Legalizing weed didn't do that. There's always been an opinion (argument?) that driving high is fine. Carl Sagan even discusses it in Mr. X (1969):
> I have mentioned that in the cannabis experience there is a part of your mind that remains a dispassionate observer, who is able to take you down in a hurry if need be. I have on a few occasions been forced to drive in heavy traffic when high. I’ve negotiated it with no difficulty at all, though I did have some thoughts about the marvelous cherry-red color of traffic lights. I find that after the drive I’m not high at all. There are no flashes on the insides of my eyelids. If you’re high and your child is calling, you can respond about as capably as you usually do. I don’t advocate driving when high on cannabis, but I can tell you from personal experience that it certainly can be done.
It seems like it'd be really hard to defend the claim that the death rate (which isn't per-mile-driven, so lacks the context to actually evaluate it meaningfully) is growing "much faster" than the population.
Notice that fatalities are up significantly, but so are vehicle miles traveled. In fact, in 2013, Colorado had .0075 fatalities per million miles driven. In 2019, that number was... .0075. In other words, your likelihood of dying per distance driven was almost exactly equal to 2013.
This are the CO government's numbers, not mine or anyone else's.
I don't have a dog in this hunt. I'm not from Colorado, and I don't use marijuana. But it's really hard to say that legalizing marijuana in CO had any affect on traffic safety at all, when the fatality rate is essentially identical afterward.
The chart you linked says your numbers are wrong, and between those two years there’s about a 6-7% increase in fatalities per mile, with even larger fatality numbers in the years in the middle.
If you don’t have a dog in this hunt why are you posting wrong numbers, falsely stating there was no increase, and ignoring the deaths from 2014-2018?
That doesn't mean it made people's opinion of driving high more favorable. It could just mean more people are high period, but the rate of people who drive high remained the same.
Well, okay. I guess we’d have to read their minds to resolve this question. They might be less afraid of consequences for getting caught with weed, or caught while high, it being “just” a DUI.
I actually wasn't arguing from authority. I think the paragraph stands alone without the author's name attached (in fact it was originally published under a pseudonym, proving this point.)
> I have mentioned that in the cannabis experience there is a part of your mind that remains a dispassionate observer, who is able to take you down in a hurry if need be. I have on a few occasions been forced to drive in heavy traffic when high. I’ve negotiated it with no difficulty at all, though I did have some thoughts about the marvelous cherry-red color of traffic lights. I find that after the drive I’m not high at all. There are no flashes on the insides of my eyelids. If you’re high and your child is calling, you can respond about as capably as you usually do. I don’t advocate driving when high on cannabis, but I can tell you from personal experience that it certainly can be done.
http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/mr_x.html