1/3 of People Admitted to Marijuana Treatment Hadn't Been Smoking Marijuana!
Advocates for harsh marijuana laws can be counted on to infuse their rhetoric with incessant declarations that marijuana is highly addictive. Rarely, if ever, could one expose oneself to such discussion without being told something like this:
Decriminalizing marijuana – the drug which sends the most of America's youth into substance abuse treatment and recovery – is a dangerous first step towards complete drug legalization. In fact, marijuana sends the highest percentage of New Hampshire residents into drug treatment than any other illicit drug.
…I strongly urge responsible leaders in New Hampshire to stop any effort to decriminalize or legalize the highly addictive drug marijuana."
These words belong to the Deputy Drug Czar and they are less than a week old, thus they represent what his office currently believes to be the strongest and most important argument for marijuana prohibition: that the drug is highly addictive.
As Paul Armentano at NORML points out, however, the government's own data on marijuana dependency shows that a plurality of people entering treatment for marijuana hadn't smoked it in a month or more. Isn't that just amazing? I mean, wow. 36% of people entering treatment for pot addiction had already kicked the habit on their own. Highly-addictive my ash.
But how could this be? The answer can be found on this page, which shows that 58% of people entering marijuana treatment were referred by the criminal justice system. They didn't ask for help, rather they were found in possession of marijuana, which led a judge to issue a diagnosis of "marijuana addiction" and order them to get help for that.
When more than half the sample consists of people who were forced into treatment, it should come as no surprise that so many of them haven't actually been smoking marijuana. Some may never have been marijuana users to begin with and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. More commonly, I suspect, a large number of marijuana arrestees simply quit after getting busted, either voluntarily or because their lawyers recommended it, pretrial drug screenings, etc. Since marijuana isn't actually very addictive to begin with, this is easy to do.
And yet we continue to waste limited government resources investigating, arresting, adjudicating, and treating these people for an addiction they never actually had. In sum, the Drug Czar's best evidence of marijuana addiction comes from the fact that the government categorizes people as marijuana addicts if they're found sitting near a bag of marijuana. The instant we stop calculating it that way, the evidence ceases to exist and the drug warriors' favorite and best argument against marijuana reform is, well…cashed.
digg
reddittrue so true
Comment posted by Anonymous on Wed, 03/26/2008 - 5:38ammarijuana wins again and it is no surprise. the truth is an offence but not a sin! the war machine against cannabis is so big and fat, it is addictive, it needs rehab and to be send back to hell where it came from. if there is such thing as good and evil, this is the perfect example. i would love to say more but i have to run.....
There is Good and Evil
Comment posted by Anonymous on Wed, 03/26/2008 - 12:50pmThose demons will burn for eternity.
O'Reilly should read this post
Comment posted by Anonymous on Wed, 03/26/2008 - 6:58pmFoxnews Host Bill O'Reilly gets credit for having drug reformers on his show, well at least he books them more often than the cable hosts. When debating the reformers, he always trots out the statistic that pot accounts for more teenagers in rehab than any other drug. These stats on pot smokers that stopped before going into treatment blows O'Reilly's argument out of the water.
The question for O'Reilly is if pot were decriminalized would it still account for the highest number of people in rehab? Someone ought to E-mail him the link to this page. O'Reilly@foxnews.com
o'reilly
Comment posted by sicntired on Sun, 03/30/2008 - 7:18amsicntired I was so impressed by the idea that I sent an E-mail right away.If anyones got the e-mail for ann coulter please post it so we can deluge her with more of the same.It's the only way these people will ever see any truth on this issue.
Marijuana Smoking and Lung Cancer
Comment posted by Anonymous on Thu, 03/27/2008 - 10:32pmArchives of Internal Medicine
The Association Between Marijuana Smoking and Lung Cancer
A Systematic Review http://archinte.ama-assn.org/
Results .....Observational studies of subjects with marijuana exposure failed to demonstrate significant associations between marijuana smoking and lung cancer after adjusting for tobacco use....
Author Affiliations: Departments of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (Dr Mehra), and West Haven Veterans Administration Hospital, West Haven, Conn (Dr Tetrault); and Departments of Medicine (Drs Crothers, Tetrault, and Fiellin) and Psychiatry (Dr Moore), Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.
....http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/166/13/1359?ijkey=4d26514b830b47ed6189578fa47566bdd9c103ee&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha.
gateway drug
Comment posted by Anonymous on Thu, 03/27/2008 - 10:50pmFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In 1997, the Connecticut Law Revision Commission examined states that had decriminalized marijuana and found decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana has no effect on subsequent use of alcohol or "harder" illicit drugs.
The study recommended Connecticut reduce marijuana possession of one ounce or less for adults age 21 and over to a civil fine.
In 1999, a study by the Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health at the Institute of Medicine entitled "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," found no evidence of a link between marijuana use and the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs on the basis of its particular physiological effect
In December 2006, a 12 year gateway drug hypothesis study on 214 boys from ages 10-12 by the American Psychiatric Association was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
The study concluded adolescents who used marijuana prior to using other drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, were no more likely to develop a substance abuse disorder than subjects in the study who did not use marijuana prior to using other drugs.......
