The Partnership for a Drug (Companies) Free (from Natural Competition) America has a new report released today.  While it focuses primarily on underage drinking and the shifting perception among youth that binge drinking is cool (gee, where could they have gotten that idea?) the headline trumpets the danger of marijuana.

National Study Confirms Teen Drug Use Trending in Wrong Direction: Marijuana, Ecstasy Use Up Since 2008, Parents Feel Ill-Equipped To Respond

All that’s missing is three exclamation points, a tension chord, and the Spanish Inquisition.*

Let’s dig into this claim.  Here’s the money quote to scare the moms and dads:

According to the three-year trend confirmed in this year’s 2010 PATS data, there was a significant 67 percent increase in the number of teens who reported using Ecstasy in the past year (from 6 percent in 2008 to 10 percent in 2010). Similarly, past-year marijuana use among teens increased by a disturbing 22 percent (from 32 percent in 2008 to 39 percent in 2010).

This 2010 PATS data they refer to is the “2010 PARTNERSHIP ATTITUDE TRACKING STUDY” and not the government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH).  That study, which consists of a randomized anonymous telephone survey and computerized interviews, is generally accepted as a baseline for understanding drug use in the United States.  According to NSDUH for 2007, only 16.5% of kids aged 12-17 had ever used cannabis and only 12.6% had used in the past year.  Those numbers rose to 17% and 13.6%, respectively, by 2009 (latest data available).  A rise from 12.6% to 13.6% isn’t desirable (that’s over one in eight teenagers using pot this year), but it is only a rise of 7.9%, not “a disturbing” 22%.

So how does PATS get 39% teen use and NSDUH get 13.6%?  Well, PATS’ survey covers 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, and once we consider high school seniors, we’re adding in some 18- and a few 19-year-olds.  Once you get to adults 18-25, 52.6% of teens have used cannabis, 31.3% within the past year and 18.6% within the past month.

But maybe that’s still cause for alarm for some parents.  Maybe they worry that their 18-year-old adult child who is entrusted to choose our leaders, smoke cigarettes, buy and watch and act in porn, purchase long guns, and enter into legally-binding contracts, including one with the US government to defend the Constitution in the armed forces, might be smoking a little pot.

The report makes the point that the perception by youth of the harms of drug and alcohol use closely correlate with youth use rates.  When kids think a drug is less harmful, they are more likely to use it.

These beliefs are critically important:  data from the University of Michigan’s annual “Monitoring the Future” survey of 8th, 10th and 12th grade high school students, going back to 1975, show that teens’ perceptions of the risk and social disapproval of drug use correlate very closely with drug taking behavior – more closely than demographic characteristics such as race / ethnicity, socio-economic status or geography.

To the drug warriors at The Partnership, this is an indictment of progressive medical marijuana laws and society’s increased acceptance of adult use.  The kids think cannabis is a drug with a low potential for addiction, mild side effects, lack of toxicity, and generally good experiences for most of the people who use it.  We’ve lost all the declines in youth marijuana use since 1998!

What else has changed since 1998?  A whole generation of kids who have grown up in the medical marijuana era and the social networking era.  On the West Coast, an eighteen-year-old has known of medical marijuana since age four or six.  Eighteen-year-olds elsewhere in the country grew up with their parents deciding on medical marijuana issues in their states.  Other eighteen-year-olds grew up with Google, Facebook, and NORML (among numerous excellent drug truth sites) and could debunk Partnership for a Drug-Free America fried egg ads for themselves.

In other words, their indictment is correct, but their conclusion is flawed.  Yes, when kids learn that cannabis doesn’t turn their brains to scrambled eggs and that adults can use it responsibly in a medical context, they are less likely to perceive it as harmful and more likely to try it.  It’s interesting that marijuana and ecstasy – two of the least harmful drugs – are trending upward while more harmful drugs are “holding steady” and “remained stable”…

According to the PATS survey, teen abuse of prescription (Rx) medicines continues to be an area of major concern, with abuse rates holding steady…

Teen past-year use of over-the-counter (OTC) cough medicine has remained at roughly one in ten (11 percent).

