• Drug Policy - Question of the Week

    How many Americans use illegal drugs?

    Drug Policy Question of the Week – 10-9-10

    As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 10-9-10. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3098

    Question of the Week: How many Americans use illegal drugs?

    In 1992, Congress established the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. SAMSHA’s Office of Applied Studies collects, analyzes, and disseminates public health data including the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health. This survey, fielded since 1971, reports the prevalence of illicit drug, alcohol, and tobacco use in the civilian, non-institutionalized US population aged 12 or older.

    The 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health report was released in mid-September. Those quoting it should make note of its “Limitations on Trend Measurement” section that reads,

    “2002 and later data should not be compared with 2001 and earlier data from the survey series to assess changes over time.”

    Anyone who makes such comparisons is misrepresenting SAMSHA data.

    The Drug Usage Chapter of Drug War Facts now contains three tables based on post-2001 SAMSHA data.

    The first table displays the percentage change in use by substance from 2002 to 2006 (at the five year mark) and from 2002-2009 to reflect the most current trends. Overall illicit use has increased by almost 12% since 2002.

    The second table shows values for Estimated Lifetime use by substance from 2002 to 2009. Lifetime use means trying a drug at least once. About 119 million Americans have used an illicit substance at least once.

    The third table reflects the estimated number of individuals who have used an illicit substance at least once per month. Called “Current users,” an estimated 22 million Americans used illegal drugs at least once per month in 2009.

    These facts and others like them can be found in the Drug Usage Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.

    Questions concerning these or other facts concerning drug policy can be e-mailed to [email protected]

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Weekly Standard Exposé: Pot Prohibition Promotes Pretense, Paranoia

    By Jacob Sullum

    Matt Labash has an amusing, informative, and frequently astute report on Michigan’s medical marijuana industry in the latest issue of The Weekly Standard. As in California, he finds, it’s not hard to qualify as a patient who is permitted to use cannabis under state law, and many people who do so have common complaints (such as back pain and migraine headaches) that are difficult to verify and may simply be a cover for recreational use. Likewise, the people who go into the business of supplying patients with marijuana include budding entrepreneurs and black-market dealers going semi-legit as well as sincere Good Samaritans who are keen to help people suffering from debilitating conditions such as AIDS wasting syndrome and the side effects of cancer chemotherapy. This being The Weekly Standard, Labash’s emphasis is on the shadier patients and suppliers, and the title of his piece is “Going to Pot: The Medical Marijuana Charade.”

    But which charade is Labash talking about? It’s not the claim that marijuana is a useful medicine.

  • Drug Policy - What You Can Do

    Drug Regulation Survey

    There is a global movement towards recognizing that drug prohibition is a failed social policy. It is now time to explore how we will regulate the market for all currently illegal drugs. Specifically, what kind of models should we use in a post-prohibition world? This survey is intended to be a detailed exploration of this question.

    Enjoy / think / share.

    View the results so far.

    Take The Survey

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    California Braces for an Unstoppable Onslaught of Stoned Drivers and Employees

    By Jacob Sullum

    Opponents of Proposition 19, California’s marijuana legalization initiative, are falsely claiming it would allow people to drive while stoned. In a June Sacramento Bee op-ed piece, Bishop Ron Allen of the Greater Solomon Temple Community Church warned:

    If this proposed initiative passes, California drivers will be able to operate a car while under the influence of marijuana.

    The initiative states smoking marijuana while driving is impermissible, but it would be perfectly legal to smoke or ingest marijuana immediately prior to driving.

    And because marijuana stays in the body so long, police officers will have virtually no way to prove if someone just ingested marijuana 10 minutes ago or 10 hours ago. Unlike with alcohol, there is no current test to show the level of marijuana intoxication. All authorities can currently do is test for the presence of marijuana. If this initiative passes, it is perfectly fine to have marijuana in your system at any time—even while driving a school bus, taxi or light-rail train.

  • Letter of the Week

    Drug War Has Failed

    LETTER OF THE WEEK

    DRUG WAR HAS FAILED

    Though I don’t agree with Debra J. Saunders on many issues, her
    writing consistently shows that she truly understands that the drug
    war and marijuana prohibition have failed and that these policies
    lead to real-life, devastating consequences.

    Saunders pokes holes in the opposition’s arguments (including this
    newspaper’s) that fear change, and she points out the hypocrisy and
    harm of keeping in place laws that don’t work.

    She gets that Prop. 19 is the way out of this mess. It’s the way to
    stop wasting tax dollars and resources on ineffective policies and to
    reduce the threat to public safety posed by cartels that the current
    prohibition enriches and empowers.

    Further, it’s plain wrong to criminalize responsible, adult use of
    cannabis when it is arguably safer to use than alcohol and denies
    equal rights to good people who would prefer a toke over a drink.

    Marijuana is here to stay, and people are going to consume it, so
    taxing, controlling and regulating cannabis now is the sensible thing to do.

    So let’s end marijuana prohibition and generate some revenue for the
    state in the process.

    Mikki Norris, El Cerrito

    Pubdate: Wed, 22 Sep 2010

    Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)

    Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n764/a05.html

    Published Letters Awards www.mapinc.org/lteaward.htm

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Drug Warriors — It’s Time for You to Go to Rehab

    Johann Hari

    Posted: September 29, 2010 08:35 AM

    In the Western world today, there is a group of people who live in a haze of unreality, and are prone at any moment to break into paranoia, hallucinations, and screaming. If you try to get between them and their addiction, they will become angry and aggressive and lash out. They need our help. I am talking, of course, about the Drug Prohibitionists: the gaggle of politicians, bishops and journalists who still insist that the only way to deal with the very widespread drug use in our societies is for it to be criminalized, where it is untaxed, unregulated, controlled by armed criminal gangs, and horribly adulterated.