Unsurprisingly, two very divergent views of the impact of marijuana legalization in Colorado

As everyone might have expected, proponents and opponents of marijuana reform have quite diverse perspectives on the success or failure of the legalization experiment in Colorado over the first six months of regular recreation pot sales.  Examples of the divergent views are well demonstrated by these two recent commentaries:

From Jacob Sullum, reform proponent, here in Forbes, “How Is Marijuana Legalization Going? The Price of Pot Peace Looks Like a Bargain.”

From Kevin Sabet, reform opponent, here at CNN, “Colorado’s troubles with pot.”

The enduring problem posed by these divergent perspectives is that it become so much very harder for marijuana reform “agnostics” to know whether the sky is really falling or if in fact all is swell in the wake of recent reforms. Perhaps usefully, though, the divergent views may help ensure that we go a number of years with the on-going experiment before anyone should feel extra confident asserting great success or great failure in recent reforms.