The 2008 National Survey on Drug Use & Health was released today.  This is the annual survey where federal surveyors go door-to-door asking people if they smoke, drink, and do drugs.  So keep in mind as you review these figures that these represent people aged 12 and older who are willing to admit to breaking state and federal laws when asked by a total stranger at their doorstep.

Use of Marijuana is up again for nearly every age demographic and frequency of use

Lifetime Use of Marijuana:  In 2007, 40.6% of Americans admitted to trying cannabis at least once in their life.  This year, the figure rose to 41%, representing an additional 2 million Americans who’ve smoked pot, for a total of 102,404,000.  Youth marijuana use rose for 12-, 13-, & 15-year-olds and declined slightly for 14-, 16-, and 17-year-olds.  At ages 18 & 19, lifetime use remained topped 40%, and for adults in their twenties, over half have tried marijuana (ex. age 20 = 49.8%).  Lifetime use figures for thirty-somethings declined to mid-48% levels.  The highest lifetime use rates were reported among Americans in their forties, with 55.1% of those 40-44 and 57.6% of those 45-49 having “experimented a time a two in their youth”, as President Bill Clinton once said.  More than half (53.2%) of people in their early fifties have tried marijuana.

If you meet someone aged 20-55, flip a coin.  Heads they’ve smoked pot, tails they know someone who has.

Regular Adult Use of Marijuana: Focusing now only on adults aged 18 and older, we find that 43.7% of all adults – a record 98,296,000 people – have tried marijuana.  But also, past year (annual) and past month use of marijuana has risen among adults.  A full 10% of all adults used marijuana at least once in the past year – 22,531,000 people – and a full 6% of all adults have consumed cannabis in the past month – 13,546,000.  This represents 593,000 new annual tokers and 784,000 new monthly tokers since the 2007 survey.

Is it really conceivable that 10% of the American people are criminals this year? The current US prison population is 2.1 million – is it really possible that this month there are almost six-and-a-half times more criminals on the streets than behind bars?

Prevalence of Adult Marijuana Use:  For the 22,531,000 adults who used marijuana this year, we find those users to be using more often.  Among 18-25-year-olds, infrequent use (<12 days in a year) dropped from 31.9% to 30.6%, and for those 26 and older, it dropped from 34.1% to 33%.  Among annual users, 41.1% of 18-25-year-olds tokers and 39.2% of the over-25-year-old tokers are using at least 100 days per year.  That makes 9,006,000 adults who are using marijuana at least 100 days per year and 3,586,000 who are nearly daily (300+ days per year) tokers.

That means there are more adult daily tokers than the population of Connecticut. There are more adult weekly tokers than the population of New Jersey.  There are more adult monthly tokers than the population of New York.  There are more people in America who’ve tried marijuana than the populations of California, Texas, New York, and Florida combined.

Related posts

• Who Are You? US Government Statistics on Adult Marijuana Users (8)
• Who Are You III: Workin’ like a Dog – Employment Statistics on Marijuana Users (2)
• Who Are You II: Industrious & Smart – More SAMHDA Stats on Adult Marijuana Users (1)

From the Denver Post:

Coloradans say they are doing less hard drinking than they did in the past few years but say they are more likely to smoke pot, according to a two-year federal assessment to be released today.

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health found Colorado was the only state to log a decrease in those who think they are at risk to binge- drink since the last study completed in 2006, from 29.8 percent in the previous study to 25.8 percent in the most recent.

Meanwhile, Colorado is one of seven states that notched “significant” increases in teens and adults who say they are more likely to smoke pot at least once a month than those who participated in the last government survey.

“We’ve been saying for some time that many adults want a safer alternative to drinking,” said Mason Tvert, executive director of the Denver-based pot-legalization group Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation, which has passed two pro-pot public votes in the city since 2006.

The increase in stoners could logically be tied to the rocky economy, said Tvert, co-author of a book to be released in August that measures the economics of getting buzzed, “Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Do We Drive People to Drink?”

The report also puts Colorado among the top 10 states for:

• The highest illicit-drug use in every age category.
• Failure of teens and adults who need alcohol treatment to receive it.
• Survey takers using cocaine in the past year.

The report and raw numbers for each state, to be released today, will be posted at oas.samhsa.gov/2k7state/TOC.cfm.

Even though the previous drug czar, John Walters, commonly characterized Americans as stupid for choosing a safer alternative, it’s not stupid.

We all know that alcohol kills brain cells, impairs judgment, and has a measurable addiction rate. Alternatively, Cannabis – when consumed responsibly – can help one’s health and happiness.

I’m proud of you folks who live in Colorado for choosing a safer alternative! Lead the charge, Lead the Country and Free the Weed!

[I'll testify - these Coloradoans are not only smoking more pot, it's really good pot! -- "R"R]

Related posts

• Stash for Tue, Sep 2, 2008 (4)
• Stash for Tue, Jun 24, 2008 (0)
• Stash for Thu, Sep 4, 2008 (0)

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Amid grim news of record deficits unveiled in the US budget, marijuana advocates are welcoming legislation in US states they say could blossom into billions of dollars in tax revenue.

San Francisco state lawmaker Tom Ammiano introduced a bill last Monday projecting a 14-billion-dollar tax base for the full retail treatment — buying, selling and growing cannabis.

