4/20, the unofficial holiday that celebrates the legalization of marijuana across the nation and known to the rest of the world as April 20, is a day that seemingly comes with an increase in accidents and police activity across Fort Collins. But does it?
The Fort Collins Police Department provided The Collegian with data that compared the amount of accidents reported on an average day this year in Fort Collins to the amount of accidents that occurred during 4/20 this year.
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“On an average day over the course of the year, we responded to 118 incidents or calls,” said Dustin Weir, a representative of FCPD. “(Our analyst) compared this to a random day in the week in which we responded to 115 incidents which were right on par.”
An FCPD crime analyst compared this collected data with the amount of reported incidents that occured on 4/20 this year in which there was a slight difference.
“This last 4/20, we responded to 121 incidents, so not much higher than the average of 118,” Dustin said. “Only three more.”
According to Josh McClure, a crime analyst for the Colorado State University Police Department, the data for CSU was slightly different. It showed a spike in reported activity on campus on 4/20 when comparing 2018 to 2019.
However, the report showed no criminal incidents related to marijuana use. There were actually two reports of DUI recorded on 4/20 this year.
Overall, there’s very little information that indicates 4/20 this year had anything to do with any increase in reported incidents.
Anyone who has any questions or concerns should contact CSUPD or FCPD.
Dorina Vida can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @simply_she_.
