Colorado marijuana regulators reported this week that only four of the 285 checks for underage sales conducted in state-licensed cannabis shops this year were unsuccessful, resulting in a compliance rate of approximately 99 percent.
The Colorado Department of Revenue Marijuana Enforcement Division’s (MED) quarterly newsletter In the Weeds, published on Monday, said that “while any failure is unacceptable”, “we are pleased to report this extremely high compliance rate” which is comparable with the compliance percentage of 2022.
The state’s dashboard for underage sales shows a compliance rate in 2022 of 99 percent, a record. Compliance rates in 2021 were 95 percent, 97 in 2020 and 2019 and 92 in 2018.
The agency stated in an email that “MED’s top priority is to protect public health and safety and nothing is more critical than preventing youth from accessing regulated marijuana.” While the data consistently shows that minors do not get marijuana from licensed stores, underage checks are vital to keeping it that way.
The MED dashboard lists records of individual sales checks, but no 2023 data is currently available. The Department of Revenue told Marijuana Moment this is because “entries appear on the dashboard only once the administrative action reaches a final disposition,” and that can take from a few weeks to over a year.
Colorado requires people to show their IDs before entering a Colorado marijuana shop or making a purchase. MED said that retailers must also know what to do if an employee violates the rules, or if a fraudulent ID is presented.
Colorado has also a program for dispensaries that aims to promote compliance as well as transparency with consumers.
The study, published in the Journal of Safety Research last May, used underage operatives as a way to measure how often California dispensaries comply with the law by requiring ID before proceeding with adult use marijuana transactions. The analysis based on 90 shops in the state showed 100% compliance.
In Oregon, in 2017, 100 percent of marijuana shops passed a sting operation.
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, now a U.S. Senator (D), has been a Colorado Gov. In 2022, Senator Hickenlooper (D) said that was wrong in his speculation that legalizing marijuana in the state could lead to an increase in youth use.
“I believe we’ve proved and demonstrated that there hasn’t been an increase in teenagers experimenting with drugs. No change was seen in the frequency of use or driving while high. “All the things that we were most concerned about did not come to pass,” Hickenlooper added.
A 2018 study found that while youth cannabis use has not increased, older residents are now visiting Colorado’s marijuana shops.
A study by the American Medical Association published last month found that marijuana consumption among young adults had “significantly decreased” following state-level decriminalization. However, there was a slight increase in consumption among those young adults who said they hadn’t tried marijuana before.
A separate federally-funded research study published in August showed that teenage use of marijuana was stable despite the legalization movement, even though adult cannabis and psychedelic use reached “historic heights.”
In a Gallup survey, it was found that more than half of American adults had tried marijuana in the past, and that cannabis consumption rates were higher than tobacco. According to a Gallup poll, 29 percent (or 18-34 year olds) smoke marijuana. However, this is not representative of cannabis consumption in general, as the survey asked only about smoking.
Another study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and published in American Journal of Preventive Medicine, last year, found that state-level marijuana legalization was not associated with an increase in youth use. This study found that adolescents who had spent a greater portion of their adolescence in ‘legalized’ states were not more or less likely than those who did not.
Another federally-funded study by Michigan State University, published in PLOS One in 2013, found that cannabis retail sales could be followed in some states by an increase in cannabis use among older adults. “But this is not true for minors who are prohibited from purchasing cannabis products at a retail outlet.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, Presidential Candidate Vivek’s Position on Marijuana and Psychedelics
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