EVERY demographic has increased its support for marijuana legalization since 2005

Yesterday we revealed The Top Ten “Reefer Madness” Stories of 2011.  Today we continue our Year-End Retrospective with a look at the biggest news stories of scientific research into cannabis, public opinion polls on legalization, and statistical research on cannabis consumers.  We call it The Top Ten Cannabis Science Stories of 2011.  Tomorrow we’ll continue with The Top Ten “Stupid Stoner Stories” of 2011 and Friday we conclude with the The Top Ten People in Cannabis of 2011.

The Top Ten Cannabis Science Stories of 2011 (audio mp3)

10. The Carbon Footprint of Cannabis

Cannabis Karri reported on a study that measured just how much electricity we’re using to grow cannabis indoors.

A new report conducted and published by Even Mills, PhD, a respected and long time energy analyst along with Staff Scientists at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory has concluded that Americans spend an amazing 1% of the entire national electricity consumption, or the equivalent of the output of seven large power plants on growing cannabis.

Since medical marijuana use has become so much more popular, and most of those states do not have a dispensary program, many more people are learning to grow marijuana indoors. The 20 terawatt-hours per year that marijuana growers use is due to the bright, often 24 hours a day lighting and an air change rate 60 times higher than a norml home. Even a modest indoor garden can have the same energy consumption rate of an entire data center. Since indoor cultivation of cannabis is a necessity to hide operations from authorities and others the energy bill to growers is about $5 billion each year. That extra energy to produce American cannabis is equal to the energy consumption of an extra 2 million average US homes. It also, unfortunately, produces greenhouse gas pollution equal to 3 million cars according to the new research.

9. Pot smokers are thinner and smarter than average

We have all suffered through jokes about cannabis consumers being fat, stupid couch potatoes.  So it was a joy in 2011 when two international studies found us to be thinner than our non-toking counterparts…

“We found that cannabis users are less likely to be obese than non-users,” [researchers said]. “We were so surprised, we thought we had [made] a mistake. Or that our results were due to the sample we studied. So we turned to another completely independent sample and found exactly the same association.”

…and smarter, too!

A new British study finds … men with high childhood IQs were up to two times more likely to use illegal drugs than their lower-scoring counterparts. Girls with high IQs were up to three times more likely to use drugs as adults. A high IQ is defined as a score between 107 and 158. An average IQ is 100. The study appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

None of this means taking up pot smoking is going to shed points and boost IQ.  It does mean that some popular stereotypes about us are completely unfounded.

8. Two-thirds of patients surveyed substitute marijuana for prescription medications

Many a medical marijuana activist can tell anecdotes of patients who’ve reduced or eliminated their need for opiate pain killers by substituting cannabis.  This year, Berkeley Patients Group surveyed their patients and found two-out-of-three had done just that.

In an anonymous survey, 66% of 350 clients at the Berkeley (Calif.) Patients Group, a medical marijuana dispensary, said that they use marijuana as a prescription drug substitute. Their reasons: Cannabis offered better symptom control with fewer side effects than did prescription drugs.

Those with pain symptoms said that marijuana has less addiction potential than do opioids. Others said marijuana helped to reduce the dose of other medications.

Speaking of the addiction potential of opioids…

7. Oxycontin is five times the “gateway drug” as marijuana

Prohibitionists have been using the “Gateway Drug” scare for years to frighten the public about legalization.  Despite every study blowing the concept out of the water, it still resonates with a large segment of the voters.  So I decided to take a look at the data to find out which drug is really the one with the greatest correlation to hard drug use, and it definitely wasn’t cannabis!

We cross-referenced the NSDUH numbers based on whether someone had ever tried marijuana. We found that only 1.5% of people who have toked became monthly cocaine users. For ecstasy, crack, meth, heroin, LSD, and PCP, less than 1% of the people who’ve tried pot are using those drugs regularly. Meanwhile, 2.9% of the people who’ve ever tried an legal analgesic (pain reliever) are regular cocaine users. For ecstasy, crack, and meth, more than 1% of who tried analgesics are regular users. People who tried analgesics are more than twice as likely as people who tried pot to use heroin regularly and three times more likely to use LSD regularly.