Past-year teen inhalant abuse remains at 10 percent…

Teen smoking rates have remained stable with 27 percent of teens reporting smoking cigarettes in the past month. Among teens, past-year methamphetamine use is holding at 5 percent and cocaine/crack is at 9 percent. Teen use of heroin use remains low at 4 percent for lifetime use.

If The Partnership wants to help convince more kids to abstain or delay their pot smoking, they are going to have to do better than girlfriend-stealing aliens and talking cartoon dogs.  The kids can find out the truth about cannabis on their own now; lying to them about marijuana isn’t going to work.

By the way, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, originally a bunch of Mad Men (ad execs), changed its name back in October.  They are now The Partnership at DrugFree.org.  They claim the name change reflects their evolving mission to provide resources to parents.  I believe the reason is similar to the reason why Gateway Gil Kerlikowske says he ended the “War on Drugs” – both imply there is a goal that can actually be achieved.  If you have a “War on Drugs”, that suggests that you could actually defeat drugs and the war would be over.  A “Drug-Free America” suggests the outcome of the successful “War on Drugs”.  When the government and media are distancing themselves the concept of a war that can make America drug-free, they’re admitting they never intend to change their policy of drug prohibition and cannabis demonization.

It probably only bugs me since I can no longer use the “Partnership for a Drug (Companies) Free (from Natural Competition) America” phrase.  The Partnership tries to distance themselves from that characterization, too:

Aren’t you funded by the alcohol and tobacco companies?

The Partnership at Drugfree.org accepts no funding nor in-kind services from alcohol or tobacco manufacturers.

Do you receive support from pharmaceutical companies?

The Partnership at Drugfree.org has been concerned for several years by the high levels of teen abuse of prescription drugs, and has worked with numerous partners and funders to educate parents about what they can do to prevent or get help for their children’s abuse of medicine that was not prescribed for them. Those funders have included the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as well as a number of pharmaceutical companies who are also concerned about the misuse and abuse of their otherwise beneficial products. These companies have provided The Partnership at Drugfree.org with unrestricted support for research on prescription drug abuse, for web-based educational modules and for community education programs delivered at the grassroots level.

Ah, so the money that is “unrestricted” wouldn’t be simply limited to preventing the “misuse and abuse of their otherwise beneficial” drugs, but could also be used to fund “web-based educational modules” like “Stoners in the Mist” that lie about and dehumanize cannabis consumers?  Gotcha.

What is your position on legalization of marijuana?

The position of The Partnership at Drugfree.org on legalization is based on the perspective of parents, our core constituency. Many parents understand that marijuana can be harmful, especially for kids whose brains are still developing.

From a parent’s viewpoint, it’s already hard enough to keep kids away from alcohol and tobacco, both legal and regulated substances.

Adding marijuana to the menu of legally available and potentially harmful substances will make it more likely that kids will use it.

This not only adds to the challenges parents face, but directly affects the percentage of kids who will have problems because of the increased ease of access to marijuana, including drugged driving and dependence (marijuana is the number one drug abused among teens admitted for treatment today).

And, marijuana, like other intoxicants, damages relationships, affects the quality of work (academic or other) and limits potential.

From this perspective, we don’t support legalized marijuana.

But we’re perfectly fine with adults drinking.  Hell, that’s where we got our start!

* No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!…

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Monday we brought you the latest figures from the Monitoring the Future survey which showed that for the first time in the 8th, 10th, & 12th grade, more kids are smoking marijuana than cigarettes.  This is due to a dramatic drop in teen use of tobacco, coupled with a slight increase in teen use of marijuana.  Teen use of other drugs has fallen for every illegal substance surveyed but marijuana, so naturally the reefer mad prohibitionists are spinning the data as evidence that the marijuana law reform debate is seducing our children!

(WHSV Virginia) A recently released survey suggests teenagers are smoking more marijuana. Some experts believe that could be because of the increased use of medical marijuana or the fact that it’s readily available.

Like cigarettes, marijuana, commonly referred to as weed or pot, is a gateway drug.

Now I can point you to the surveys showing that teen use of marijuana declined following passage of medical marijuana in each state that did so, at a rate greater than the national average.  The slight uptick over the past two years still doesn’t counter the fact the teen use is far lower now than before California passed Prop 215 in 1996.

