A purple state

Robert Knight writes in the Washington Times about a purple state.

Colorado’s pot o’ pot money is growing. In July, it netted nearly $17 million in combined marijuana taxes, up from nearly $11 million in July 2015 — a 55 percent increase. It’s almost enough to make you forget the impact on impressionable youth.

According to the 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, one in 10 “A” students had smoked pot in the past month, versus 19 percent of “B”s, 30 percent of “C”s, and 48 percent of “D”s. That was before Colorado joined Alaska, Oregon and Washington State, plus the District of Columbia, in legalizing it.

Not to worry. In a November 2015 referendum, Coloradans voted to use $40 million of the pot for school construction, with $2.5 million more for drug education, which is supposed to undo some of the damage to the kids.

Driving around north-central Colorado, we saw no political bumper stickers, but a few Gadsden flags prominently displayed. The local paper in Steamboat Springs runs columns by liberals and conservatives. We got the feeling that outside the Denver area, the state was mostly conservative, and in some cases, aggressively so.

Read more here.