Big Marijuana’s PR machine will have to work overtime following news last week about the alarming role pot is playing in Colorado’s soaring rate of traffic fatalities.

It’s disturbing enough the number of fatalities on our roads has surged 50% since 2011 – to 692 last year, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation. More troubling still is that over a third of those – 246 – involved drivers impaired by alcohol, drugs or both. Indeed, just since 2019, there has been a 44% increase in the number of fatalities in Colorado involving an impaired driver, according to state data.

And what’s even more alarming is the impact marijuana has had on those numbers since its legalization in 2012.

As reported by The Gazette Friday, an analysis of 26,000 impaired-driving cases in Colorado in 2019 shows 45% of drivers tested positive for more than one substance, according to the state’s Division of Criminal Justice. The most common combination was alcohol with THC – the psychoactive drug in marijuana – followed by alcohol combined with other drugs.

Those cases involved incidents of all kinds, including crashes, and authorities say the data tells us a lot about what is fueling the spike in deaths on Colorado’s roadways.

“Colorado’s increase in traffic fatalities can be attributed to numerous causes, but impaired driving is a big one. And when we see increases in impairment involving multiple substances, we have to address them immediately,” transportation department official Darrell Lingk said in a press statement. “It’s our job to make sure people know that driving after combining alcohol and cannabis or other drugs is extremely dangerous.”

Another report cited by the state and issued by the AAA found drivers who said they used both marijuana and alcohol were more likely to report lawbreaking like speeding, aggressive driving and texting while driving.

Meanwhile, a 2018 survey by the transportation department of more than 18,000 Colorado motorists found that the more often they used marijuana – the less dangerous they considered driving high to be. Good grief; that’s probably no surprise.

All of which raises questions once again about Colorado’s experience with the legalization of retail, recreational marijuana. The rise of pot tourism; the expansion of retail sales into “hospitality” licenses in Denver and elsewhere – allowing pot to be consumed on site, like alcohol at a bar – and the insidious promotion of THC-laced edibles, all pose significant perils to public safety.

There’s also the increasing likelihood of legal recreational marijuana falling into the hands of minors. That equates to more novice teen drivers combining pot, alcohol and a night on the town.

Ironically, Colorado and the rest of the country had been making great strides in cracking down on drunken driving since the bad ol’ days of the 1980s and earlier. By increasing penalties, far more rigorously screening the streets, and raising awareness, authorities were starting to contain drunken driving. Nationwide, drunken driving fatalities on our nation’s roadways have decreased 45% since 1982, according to the group responsibility.org.

What a tragedy if Colorado backslides on that progress in a big way due to the growing prevalence of pot.

State and local policy makers ought to explore new restrictions on the rapidly growing marijuana industry to rein in the havoc it is wreaking on our roads. Perhaps new excise taxes on the profits of pot’s purveyors are also warranted – to pay for more police patrolling our roads.

Denver Gazette editorial board