But it may be easier to just use their own reefer madness against them.  You say marijuana is a “gateway drug”, yet teen use of all drugs except marijuana has gone down.  So how, exactly, is that gateway working?  Seems to me that some may be switching to marijuana instead of other harmful drugs.

(Injury Board Blog, Lansing, MI) In the survey of 47,097 students, the researchers found that cigarette smoking, binge drinking, and methamphetamine use are down. However, the news on increased marijuana use is discouraging. Furthermore, despite the fact that marijuana is the most popular drug amongst teenagers, the researchers still found an increase in prescription drug abuse in the students, particularly Vicodin and Oxycontin.

So, then, is marijuana use the gateway to legal drugs like Vicodin and Oxycontin?  I doubt it, since teens are informed enough to know that those drugs flush through your system quickly and won’t endanger their spot on the football team, chess club, or student loan application from a random drug test, unlike marijuana.  I think the gateway to prescription drug abuse is parents that don’t strictly control the access to their prescriptions.  Parents that will lock the liquor cabinet in the kitchen to protect their kids often don’t consider locking the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

White House drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, attributes the increase in marijuana use to a lack of education about the dangers of smoking pot. He believes that the alarming trend emphasizes the greater need for parents and authorities to increase anti-marijuana campaigns.

Well, of course he does.  Here’s the problem: the last anti-marijuana campaigns you guys tried backfired and caused more teens to want to try marijuana!  Here’s another problem: smoking pot just isn’t all that dangerous.  It’s not harmless – no mind-altering substance is – but you’re not going to overdose, you’re not going to have major withdrawal, you’re not going to get sick and puke, you’re not going to steal to feed your habit, you’re not going to become belligerent and harm others, you’re not going to fry your brain, you’re not going to be poisoning your liver, and you’re not going to get cancer.

If you want to reduce teen marijuana use, as we do, you can’t rely on lies and scaremongering in the age of “the Google”.  Tell a kid that the joint you found in his pocket means a one-way ticket to being an unemployed cancer-ridden heroin junkie and three clicks on a computer will make you a liar.  Then when you need to tell him or her about the real dangers of other drugs you have no credibility.

(Marietta Times) Warren High School sophomore Tylar Kinkade, 16, said she has encountered teen drug and alcohol use since she started high school. The national study indicates about a third of all high school students have used marijuana within the past year.

Kinkade said on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the most dangerous, alcohol would be about a three, marijuana a five and prescription drugs would score a nine.

“We’re taught that all drugs are bad, but when it comes to danger, I think most of us think some are more dangerous than others,” she said.

And based on what you’ve been taught, Tylar, it seems you’d feel safer drinking at a house party than smoking a joint.  Teens just like you die every year from binge drinking at parties, but never from smoking a joint, and the “all drugs are bad” education you’ve received is going to lead you to more dangerous choices.  (By the way, I’d give marijuana a 2, prescription drugs a 7, and alcohol an 8.)

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• Jim Miller and Ken Wolski, founders of Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey and Chris Goldstein, Executive Director of NORML New Jersey, on the trial of multiple sclerosis patient John Wilson, facing 20 years for growing 17 plants for medical purposes. Wilson is not only not allowed to mention his medical use of marijuana, the judge has forbidden him from even mentioning that he has multiple sclerosis.

Wanna protect your brain from this? Smoke a joint!

(Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Researchers from the University of California, San Diego, used high-tech scans to compare microscopic changes in brain white matter in teens aged 16 to 19 who were divided into three groups: binge drinkers (boys who consume five or more drinks at one sitting, and girls who have four or more drinks); binge drinkers who also smoked marijuana; and a control group with little or no experience with either alcohol or drugs.

As expected, the binge drinkers showed signs of white matter damage in all eight brain regions examined by the researchers. But the binge drinkers/marijuana users had less damage in seven out of the eight brain regions than the binge drinkers did. And compared to the control group, the binge drinkers/marijuana users had more white matter damage in only three regions.

The researchers wrote that brain white matter tracts were “more coherent in adolescents who binge drink and use marijuana than in adolescents who report only binge drinking.” They said it’s “possible that marijuana may have some neuroprotective properties in mitigating alcohol-related oxidative stress or excitotoxic cell death.”

