The pro-marijuana lobby claims today’s hearing on the Justice Department’s enforcement priorities on marijuana lacked data and relied on anecdotes.  
But there was a lot of data.  In Colorado, from 2012 to 2014, the number of hospitalizations related to marijuana increased 70%, the number of traffic deaths related to marijuana rose 20%, and interdiction seizures of Colorado marijuana destined for other states jumped 31%. This is all in just two years.
Senator Grassley cited these data points in his statement and in charts he used to question witnesses.
The charts came from a report from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, a drug prohibition enforcement program run by the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Here’s a similar report for Washington state, which, like Colorado, also legalized marijuana for recreational use.
But the fact that there are some areas where there is little data, or incomplete data, is the point.  
The hearing was about whether the Justice Department is effectively gathering data on how state recreational legalization is impacting its federal enforcement priorities.  These priorities include preventing diversion to states that haven’t legalized it, and protecting minors from harm.  The attorney general of Nebraska is highly concerned about marijuana coming from Colorado.  The Justice Department needs to do a better job gathering and analyzing data on its enforcement priorities, as it said it would.
The hearing was also about how – if at all – the Department is using data to determine whether its policy is working to protect the public, or whether it needs to challenge state laws that are in conflict with federal law, as it reserved the right to do.  The non-partisan Government Accountability Office confirmed in a recent report that the Department has not adhered to these commitments. 
Regardless of individual views on marijuana legalization, the Justice Department isn’t doing what it said it would do.  The data show why the public has reason to worry about the Justice Department’s lack of follow-through.

-30-