink, even though such studies fail to show causation. Underperforming students and kids with problems abuse alcohol and smoke cigarettes at higher rates, after all. In any case, even advocates of legalization argue that teens shouldn’t be smoking pot any more than they should be drinking. Given the drug’s pariah status for decades, it’s not surprising that the science is [both unsettled](http://www.bustle.com/articles/29584-is-weed-bad-for-you-the-arguments-for-and-against-marijuanas-supposed-health-risks) and highly politicized. Will legalizing pot increase access to a drug that law-enforcement officials concede has long been readily available to high schoolers? “Criminalizing cannabis for adults has little if any impact on reducing teens’ access or consumption of the plant,” [argues](http://consumer.healthday.com/mental-health-information-25/addiction-news-6/teen-daily-marijuana-use-linked-to-long-term-problems-691583.html) the pro-legalization group NORML, a claim supported by declining teen use during Colorado’s experience with medical marijuana. Certainly pot merchants who are registered with and regulated by the state are more likely to check IDs than your friendly neighborhood black-market dealer. At least this much seems certain: In a world where adults can openly buy real pot, you’re also less likely to read stories headlined “[More People Hospitalized by Bad Batch of Synthetic Marijuana](http://www.wfmz.com/news/news-regional-berks/more-people-hospitalized-by-bad-batch-of-synthetic-marijuana/28977216).” And support for legalization isn’t fading. The market-research firm Civic Science finds that [58%](http://civicscience.com/what-the-mainstreaming-of-marijuana-means-to-marketers/) of Americans support laws that “would legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana like alcohol.” That figure obviously doesn’t include either candidate for governor of Colorado. But just like the rest of the country, whoever wins that race will have to learn to live with pot being legal, crime being down, traffic fatalities declining and fewer teens lighting up. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3514137/marijuana-legalization-colorado-new-normal/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3514137/marijuana-legalization-colorado-new-normal/"},"headline":"Pot Is the New Normal","datePublished":"2014-10-16T21:48:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:50:50.145Z","description":"Face it: marijuana is legal, crime is down, traffic fatalities are declining and fewer teens are lighting up","url":"https://time.com/3514137/marijuana-legalization-colorado-new-normal/","keywords":["Culture","Marijuana","Colorado","politics","medical marijuana","Marijuana legalization"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3cbbab8ad4a6fcf6/6987612dcd68481e12097239/453564370.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nick Gillespie","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nick-gillespie/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3cbbab8ad4a6fcf6/6987612dcd68481e12097239/453564370.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Demand for marijuana edibles is pushing several Colorado manufacturers to expand their facilities or move to larger quarters.","caption":"Demand for marijuana edibles is pushing several Colorado manufacturers to expand their facilities or move to larger quarters.","creditText":"Kent Nishimura—Denver Post via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/culture/","name":"Culture"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3514137/marijuana-legalization-colorado-new-normal/","name":"Pot Is the New Normal"}}]}] ```