So, naturally, when these 16-to-19-year-olds graduate and go to college, we immerse them in an alcohol-saturated party culture and forbid them from using cannabis.  It is illegal for them to be using either drug, so we provide slap-on-the-wrist penalties for the alcohol use but kick them out of the dorms, surrender their college aid, require random urine screening, and saddle them with a criminal drug record that makes the top careers and positions all but impossible to attain.

Because we want to protect the children.  For God’s sake, won’t somebody think about the children?!?

The New York Times has a nifty interactive map based on data from the 2006-2007 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (more data here).  It provides a drop-down menu to choose which dataset you’d like, which I naturally used to choose “Percent of people 12+ who have used marijuana in the past year”.  Based on that information, your Top Five Stoner States are:

1. Rhode Island (16.12%)
2. Vermont (15.75%)
3. Alaska (13.79%)
4. Oregon (13.12%)
5. Colorado (12.99%)

Surprised that California isn’t in that list?  Me, too.  I’m not at all surprised by Vermont, Alaska, Oregon, and Colorado, but stunned that Rhode Island came in at #1.  I’d caution that this represents everyone from the once-a-year-at-a-concert toker all the way through the daily Stasher.  If frequency and amount used were considered, I’d be willing to wager we here in Oregon are, uh, higher than #4.  Curious about your Bottom Five?

1. Utah (7.17%)
2. Iowa (7.32%)
3. Mississippi (7.79%)
4. Texas (7.92%)
5. Alabama (7.96%)

That #1 result for Utah shouldn’t surprise anyone with its majority Mormon population that even rejects coffee drinking.  Another category where Utah is number one is consumption of Jell-O, which was named the official state snack.  Oddly enough, the one time Utah lost its Jell-O crown was when Iowa briefly overtook them.  So I wonder, is there some sort of yin/yang thing going on between cannabis and gelatin snacks?  If you’re too high does it make it tough to follow the Jell-O recipe, or is it that you get such munchies you don’t have time to wait for Jell-O to set?  By the way, does anybody have a recipe for ganja Jell-O; maybe that’s the solution?

I also thought it would be interesting to look at the Top Five States for Binge Alcohol Drinking:

1. North Dakota (32.02%)
2. Wisconsin (28.84%)
3. Minnesota (28.75%)
4. South Dakota (28.34%)
5. Rhode Island (27.92%)

Apparently Rhode Island is the place to get your drink on and your smoke on.  But for the other Top Five Stoner States, binge drinking rates fall somewhere in the middle of the country from Oregon (21.71%) and Alaska (22.74%) toward the lower range and Vermont (25.57%) and Colorado (26.15%) toward the upper range.  Unsurprisingly, Utah (15.64%) is at the bottom of this list as well.  I suppose if Jell-O vodka shots aren’t bumping that number up, ganja Jell-O won’t likely work, either.

(Los Angeles Times) One of the people who was instrumental in pushing for laws to increase the legal drinking age to 21 now calls his actions “the single most regrettable decision” of his career.

Dr. Morris Chafetz, a psychiatrist who was on the presidential commission in the 1980s that recommended raising the drinking age to 21, made his remarks in an editorial that he is shopping for publication and which he released to the advocacy group Choose Responsibility. Chafetz wrote the editorial to mark the 25th anniversary of the law that was signed by President Ronald Reagan on July 17, 1984.

“Legal Age 21 has not worked,” Chafetz said in the piece. “To be sure, drunk driving fatalities are lower now than they were in 1982. But they are lower in all age groups. And they have declined just as much in Canada, where the age is 18 or 19, as they have in the United States.”

Chafetz said the law instead has resulted in “collateral, off-road damage” such as binge drinking that occurs in underage youth and crimes like date rape, assaults and property damage.

NORML doesn’t take a stand on the use of other drugs, other than to report scientific and medical facts about them.  For instance…

(MSNBC) Alcohol abuse kills some 75,000 Americans each year and shortens the lives of these people by an average of 30 years, a U.S. government study suggested Thursday.