But if opponents want to cling to the idea that we should do everything in our power to stop someone from smoking that first marijuana joint, lest they become illegal drug addicts, then it is time to prohibit Vicodin, Lortab, Lorcet, and Oxycontin, those powerful legal opioid pain killers. The first Vicodin/Lortab/Lorcet leads to almost three times the risk of becoming a non-pot illegal drug user than the first joint and almost the same risk as smoking a joint every month. That first Oxycontin is more than five times the risk for drug abuse than the first joint.

6. Drug testing is still unreliable, inaccurate, unnecessary, invasive, and counter-productive

We drug test our citizens when we suspect they’re committing a crime, when they’re applying for a job, when they’re going to school, and when they’re in an accident.  Yet drug detection for marijuana is so unreliable and unscientific that its use is an affront to all free people.

First it is the “drug dog” that police and courts believe are akin to infallible scientific instruments instead of animals with instincts to please their human masters.

The accuracy of drug- and explosives-sniffing dogs is affected by human handlers’ beliefs, possibly in response to subtle, unintentional cues, UC Davis researchers have found.

The study, published in the January issue of the journal Animal Cognition, found that detection-dog teams erroneously “alerted,” or identified a scent, when there was no scent present more than 200 times — particularly when the handler believed that there was scent present.

Next it is the “drug lab” that may mishandle as many as one in ten tests.

An Indiana state lab wrongly reported 1 in 10 marijuana cases as positive, including some that were deliberately manipulated, an audit report indicated.

The audit’s findings showed errors in about 200 of 2,000 marijuana tests reported to law enforcement as having positive results, the Star said. This includes about 50 results the report said were consciously manipulated by lab workers.

Part of the justification for testing us for employment is workplace safety.  Yet, in medical marijuana states where tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens are legally using cannabis, we’ve seen drastic declines in workplace danger.

Prior to the beginning of the medical marijuana program [in Oregon], workplace injuries and illnesses that contributed to a lost workday stood at 3.4 per 100 full-time workers; in 2009 that rate is 2.3 per 100, a decline of 32%.  No-time-lost injuries and illnesses declined 40%, from 3.5 to 2.1 per 100.  Fatalities are down from 3.3 to 1.9 per 100, a drop of 42%.

These declines occurred while the medical marijuana patient registry grew by an average of a little more than 50% per year.

Another egregious use of drug testing is to make it a requirement of citizens seeking welfare assistance.  Florida’s law to do just that has been blocked while its (un-)constitutionality is determined, but in the time it was in effect, it cost Florida more than it saved.  It also found that welfare recipients were less likely to turn up positive than the general public.

The Department of Central Florida’s (DCF) region tested 40 applicants and only two tested positive for drugs, officials said. One of the tests is being appealed.

DCF said it has been referring applicants to clinics where drug screenings cost between $30 and $35. The applicant pays for the test out of his or her own pocket and then the state reimburses him if they test comes back negative.

Therefore, the 38 applicants in the Central Florida area, who tested negative, were reimbursed at least $30 each and cost taxpayers $1,140.

Meanwhile, the state is saving less than $240 a month by refusing benefits to those two applicants who tested positive.

Finally, the unintended consequences of drug testing became more apparent.  When marijuana is the drug that is the hardest to conceal on a drug test, people will turn to drugs that are easier to conceal.

As I looked at the data, I noticed that in the span from 2005 to 2011, the positive test rate for marijuana for all workplace drug tests (pre-employment, random, and post-accident) declined 20%, from 2.5% of approximately 2.4 million tests to 2.0%.  That’s about 12,000 fewer cannabis consumers who were caught by a pee test.

Meanwhile, oxycodone positives have increased 96% for all urine testing, although these tests are administered about one tenth as often (280,000) for oxycodone as for cannabis (2,400,000).  This despite the facts that while marijuana metabolites may be detected in urine for weeks, oxycodone metabolites are flushed from one’s system in two or three days.  Furthermore, random positives for oxycodone (1.20%) are almost twice as great and post-accident positives for oxycodone (1.80%) are nearly three-times greater than pre-employment positives for oxycodone (0.65%), which suggests to me that the pre-employment screens don’t work very well at keeping oxycodone users out of the workplace.

5. For past two years, more Americans arrested for marijuana than all other drugs combined despite arrest protection for America’s One Million Legal Marijuana Users

When somebody mentions “The War on Drugs”, remind them what we’re really talking about is a “War on Marijuana”.

