I’m wondering if CO’s Medicaid expenses have risen substantially yet due to its recent legalization of recreational MJ (incl “edibles”) …[/quote]
CO Medicaid expenses rose substantially due to Obamacare. It would be impossible to know what small percentage increase could be attributed to the legalization of weed. Although it won’t surprise me if the anti weed lobby doesn’t try to put together some kind of report attributing the rise in Medicaid expenses as being directly related to the legalization of weed. With the report totally ignoring all the new Obamacare signups. That’s how things are done these days unfortunately.[/quote]
I feel the “weed (sales) taxes” are high enough in CO that the state can use their (large) share to help fund indigent healthcare (incl migrant workers and all those who were otherwise ineligible to sign up for expanded Medicaid) if they so choose. This may have to be legislated but it is doable.
Look what eventually happened to cigarette taxes after Big Tobacco was sued with multiple class action suits for wrongful death/disability. In recent years, taxes on tobacco products have gone thru the stratosphere so they can be used to fund cancer research and other public health-related projects throughout the country.
What I DO worry about, though, is the small (w/1-16K permanent residents) CO mountain towns, nearly all quite “bucolic” (and there are many) which are between 7500 and 10000 feet in altitude (and often surrounded by much higher, narrow roads). I’ve noticed online that some of these towns, however small, seem to now have 1-6 MJ “dispenaries” located in their midst (a disproportionate amount for such a small population). Obviously, they are there to cater to the tourists. Tourists ALREADY don’t understand the drastic change altitude can wreak on their body under normal circumstances. Add in partaking of a couple of premium joints and a super-duper brownie to the mix and then getting into a river raft, jeep or hot-air balloon within 36 hrs of arriving and these towns could have a very sick tourist on their hands …. with no hospitals within an hour (longer in the winter).
I hope CO’s search and rescue teams are being heavily trained in treating altitude sickness and severe nausea and lightheadedness which could last for days ….
Example: typical Texan flatlander college student who just arrived by plane with a group from home for a ski vacation at 11000 feet the evening before and had to sleep with a wet washcloth over his sinuses so he could run heat in his room:
“Come on, ya’ll … Dude, yo, just look at those double-black diamonds!” Then, 6 sec later and 20-50 feet down (on his back with one ski which came to rest 100 yards below him) and now COMMITTED, “COME ON, YA’LL, I DID IT, COME ON!”
The above scenario happened routinely LONG BEFORE POT was legalized and is just the tip of the iceberg that search and rescue teams have deal with every day there. Often, the S&R is the ONLY medical choice available, even for someone who keels over with a heart attack on the sidewalk standing in the middle of town.
Take this same scenario with same 20-yo Texan 1st or 2nd-time skier who has already partaken of 2 fortified joints and one super brownie and insert catastrophe … not only for him but every skier unlucky enough to be in his path.
I just don’t think its a good thing that there are so many dispensaries in the CO Rockies. Most of these towns (referred to in CO legalese as “home-rule municipalities”):
… are used to relying on volunteer fire depts and the like and for the most part do not have the resources to deal with the fallout of this new legislation and will likely wind up having to use the bulk of their share of the new pot taxes to beef up their S&R teams. But despite the high sales taxes they are collecting from pot sales, these towns won’t even break even because a substantial portion of the boomers (65%+?) with the desire AND the funds to retire in these not-so-cheap hamlets will be turned off by the aroma of pot wafting in the street everywhere on their house-hunting trips when they were originally looking for “fresh air and solitude” to retire in.
In sum, I don’t think CO’s “pot-legalization experiment” is going to end well for them, partly due to 5/8 of the state being moderately or extremely rugged and not always easy to reach. This saga will be interesting to follow from here on out.