The leading legalization advocacy group behind Ammiano’s bill, Washington-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), says recession is prompting otherwise skeptical state houses to revisit the ban on marijuana.

Over the last few months NORML has been drafted to work with state lawmakers — even in conservative locales like Texas — on budgetary analysis and review how legalization may enable governments fill yawning deficits.

But legalization opponent Eric Voth is worried “the number of people who will start using or worsen their habit because of the lack of legal constraints is going to cost the system far more than what might be generated through taxation.”

Voth, chairman of the Institute on Global Drug Policy, contends marijuana advocates are “happy to lie to the public” about the gains of their proposals, with an end goal of cannabis legalization “at any cost.”

via AFP: US states mull weed to ease deficit pain.

Uh, Eric?  We’re using the government’s own numbers.  You are quick to call people liars, for example, the sick, disabled, and sense-threatened people you refer to as the “medical excuse movement”.  I think anyone who writes that:

• “Pathologic behavior such as psychosis is also associated with marijuana use” and 
• “Despite arguments from the marijuana advocates to the contrary, marijuana is a dependence-producing drug” and
• “The gateway effect of marijuana along with tobacco and alcohol is also well established in research” and
• “One must then realize that with marijuana the patient is exposed to a veritable “witches brew” of substances, most of which have never been examined for harmful effects.”

…ought to think about putting the rocks down and getting some Windex for that glass house they’re living in.

But let’s take your argument at face value and try to maintain a straight face doing it.  You propose that the legalization of marijuana would end up costing more in social costs through new users and increased use among current users than it would reap in law enforcement savings and direct taxation, plus indirect taxation on the payroll of new employees in this new industry and the economic benefits on ancillary industries that would support the new industry, plus the 800lb. gorilla of legalized industrial hemp farming that would be automatically created (if the marijuana that gets you high is legal, the stuff that doesn’t is going to be, too.)

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here

Related posts

• California headed “off the fiscal rails” (3)
• Without co-sponsor, Ammiano’s pot bill lagging (1)
• Weekend Poll Question (3)

Big hat tip to Dan and Aaron out at the MPP Blog who asked two questions of Drug Czar John Walters at his press conference last week for the release of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.  Go check out the videos, they’re only 3:30 each and watching Walters rhetorically slither around, over, and past MPP’s questions is watching political doublespeak spin at its finest.  I just had to bring you a couple of gems from the Drug Czar.

We just announced that 872,721 Americans were arrested for marijuana in 2007, and of those arrests, 89% or 775,138 were arrests for simple possession, this according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2007.  Well, according to Walters, after all these arrests – over 5 million during the Bush Administration – nobody goes to jail for simple possession.  He says “first-time, non violent” offenders in prison for possession of marijuana are like “unicorns”.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

After all, according to Walters, “we didn’t arrest 800,000″ people for marijuana last year.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Walters wants you to think all the people arrested for marijuana were (a) pleading their case down from a larger cultivation or trafficking charge, (b) involved in some other sort of violent crime, or (c) involved in a driving while intoxicated charge.

(a) If they’re pleading down charges, you sure are letting a whole lot of growers and traffickers avoid serious jail time (thanks, I guess) – so how is it that you’re so lenient on the marijuana growers/sellers (11% of marijuana arrests) but so tough on the heroin/cocaine traffickers (27% of heroin/cocaine arrests) and the meth/Ecstasy labs (31% of meth/Ecstasy arrests)?  You might lead people to believe you don’t think marijuana is as bad as those other drugs, don’t you think?

(b) If you’re arresting them for violent crimes and then tacking on the marijuana charges, how is it your violent crime arrests have remained steady or declined while marijuana charges have increased, and how is it you have fewer violent crime arrests than marijuana arrests?  

(c) If these are all DUI-related, how is it that DUI arrests have dropped 1.8% in the past ten years while marijuana arrests have increased by 28% over the same period of time?

I know!  There must have been a huge increase in the number of drunk-driving, gun-toting, pot-growing unicorns over the past ten years!

Related posts

• The Drug War’s Latest Tally: 872,721 Pot Arrests, an All-Time High (0)
• Drug Czar turns pot smokers into hard drug addicts (2)
• Venezuela rejects visit of U.S. Drug Czar Walters (0)

The new National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH… one of my favorite acronyms… I like to call it “No Shit, DUH!) from the Subtance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA… sounds like a drunk calling for “Samantha”) for 2007 is now online.  I wonder why it was released without much fanfare during the landfall of a hurricane and the beginning of the Republican National Convention?  Surely the drug warriors would prefer the news of their incredible successes not get buried beneath so many other headlines, right?

Let’s see what major accomplishments have been acheived by the latest Drug Czar, John Walters, in the five years he has been on the job (2002 vs. 2007)

In 2002, of the population aged 12 and over, there were 19.5 million users of “any illicit drug” in the past month.  In 2007, the figure is 19.9 million.

In 2002, in that same demographic, there were 14.5 million marijuana users in the past month.  In 2007, the figure is 14.4 million.

So what would that headline be?  Drug Czar reduces monthly pot smokers by 100,000, but hard drug users increase by 400,000.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here

Related posts

• The Dr. Drew Transcript – Debunking the Drug Czar (and Drew!) (32)
• Latest Drug Czar Lies by Steve Clay (0)
• Drug Czar says drug war a success; NORML thinks differently (1)