Nationally, there were 1,638,846 drug arrests reported to the FBI, with 52.1% of those arrests for marijuana charges.  Last year, 51.6% of all drug arrests were for marijuana, showing a slight increase in marijuana as the majority of all drug arrests.  The last time marijuana made up a majority of the “War on Drugs” was 1985, when 55.6% of all drug arrests were for marijuana.

Keep in mind that these annual marijuana arrests continue to climb even as we reduce the number of marijuana users eligible for arrest in the medical marijuana state, users who grow and use the most marijuana.

Between one to one-and-a-half million people are legally authorized by their state to use marijuana in the United States, according to data compiled by NORML from state medical marijuana registries and patient estimates.  Assuming usage of one-half to one gram of cannabis medicine per day per patient and an average retail price of $320 per ounce, these legal consumers represent a $2.3 to $6.2 billion dollar market annually.

4. Drug Czar claims medical marijuana makes more young people smoke pot, despite fewer teens smoking pot

A popular refrain of the Drug Czar is that by calling marijuana “medicine”, we lead young people to think it is less dangerous, and therefore, use goes up.

“Emerging research reveals potential links between state laws permitting access to smoked medical marijuana and higher rates of marijuana use,” said Gil Kerlikowske, Director of National Drug Control Policy. “In light of what we know regarding the serious harm of illegal drug use, I urge every family – but particularly those in states targeted by pro-drug political campaigns – to redouble their efforts to shield young people from serious harm by educating them about the real health and safety consequences caused by illegal drug use.”

Except that medical marijuana’s been around on the West Coast for over a dozen years.  Between 2003 and 2009, as more states have adopted medical marijuana, nationally the rate of monthly teen use is on the decline.

In fact, eleven of the thirteen states that had medical marijuana as of 2009 saw declines in teen marijuana use, and the five that added it after 2003 saw double-digit declines.

From 2003 to 2009 in California, monthly teen use is up only 0.26%.  In Colorado, teen use is up 3.77% in that time frame.  Yet Wyoming, a state without medical marijuana, saw the greatest increase of 5.18%.  Furthermore, looking back before 2003, to 1996 and 1998 when the West Coast legalized medical marijuana, teen use is lower now than then.

3. The people really, really want to ask the President about the legalization of marijuana that half of them support

This year, the esteemed Gallup Poll finally recorded half of the US population in support of legalizing marijuana.

Gallup reports that the 50% nationwide support for legalization also represents the first time support has outweighed opposition.  Only 46% of Americans believe marijuana should remain criminalized, with 4% undecided.

Support for marijuana legalization remains greatest in the Western states (55%) and majorities support legalization in the Midwest (54%) and East (51%).  Only voters in the South still oppose marijuana legalization (44%).  Men still support legalization at a much greater rate than women (55% vs. 46%).

Support is also greatest among younger Americans (62%), Democrats (57%), and liberals (69%).  However, support for legalization has increased even in demographics generally opposed to legalization.  Compared to Gallup’s poll last year, support increased 4% points in the South, 12% points in the Midwest, and 6% points among 50-64, but fell 1% among 65+.  Support rose 6% points among Republicans, and 4% points among conservatives. Marijuana legalization is becoming more popular with just about everyone.

President Obama, seeking input from the people on policy questions, was stunned once again to find…

On the “We the People” petitions site of Whitehouse.gov, as of this writing, NORML’s “Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol” petition is #1 by a long shot.  It has garnered over 42,000 signatures.  It needed 5,000 signatures in 30 days to generate an official response from the administration, a figure it had topped in just over three hours.

And when he asked for videos from citizens on policy issues, another stunning result…

The top question, submitted by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, garnered 13,842 votes – over 1% of all votes cast (people could vote for more than one question).

As a police officer, I saw how waging the war on drugs has cost a trillion dollars and thousands of lives but does nothing to reduce drug use. Should we discuss legalizing marijuana and other drugs, which would eliminate the violent criminal market?

Of the 193,060 people who voted more than 7% voted for the LEAP question.  That’s about one in fourteen people who took the time to Ask Obama.

