"Marijuana is Not Harmless," Weld County says

While Colorado may have earned a national reputation as a pot-embracing state, not everyone here is on board with that — and Weld County, for one, has chosen to broadcast its anti-weed message from highway billboards.

On Dec. 26, the Weld County Health Department announced a new campaign titled “Marijuana is Not Harmless” featuring social media posts and billboards advertising that “A Coloradan is killed every 3 days in a marijuana-related traffic crash” and “users report lower satisfaction of life and poorer mental and physical health.” But some people are questioning the accuracy of the messaging.

Marijuana Industry Group, a marijuana trade group in Colorado, released a statement Dec. 27 saying it was “disappointed by some of the facts being used to promote” the campaign.

As sources for the campaign material, Weld County cites a webpage for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a research institute run by the federal government, and a report from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (RMHIDTA), a federally funded task force that tracks the impact of marijuana legalization in Colorado.

The formerly mentioned webpage includes this blurb that’s presumably a source for the billboard about lower satisfaction and poorer health:
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