COLORADO SPRINGS — Fewer soldiers are testing positive for marijuana in two states where recreational use of the drug is legal, an Army study of the issue obtained by The Gazette has found.
The change in Washington and Colorado, where legal pot is available near large Army bases, is small. But it’s the reverse of what military leaders said would happen in Colorado Springs with marijuana legalization.
“With one minor exception, the data is trending downward, though it remains relatively flat and the changes are statistically insignificant,” Lt. Col. Justin Platt, an Army spokesman, wrote in an e-mail from the Pentagon.
In Colorado, the rate of positive drug tests for marijuana dropped to 0.47 percent in the fiscal year that ended Oct. 1. That is down from 0.79 percent in the same period two years earlier, before recreational marijuana sales were legal. The number of positive marijuana tests at Fort Carson dropped to 422 from 725 over that span.
Read more of the article at Gazette.com.