2. National Cancer Institute drama over anti-tumoral effects of cannabis

A very high-profile battle over scientific integrity played itself out on the webpage of Cancer.gov, the government’s site for the National Cancer Institute.  It began when the site surprisingly updated its summary page on cannabis and cannabinoids.

The potential benefits of medicinal Cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal Cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.

Cannabinoids may cause antitumor effects by various mechanisms, including induction of cell death, inhibition of cell growth, and inhibition of tumor angiogenesis and metastasis. [9-11] Cannabinoids appear to kill tumor cells but do not affect their nontransformed counterparts and may even protect them from cell death. These compounds have been shown to induce apoptosis in glioma cells in culture and induce regression of glioma tumors in mice and rats.

Then it appeared that somebody pressured NCI to revise its update to better align with the government’s prohibition of cannabis.  The paragraphs above were removed and replaced with:

The potential benefits of medicinal Cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. Though no relevant surveys of practice patterns exist, it appears that physicians caring for cancer patients who prescribe medicinal Cannabis predominantly do so for symptom management.

Then NCI updated the “clinical studies” portion of the website to again highlight the anti-tumoral effects:

One study in mice and rats suggested that cannabinoids may have a protective effect against the development of certain types of tumors.

Decreased incidences of benign tumors(polyps and adenomas) in other organs(mammary gland, uterus, pituitary, testis, and pancreas)were also noted in the rats.

Cannabinoids may cause antitumor effects by various mechanisms, including induction of cell death, inhibition of cell growth, and inhibition of tumorangiogenesis and metastasis.

Cannabinoids appear to kill tumor cells but do not affect their nontransformed counterparts and may even protect them from cell death.

1. Colorado’s 5ng/mL per se DUID bill dies again as new research backs higher thresholds for regular users

We tackled drug testing above in #6, but this story takes #1 for showing how science and the scientific method can actually beat back prohibition.  Colorado had proposed a 5ng of THC per milliliter of blood (5ng/mL) per se DUID, meaning: if you test positive on a drug test above 5ng/mL, you’re automatically guilty of DUI, whether you were impaired or not.

Naturally, many medical marijuana patients in Colorado complained that they are such frequent and heavy users of cannabis that they would never be under such a threshold.  Furthermore, most of them have developed a tolerance to cannabis’ effects that allows them to drive under its influence without impairment, much as we understand an “until you know how [Pill X] affects you, do not drive or operate heavy machinery” warning on a pharmaceutical.

The “pot critic” of Denver’s WestWord, William Breathes, decided to become the experiment by abstaining from cannabis use under controlled conditions.  After sixteen hours and a night’s sleep, upon awakening, presumably clean and sober, Breathes was tested at 13ng/mL.  This anecdotal report, splashed all over the Denver media, was also backed up by the latest scientific research:

It concludes: “A threshold of 2-3ng/ml THC as an indicator of recent drug use (i.e, smoking within the previous 6 hours) as recommended by Huestis et al appears to be valid only for occasional users. Heavy users might exhibit measurable cannabinoid concentrations in blood, even if the last cannabis use was more than 24 hours ago.… Therefore, cannabinoid concentrations in heavy users’ blood from a later elimination phase might not be distinguished from an acute use of an occasional user.”

Trying pain pills is three times more likely to lead to regular hard drug use than trying marijuana.

One of the most frustrating arguments presented by supporters of prohibition is the “Marijuana is a Gateway Drug” trope. The idea here is when you ask a heroin, cocaine, or meth addict “what was the first drug you ever tried?”, they inevitably answer “marijuana”. Therefore, the gateway theory goes, sparking up that first joint will begin the long slippery slide into crippling drug addiction.

It does not matter that government researchers have already declared in 1999 that “There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs“. The “gateway” theory is one of those urban legends that is proving very difficult to kill.

However, an analysis of the 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) shows that your first aspirin is more likely to be your gateway to hard drugs than your first joint.

We cross-referenced the NSDUH numbers based on whether someone had ever tried marijuana. We found that only 1.5% of people who have toked became monthly cocaine users. For ecstasy, crack, meth, heroin, LSD, and PCP, less than 1% of the people who’ve tried pot are using those drugs regularly. Meanwhile, 2.9% of the people who’ve ever tried an legal analgesic (pain reliever) are regular cocaine users. For ecstasy, crack, and meth, more than 1% of who tried analgesics are regular users. People who tried analgesics are more than twice as likely as people who tried pot to use heroin regularly and three times more likely to use LSD regularly.

