The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, is the Federal Government’s lead agency for improving the quality and availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services in the United States. They have released the results of their 2007 Treatment Episode Data Set, or TEDS, showing the National Admissions to Substance Abuse Treatment Services. Let’s take a look at the statistics for marijuana, shall we?
50% increase in marijuana treatment admissions in one decade
In 1997, about 200,000 people checked into treatment for marijuana. By 2005, that number has risen to over 300,000 people, though it has tapered off a bit these last couple of years. By any account, this is a huge rise in the number of people seeking rehab for marijuana in just a decade. It would seem like the powerful new “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed” has given rise to a 50% increase in reefer addicts!
Only 15% of marijuana "addicts" admit themselves to treatment
However, when you look behind the numbers, you find that this increase has more to do with the rapid increase of drug courts in the late ’90s, early ’00s. By far, most of the people who are in treatment for marijuana are forced there! 57% are forced into treatment by the criminal justice system, while only 15% admitted themselves to treatment. For comparison’s sake, over all drugs combined, 1/3rd of all admissions are self-admissions, marijuana is the drug with the lowest self-admission rates (lower than meth) and highest criminal justice-admission rates (higher than meth), and for alcohol, self-admission is around 29% and criminal justice (including DUI) admissions are only 42.5%.
37% of all people admitted for marijuana rehab didn't even use marijuana in the past month.
Even more interesting is a look at the actual substance use of the people admitted to treatment. Almost 4 out of ten marijuana smokers who are in treatment haven’t even used marijuana in thirty days! Again, for comparison, only 1 out of 4 alcohol admissions didn’t drink in the past month, and the number is only 1 in 6 for heroin.
Another interesting figure: almost 58% of marijuana admissions are first-time admissions to drug treatment, a number that seems suspisciously close to the 56.9% of admissions from criminal justice. That’s the highest first-time figure of all the common drugs (marijuana, alcohol, heroin, cocaine, and meth). Of those drugs, marijuana and alcohol are the only ones where the majority of drug treatment admissions are not returns to treatment. Also, 31% of marijuana users in treatment are employed, a number twice that of heroin or cocaine admissions, but lower than the 42.5% of employed alcohol users in treatment.
Marijuana rehab is almost exclusively aimed at people under 25
Finally, 3/4ths of marijuana rehabbers are male, half are white, 2/3rds are under age 25. Marijuana has the lowest average age of admittance (24 years old), with all other drugs but inhalants and hallucinogens having average ages in the 30′s. The average alcohol or crack cocaine rehabber is 39 years old.
While I certainly prefer any marijuana smoker caught by law enforcement to be sent to rehab rather than jail, the sentencing of people to rehab who don’t really need it means we are wasting resources that could be better directed to the unfulfilled needs of hard drugs addicts. If alcohol and crack’s average rehab age was closer to 20 than to 40, how much time, money, and misery would we save in this country?
Instead we arrest mostly young people for their marijuana use, then sentence them to rehab, then cite the increasing numbers of young people in rehab for marijuana as proof of the increasing danger of marijuana, which is then used to justify arresting more mostly young people for their marijuana use.
Hey Mike and thanks for posting on one of the best and most informative Truth sites out there.
Your philosophy is flawed right off the bat by continuing the old and tired theory that Cannabis is a gateway drug. Cant we move past that and have a informed discussion about reform? Reforming addicts and the laws for the better.
Also, just because one uses cannabis or anything, doesnt mean they are a addict by your definition.
The good news is that rehab places (like the one Mike Slinkey is pimping here) will be able to give treatment and therapy to people that really need it instead of wasting time with unapologetic marijuana users – who’s usage is not negatively effecting their lives in any way.
What do we all think the first thing marijuana users do after being released from forced treatment and have taken the last drug test? Flip a finger at the building and smoke on the ride home perhaps? Go back to life and hopefully not get unlucky and get caught again? I think that’s a pretty good assessment.
Aren’t we beyond the silly “gateway drug” lie, too? Does that really need to be addressed again or is rolling our eyes and chuckling a suitable response to that? These places need a new mantra. One that makes sense. People are way to educated for that gateway nonsense.
We all take drugs all the time. Every single person living today takes drugs. Humans love drugs. We take drugs to improve the quality of our lives. Drugs are only bad when they effect our lives negatively. I profess that marijuana improves the quality of my life and defy anyone to examine my life and claim otherwise.
I also have never smoked a joint and suddenly had a craving to take some crack or some other drug. No way would I ever take that junk. I can clearly see how those other things will harm me. Anyone who recomends that stuff to a friend for any reason is jerk.
After smoking marijuana the only gateway I have found, in all my extensive years of study, is a gateway to my refrigerator.
First Mike, where do you get your scientific information about cannabis addiction? The desire to consume it only exists in the mind and is not physically addictive says all the scientific information I have read.
that and the gateway crap is just that, ap-cray)
(and from my many decades of personal experience
Maybe you received some info from another dimension on some addictive “outer space pot” that is bad shit. Stay away from that stuff!
Seriously, you just don’t “get it”. I hope you have a plan “B”. It doesn’t look like you grasp plan “A”.
Mike, listen up, “POT’s NOT ADDICTIVE”! Get over it champ.
In the world of substance abuse marijuana(given the name “gateway drug)warnings gets overlooked by the younger generation because of the mixed message presented by the mass media. Concealed behind its veal of relaxation and light-hearted humor we often forget the magnitude of its existence. As reported in the TEDS 2/3rds of marijuana users are under age 25 and the average alcohol or crack cocaine rehabber is 39 years old.
This being said no one denomination of addict can be considered unimportant. Moreover, the diminishing level of morals and values isn’t just do to the failure of our judicial system but to societies lack of accountability. Why wait until “little billy” is the age of 40 and doing much harder drugs to consider him an addict.
By stating that “the sentencing of people to rehab who don’t really need it means we are wasting resources that could be better directed to the unfulfilled needs of hard drugs addicts,” is like saying that just because you are a young marijuana user that your addiction isn’t that much more important than any other drug induced habit. It also conveys the message that the act of using is okay even though its illegal. Our philosophy is that by understanding that marijuana is in fact a gateway-drug would lend to the concept of an earlier rehabilitation program.