High There! USA Today Covers Colorado Marijuana Smuggling, Highlights Wrong State
Poor Wyoming!
Some of the good folks over at USA TODAY apparently got their pie charts, colorful maps, and states all confused this weekend during a story about the marijuana smuggling efforts out of Colorado. Instead of correctly identifying where on the map Colorado was located, TODAY instead put the emphasis on Wyoming, the Centennial State’s neighbor to the north.
“Authorities say they’ve intercepted thousands of shipments of marijuana leaving Colorado, destined for sale on the black market in other states,” reads the graphic’s lede. Wyoming is then noted in dark blue with accompanying arrows suggesting that people nationwide are smoking the good stuff.
Twitter predictably had a field day with the mishap, with many wondering aloud if some of that good Colorado bud made its way to the USA TODAY offices.
@USATODAY can’t tell which state is Colorado & which is Wyoming. What are YOU guys smoking? Lol pic.twitter.com/LkCKM8MXoW
— Mermaids 4 Marijuana (@mermaids4mj) May 15, 2016
Apparently some of the smuggled pot made its way from Colorado to the good people at USA Today.
So let me help… https://t.co/ASZWrODTAO— Guitar Guy (@TheBrianHaner) May 16, 2016
Mapmaker at @USATODAY must have been smoking too much when making this map. That’s Wyoming, not Colorado! #marijuana pic.twitter.com/E0EMqEK4B4
— Cas Mudde (@CasMudde) May 16, 2016
The graphic from Janet Loehrke accompanied the story, “When smuggling Colo. pot, not even the sky’s the limit,” by Trevor Hughes which ran in the May 15 edition. The piece details many of the obscure ways that the recreational drug is smuggled from Colorado, where it has been legal since Amendment 64 passed on November 6, 2012. “A pilot last year confessed he used his skydiving planes to deliver nearly a ton of pot to buyers in Texas and Minnesota, court records show,” Hughes writes in the piece.
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[image via Twitter]
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