We also find that binge drinkers – defined as 5 or more drinks at a sitting at least once a month – are more likely to be regular hard drug users than people who have tried marijuana. To be fair, alcohol supporters might point out that comparing regular beer use to one-time pot use is unfair, and when compared to regular marijuana users, beer users have 1/2 to 1/3 the hard drug regular use rates. In response, we’d say that regular beer drinkers don’t have to pick up a six pack from an illegal dealer who also sells other drugs.

But if opponents want to cling to the idea that we should do everything in our power to stop someone from smoking that first marijuana joint, lest they become illegal drug addicts, then it is time to prohibit Vicodin, Lortab, Lorcet, and Oxycontin, those powerful legal opioid pain killers. The first Vicodin/Lortab/Lorcet leads to almost three times the risk of becoming a non-pot illegal drug user than the first joint amd almost the same risk as smoking a joint every month. That first Oxycontin is more than five times the risk for drug abuse than the first joint.

NSDUH 2010 Figure 2.6 Past Month Use of Selected Illicit Drugs among Youths Aged 12 to 17: 2002-2010

Drug Czar “Gateway” Gil Kerlikowske reminds me of “Baghdad Bob”. Do you remember the invasion of Iraq back in 2003 when Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the spokesperson known as “Baghdad Bob”, issued such proclamations as “I triple guarantee you, there are no American soldiers in Baghdad” and “They are retreating on all fronts. Their military effort is a subject of laughter throughout the world”, even as tanks were entering the city on live TV feed behind him?  No matter what unbiased videotaped live evidence you would show “Baghdad Bob”, he would continue to spout the talking points that evidence clearly refuted.

Such is the case with “Gateway” Gil whenever the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) is released.  If drug use goes up, we aren’t fighting the drug war enough.  If drug use goes down, drug war worked and we need more of it.  USA Today presented the 2010 NSDUH numbers today with a headline touting the reduction in methamphetamine use:

National drug survey shows big drop in methamphetamine use

Marijuana is as popular as ever while methamphetamine is falling out of favor, a national drug-use survey has found.

USA Today’s framing of the story is everything we could hope for – marijuana use remains steady and meth use has dropped.  The report continues to tell us we now number 17.4 million regular tokers, defined as people aged 12 and older who have used cannabis in the past month.  That works out to 6.9% of the population… or closing in on as many monthly tokers as Floridians (18.8 million).  In 2007, just 5.8% of the population (14.4 million) was using cannabis monthly, so this could have easily been a “Pot use increased 21% in four years!” frame.

I’m never fond of relating statistics of “12 and older” because NORML believes non-medical cannabis use is solely an adult activity.  However, digging deeper into the data we find that the regular use of cannabis by children aged 12-17 really didn’t change much at all (from 7.3% to 7.4% over the past year).  It’s the college-aged adults among whom marijuana use has increased – from 16.5% in 2008 to 18.5% in 2010.

This is where “Gateway” Gil fires up the Wurlitzer to crank out his same old reefer madness medical marijuana bogeyman tune:

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, attributed the uptick in marijuana use to the increase in the number of states that have approved it for medical use. Delaware in May became the 16th state to approve medical marijuana.

“People keep calling it medicine, and that’s the wrong message for young people to hear,” Kerlikowske said.

Who are these people who keep calling cannabinoids medicine?  The US Patent Office?  The Institute of Medicine?  The American Medical Association?  For Gil Kerlikowske, apparently telling young people the truth is the wrong message.  And by young people we mean adults of voting, smoking, drinking, and car rental age.

The problem for “Gateway” Gil’s theory is that people have been recognizing cannabis’s medical properties under state laws since 1996 in California.  The entire West Coast and Colorado have had medical marijuana since 2000.  During that time, we saw teen use drop from 8.2% in 2002 (8 medmj states) to 6.7% in 2008 (13 medmj states).  Now it’s at 7.4% with 16 medical marijuana states, a rate lower than 2004, when there were only 10 medical marijuana states.

The blue states are where teen use went up slightly. Everywhere else, teen use dropped.

