We’ve tried reasoning with Gov. Jared Polis about his almost-giddy infatuation with retail marijuana and its purported benefits to our state. So far, our efforts have been futile. Oblivious to the demonstrable harm high-potency THC products have done to Colorado — particularly its youth — P olis glibly continues to peddle utter nonsense on the subject. Just this week, as reported by The Gazette, the governor’s press office quoted him gushing over the latest monthly marijuana tax revenue figures. “Colorado’s world-class marijuana industry drives out criminals and cartels and is supporting Colorado businesses and jobs while driving revenue for school construction. This important milestone is one that our state can continue to build on,” Polis said in a prepared statement posted to his website.  It amounts to a breathtaking departure from reality — and not just because sales-tax revenue collected by the state on marijuana actually has been in decline the past few years. It’s because the revenue bonanza that never happened in fact pales next to the collateral damage. The “recreational” drug’s growing list of dangers range from teens driving — and too often, dying — under the influence, to unprecedented levels of psychosis and suicide among our youth after using today’s mind-bending THC concentrates. As we noted here earlier this year, 43% of Colorado teens 15-19 years old who die by suicide have THC, marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient, in their system at the time of death. For Hispanic teens, the number climbs to 49%. For Black teens it’s almost 67%. That’s according to the Colorado Department of Health and Environment’s Violent Death Reporting System. Indeed, mounting data from wide-ranging research links high-potency pot use to deep psychological and physiological damage in users. Polis often touts Colorado’s pot regulations on retail sales as a “gold standard” for other states embracing legalization. Obviously, that gold standard isn’t doing much to protect our kids. As for the governor’s claims about driving out “criminals and cartels,” ask anyone in federal, state or local law enforcement; they’ll tell you our permissive state has become a destination and business hub for foreign drug cartels. Perhaps it’s the sheer politics of pot that impairs his judgment. It continues to wield outsized, even Svengali-like influence over Polis’ Democratic Party.  Certainly, Big Marijuana oils the political machine with generous campaign contributions to Colorado’s elected Democrats, and it spreads its money around the lobby at the Capitol.  But there also seems to be an intangible coolness to marijuana in the eyes of aging Democrats like the governor. It’s the misplaced sense that their embrace of weed somehow represents a form of protest — as if they were still trying to stop kids from going to jail for lighting a joint. Never mind that Cheech Chong are now octogenarians (OK, Cheech is only 79), or that teens weren’t doing jail time for recreational use even before it was legalized in our state over a dozen years ago. At any rate, it’s all so very 2012. The governor and his comrades are living in the past. Since he seems unfazed by the catastrophic effect of pot’s proliferation on our youth, perhaps we can appeal to his preoccupation with his image and legacy. Doesn’t the politically astute Polis realize the tide is turning?  As your political consultants might warn you, Governor, just think of the optics. The perils of pot use are abundantly evident, and it’s at the tipping point of becoming for parents what cigarettes were in the 1990s. Which is to say, pot is likely to be regarded as the next public health scourge, and rightly so. In other words, it’s not something to brag about. So, why go down in history as its pitchman? ...read more read less