Increased crime
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has claimed that marijuana leads to increased crime in the un-sourced pamphlet entitled "Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization."
Studies have found no evidence of a link between marijuana usage and an increase in crime, but rather have found marijuana may decrease criminal behavior when under the influence.
In 1973, a report by the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse entitled "Marijuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding" found marijuana does not cause violent or aggressive behavior, but rather "marihuana was usually found to inhibit the expression of aggressive impulses by pacifying the user, interfering with muscular coordination, reducing psychomotor activities and generally producing states of drowsiness lethargy, timidity and passivity."
put to bed
Comment posted by sicntired on Sun, 03/30/2008 - 7:23amsicntired I think the cancer and gateway arguments were put to bed long ago.I haven't heard those dragged out for a few years at least.Of course if we let our guard down the sky is falling prohibitionists will be bringing them out again like they were truth from on high.
Prohibitionists remain antagonistic to a free society!
Comment posted by Anonymous on Fri, 03/28/2008 - 7:13pmAsk any law enforcement official which domestic situation they'd prefer to avoid:
1) An individual or group high on liquid drugs... alcohol?
2) An individual or group high on marijuana?
Does anyone really doubt which drug has the statistically higher ratio of violence & death... even though marijuana smokers face much harsher penalties... including longer prison terms and forfeiture of assets... a drunk person would have to kill somebody to perhaps warrant such justice!
Suggest the following to any prohibitionist, or their legions of stooges & enforcers, and they'll try to kill or incarcerate you... and never mention their intellectual terrorism or they'll sympathetically proclaim you another poor 'paranoid delusional'... another victim of Satan's smoke... in desperate need of the type of compassion & rehabilitation that only an overcrowded massive prison system can provide!
Suggest that the 1st drug war, the Prohibition against 'liquid intoxicants' (the drug of choice of our European immigrants and ancestors... also the original 'gateway drug' ) which officially started in 1919 with the 18th amendment came about exactly the same way as the 2nd drug war, the Prohibition against marijuana... amazingly fast political actions by a radical Progressive Prohibition Movement (PPM)... how fast a responsible & vigilant citizen may wonder... less then 6 hours and no prior committee meetings!
If you're not immediately arrested or shot for your Gnostic rants, or hedonistically libertine crimes against their children and society at large, perhaps because your 'accusers' find you amusing.... like a cat with a wounded mouse or bird... they'll allow you to continue with your conspiracy theories.
EXCEPT... your lawyers sage advice starts to become audible through the cognitive dissonance dissipating inside your newly numbed skull... previously drowning out rational thought and hampering critical thinking (professionals commonly refer to this as 'caveman mode')... he's screaming at you to 'ZIP IT' --- because your 'accusers' will use everything you say and they make up against you, etc, etc...!
Most cops are unwilling stooges of the current Progressive Prohibition Movement! Cops are given great discretionary powers and it's unwise to provoke someone who may be and/or act sympathetic. However, zealot sects like the DEA are trained to react violently against 'druggies', however peaceful, however responsible, even vital, to their existence.
Facts confuse and threaten prohibitionists, and, they should fear the wealth of information and knowledge the few libertarian minded among us possess... not to mention the criminal implications the equally illegal 2nd drug war carries! If only we could get the justice dept to do it's job and strike down illegal laws... as it did when it struck down the 1st drug war in 1933.
I believe it's also long past time to start holding those responsible... accountable... for their serious crimes ... regardless of title or stature... had the supreme court held the PPM responsible for their crimes in 1933 when they repealed drug prohibition... we wouldn't be fighting these dangerous delusional criminals now!
But the fundamentalist PPM remains alive, newly energized, and enabled today thanks to her immortal allies: fear, ignorance, certitude, copious amounts of hypocrisy, and the heavy hand of the police state... so beloved by moralists and the purveyors of gods & governments!
Prohibitionists remain antagonistic and dangerous to a modern egalitarian society... their delusions, desperations, paranoia's, pretenses, and proclamations make them more deceitful, disgusting, and criminal then ever.
Billy B. Blunt
Tacoma, WA
Emma Goldman
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The Drug War is a Scam... Pure and simple
Comment posted by Anonymous on Tue, 03/25/2008 - 8:56pmIt's a harsh reality that drug warriors want the control. Especially when the second largest medical association recommended that cannabis be reclassified and studied as a viable drug. Who is on the wrong side of the money now?
Why should any addiction be criminalized in the first place? People who are addicted to food or sex, for instance, are not arrested and forced into rehabilitation. Pot is no larger a 'vice' than legal tobacco and alcohol.
The "Drug War" has to be about the truth; not statistical 'fat farms.' The Czar's letter is proof that the war is a persecution (read: slavery) of a group of people, not any real scientific menace.