“Gateway” Gil continues in the official SAMSHA press release to confuse correlation with causation to blame medical marijuana for greater marijuana use rates:

“Emerging research reveals potential links between state laws permitting access to smoked medical marijuana and higher rates of marijuana use,” said Gil Kerlikowske, Director of National Drug Control Policy. “In light of what we know regarding the serious harm of illegal drug use, I urge every family – but particularly those in states targeted by pro-drug political campaigns – to redouble their efforts to shield young people from serious harm by educating them about the real health and safety consequences caused by illegal drug use.”

Yes, Gil, and that link would be that states with greater rates of marijuana use are more likely to pass marijuana law reforms.  The medical marijuana states had greater rates of use before they passed their laws and passing their medical marijuana laws didn’t increase the rates of use in those states by any greater amount than non-medical states.  Furthermore, use among teens dropped in most of those medical marijuana states following the passage of their medical marijuana law.

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1. San Diego Mayor won’t be going after the cannabis dispensaries, passes buck to zoning enforcement
2. Arizona Attorney General goes after illegal cannabis clubs that sprung up when he and the governor wouldn’t open the legal medical marijuana dispensaries
3. Israel’s government moves forward with medical marijuana program
4. Angus Reid’s latest poll shows 55% national support for legalization of marijuana
5. 2008-2009 State NSDUH data shows decline in teen pot smoking in all medical marijuana states except California and Colorado

Daily Toker Tunes

• Electric Tuesday: Ron Jenkees – “Disorganized Fun”

Reefer Madness Debunked

• “Gateway” Gil Kerlikowske and Bill “Snake Eyes” Bennett discuss legalization on CNN’s Situation Room

Remember last December when our Drug Czar, “Gateway” Gil Kerlikowske, was telling us how medical marijuana was to blame for rising teen pot use?

“If young people don’t really perceive that [marijuana] is dangerous or of any concern, it usually means there’ll be an uptick in the number of kids who are using. And sure enough, in 2009, that’s exactly what we did see,” Kerlikowske told ABC News Radio.

“We have been telling young people, particularly for the past couple years, that marijuana is medicine,” the former Seattle police chief argued. “So it shouldn’t be a great surprise to us that young people are now misperceiving the dangers or the risks around marijuana.”

Well, the latest data from the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services is out.  NORML took a look at page 264 of the State Estimates of Substance Use and Mental Disorders from the 2008-2009 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health, which compares teen use in the 2002-2003 survey with the 2008-2009 numbers.  In 2003 there were eight medical marijuana states; in 2009 there were thirteen.  Let’s see how monthly use of marijuana by children aged 12-17 changed in six years of medical marijuana’s rising popularity.

The blue states are where teen use went up slightly. Everywhere else, teen use dropped.

On this map, states shaded in blue are where teen use of marijuana on a monthly basis increased.  States with dark green outline had medical marijuana before 2003.  States with light green outline added medical marijuana between 2002-2009.  Don’t adjust your monitor; there indeed were only three states (and DC) where teen marijuana use increased:

• California +0.26%
• District of Columbia +1.08%
• Colorado +3.77%
• Wyoming +5.18%

The opponents of medical marijuana might seize on the fact that California and Colorado are the two states most associated with storefront dispensaries, so that’s why teen use went up.  But that doesn’t make a lot of sense when Wyoming, with no medical law, leads the nation in increase of teen use and Montana, which until this July had storefront dispensaries, had the greatest decrease in teen use of any medical marijuana state.  In fact, eleven of the thirteen states that had medical marijuana as of 2009 saw declines in teen marijuana use, and the five that added it after 2003 saw double-digit declines.

• Montana -27.09%
• Vermont -26.95%
• Hawaii -24.24%
• Maine -19.98%
• Alaska -17.15%
• Rhode Island -16.11%
• Washington -15.15%
• Michigan -14.95%
• New Mexico -10.92%
• Oregon -6.66%
• Nevada -6.37%

There was an overall decline in teen marijuana use nationwide of -13.08%, so it could be said that medical marijuana states Nevada, Oregon, and New Mexico saw less of a decline than the nation, but that would be true of non-medical states where marijuana use is still punished quite severely, like Idaho, Texas, and Indiana.

How many adults did we arrest for smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol to get these teen rates to drop so far?