Excessive alcohol consumption is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States after tobacco use and poor eating and exercise habits.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which published the study, estimated that 34,833 people in 2001 died from cirrhosis of the liver, cancer and other diseases linked to drinking too much beer, wine and spirits.

Another 40,933 died from car crashes and other mishaps caused by excessive alcohol use.

And to remind you that cannabis is a far safer substance for your body and for society and its greatest harm is caused by its prohibition.

I, however, will make some personal observations about drinking age.  Way back in the Eighties, when my ties were skinny and my shoes were checkered, the drinking age in my home state of Idaho was 19.  The Summer of ’84 was the one before senior year in high school for me, but I was only 16 and my friends were all 17 and close to 18 (I started first grade a year early because I was reading the copyright notices on the handouts for “C is for Cat” on my first days in kindergarten).

That law got signed by President Reagan and all the states were now under the blackmail threat of losing federal highway funds if they didn’t raise their drinking ages to 21.  Idaho, however, is a very libertarian-minded state.  Our state dug in its potato-mashing heels and kept the age at 19 all through my senior year and through my college years.  I am constantly humiliated by my friends all turning 19 and me being unable to join them as they went out to the nightclubs to cruise for wild American foxes because I’m still 17 or 18.

I did drink, though.  It was that Summer of ’84 when I first drank alcohol.  Ghost Busters was playing at the Frontier Cinema (motto: there are plenty of good seats where ceiling plaster won’t fall on you) and me and the guys snuck in Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers in our trenchcoats.  Yes, we ran around in trenchcoats in the summer.  It was the Eighties and way before Columbine.  I got hammered on the six I’d snuck in.  I even knocked over the empty bottles as we left and everyone laughed as they rolled forever down the sloped theater floor.  From that point forward, drinking was a fairly routine part of our weekend party plans.

Fast forward to January of 1989.  Democratic Gov. Cecil Andrus is prepared to sign the bill passed by the Republican-dominated legislature to raise the drinking age to 21.  I am 18 years old, about to turn 19 on the last day of the month and finally join my brothers in the quest for the ever-elusive wild American foxes.  But in an amazing turn of events, ol’ Cec is out of the state and Republican Lt. Gov. Butch Otter is in charge when the bill hits the governor’s desk.  Ol’ Butch, a strong libertarian, perhaps too a fan of wild American foxes, vetoes the bill!  It was the best birthday present ever!  I turned 19, the bill didn’t get back to Andrus’s desk until April, but as it raised the age to 21 it also grandfathered-in those of us who were already drinking.

And I mean “drinking”.  Dropping out of college, becoming a full-time rock musician, and living in big rental houses with a bunch of dudes having contests over how much and how fast we could drink.  It would be another three years of that before I discovered cannabis and my drinking tapered off.

As for the drinking age, I think that if you can join the military, you can have a beer.  Or a joint.  If there is an age of majority, let it be one age.  Eighteen feels right socially – you’re out of high school, off to college, voting – and it seems right developmentally.  Let adults be adults and let’s be consistent about who the adults are.

In this particular article, two Oklahoma State football players were arrested for Marijuana possession. As you read this article and my opinion, try and put yourself or one of your children in the place of one of these young men.

Stillwater Newspress - Two Oklahoma State football players — sophomore Jamal Mosley and freshman Dexter Pratt — have been charged with one count each of misdemeanor possession of marijuana in court documents filed on Wednesday.

Both players were charged on June 17 and arraignment for both is scheduled for July 29.

OSU media relations said Thursday that OSU head coach Mike Gundy is out of town and would have no immediate comment on the situation and that information on the situation would likely come within the next few days.

Mosely, a tight end, is expected to battle for the starting spot while Pratt was one of the top incoming recruits for the Cowboys at running back. There has been talk of Pratt redshirting with Kendall Hunter and Keith Toston expected to see much of the playing time.

Police records said that both players possessed and controlled within a residence a small plastic bag containing what appeared to be, and subsequently field tested positive as a small amount of marijuana.

Most people will probably snicker after reading this and move onto more important things in their lives. But, for these athletes, their dilemma has just got started.

Because they are college students, they will probably lose their college loan, and also any scholarship they may have earned. You see, these athletes signed a contract with their university which allows them to compete in athletics. The contract specifies each athlete will support NCAA rules and regulations.

Let’s see what the NCAA requires when one fails a drug test:

NCAA Positive Test Result
If the NCAA tests you for the banned drugs listed in Bylaw 31.2.3.1 and you test positive, you will lose a season of competition in all sports if the season of competition has not yet begun for you. If the season of competition has begun, you will lose one full season of competition in all sports – i.e. remaining contests in the current season and contests in the following season up to the time that you were declared ineligible in the previous year.

Now let’s not forget these guys live in a state with extremely draconian Marijuana laws. The article didn’t mention the quantity the athletes were charged with, but assuming it was a smaller amount, the laws leave a great deal of discretion to the judge. They could receive any amount in fines and up to 1 year in prison for simply choosing a safer alternative. Is this the message we want to send our children as they approach college?

There is a really good chance that one or both of them will have to leave his college dreams behind and go to work. Since they have a drug conviction, the only jobs they can find are the kind of jobs that you and I don’t want to do. Over time they see their friends succeed financially, and it’s only logical to conclude that some people in their position have turned to selling drugs. Why not? The rationalization is that society has already made them outcasts and the only way to make an appropriate income means selling contraband or committing crimes.

In comparison, college binge drinking is a worse offense, although tolerated by universities a great deal more than Marijuana use.

According to Mothers Against Drunk Drivers

* 54 percent of binge drinking college students black out and forget what they did or where they were at some point in the year. For students who don’t binge drink, the number was 25 percent.
* 48 percent of the alcohol consumed at a 4 year college is consumed by an underage student.
* 44 percent of students report symptoms of alcohol abuse and dependency
* 25 percent of students say they have faced academic consequences (missing class, getting a bad grade, etc.) as a result of drinking.
* On average, students who have more than 5 drinks per occasion have a GPA that is half a grade lower than the GPA for other students.

A little non-toxic Marijuana isn’t going to hurt you, but alcohol may kill you and you might just take a few people with you when you slam your car head-on into someone else.

Think for just a moment; our standing President admitted he had used Marijuana earlier in his life. The only difference between these young men and our current standing president is they got caught, he didn’t. Does that sound fair to you?

Mr. President, can you take just a moment of your time to address the growing number of Americans who are clamoring to get your support for Marijuana legalization? I know you think it’s really funny, but people are going to prison and lives are being ruined every day because you can’t stop laughing long enough to be a real president. Step up, your constituents are demanding it.

(ABC News) Whether it’s binge drinking or addiction to alcohol, Americans have a real problem with the bottle.

So says new research released Monday, which found that nearly one out of three Americans can expect to have a problem with alcohol at some time during their lives.

“We found that 30.3 percent of the U.S. population at some time in their lives — though maybe not currently — has had an alcohol use disorder,” said study author Bridget Grant of the Division of Biometry and Epidemiology at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Compared to 9% of marijuana smokers who develop some form of clinical dependency.

But perhaps most sobering was the fact that few with alcohol problems ever reached out for help.

“What we found was that very few people who have lifetime disorders ever seek treatment,” Grant says, adding that only 24 percent of those suffering from alcohol dependency seek help. The percentage of those seeking treatment for alcohol abuse is even lower, at 7 percent.

Have you considered arresting people for possession, sales, or home-brewing of alcohol?  Dr. Kevin Sabet tells me that this is an excellent way of getting people into treatment.  ”The activist-phrase ‘treatment over incarceration’ or ‘treatment versus incarceration’ is an accepted term within the drug policy discourse,” Dr. Sabet writes regarding the 1000% increase in marijuana treatment admissions in New York City, coinciding with Mayor Guiliani’s crackdown on marijuana smokers. “Indeed, this paper suggests that law enforcement intensity may be one of many different activities that could increase treatment entry.”

If it works so well with pot smokers why wouldn’t you apply the prohibit-arrest-sentence-to-treatment model to alcohol users, who are getting into domestic abuse problems, impaired driving problems, and aggressiveness problems unlike cannabis users?  Oh, yeah, because we tried that in the 1920s and it didn’t work.