NORML’s not trying to tell you that medical marijuana makes teen marijuana use go down.  Unlike Gateway Gil, we understand that correlation does not equal causation.  Teen use of marijuana depends on many factors, such as availability, social pressure, economy, law enforcement, perception of risk, and many others.  What we will tell you is that our prohibition policy against adult use hasn’t stopped kids from trying marijuana and has led to teen use of more dangerous substances like the “synthetic marijuana” incense products.  We will tell you that teen use of alcohol and tobacco, two legal and very addictive substances, have declined to their lowest rates ever thanks to strict ID carding, public education campaigns, and advertising restrictions.

When one of your cities has more Drug War murders than California, it refocuses your attention on ending the Drug War

The marijuana internets are abuzz with the latest headline about world leaders declaring the War on Drugs to be a failure and calling for the legalization of marijuana. Here are a few:

World Leaders: Time to End Marijuana Prohibition

Who’s Who of World Leaders Call Global Drug War a “Failure”

World Leaders Recommend Ending The ‘Failed’ Drug War

These headlines cover the report released by the Global Commission on Drug Policy yesterday.  However, I think the preceding headlines fail to make an important distinction, one that was not lost on the editors at NPR (emphasis mine):

‘Global War On Drugs Has Failed,’ Former World Leaders Say

MEMBERS OF THE GLOBAL COMMISSION ON DRUG POLICY

– Asma Jahangir; human rights activist, former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extrajudicial and Summary Executions; Pakistan.
– Carlos Fuentes; writer; Mexico.
– Cesar Gaviria; former president of Colombia.
– Ernesto Zedillo; former president of Mexico.
– Fernando Henrique Cardoso; former president of Brazil.
– George Papandreou; Prime Minister of Greece. [The exception that proves the rule? --"R"R]
– George Shultz; former secretary of state.
– Javier Solana; former European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy; Spain.
– John Whitehead; banker and civil servant, chair of the World Trade Center Memorial; United States.
– Kofi Annan; former secretary general of the United Nations.
– Louise Arbour; former U.N. high commissioner for human rights; Canada.
– Maria Cattaui; member of the board, Petroplus Holdings; former secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce; Switzerland.
– Marion Caspers-Merk; former state secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Health, Germany.
– Mario Vargas Llosa; writer; Peru.
– Michel Kazatchkine; executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; France.
– Paul Volcker; former chairman of the Federal Reserve.
– Richard Branson; entrepreneur; founder of the Virgin Group; U.K.
– Ruth Dreifuss- former president of Switzerland.
– Thorvald Stoltenberg; former minister of foreign affairs and U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees; Norway.

It’s rarely current world leaders expressing these sentiments.  They seem to only speak out after they are out of office and lacking the power to help end that “failure”.  I’ve been reporting on the “former leaders” who call for an end to the Drug War since 2008:

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox calls for debate on marijuana legalization

Latin American ex-presidents urge US to decriminalize marijuana, rethink drug war

Former UK Drug Warrior: “What harms society is the illegality of drugs…”

Fortunately a few brave leaders speak out while they are still in office:

Argentine president calls for decriminalization of drug use

Jamaica lawmaker calls for legalizing small amounts of marijuana for private use

And when they succeed in decriminalization of drug use, they get amazing results:

United Nations backs drug decriminalization

The success of drug decriminalization in Portugal

The report itself makes many of the same recommendations NORML has been touting for four decades now.  The former world leaders recommend that we stop ”the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others.”  They point out that “models of legal regulation of drugs” should be instituted by governments to reduce the power of organized crime and protect the health of citizens and that this “applies especially to cannabis.”  They explain that a realistic government drug policy would avoid “simplistic ‘just say no’ messages and ‘zero tolerance’ policies in favor of educational efforts”.  It’s nice to finally have world leaders, even former ones, recognizing we were and are right.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

Unfortunately, it’s the current ones – the ones who have the power to make these changes – we have to convince… and they’re not budging from their “Schedule I dangerous drug what about the children?!?” rhetoric:

(Los Angeles Times) ”Making drugs more available — as this report suggests — will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe,” said Rafael Lemaitre, spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

More available?  Almost 1 in 4  high school kids can get a bag of weed within an hour and say it’s easier to buy than beer and prescription drugs.  Twenty-five million American adults are using cannabis annually and fifteen million use monthly.  Marijuana is already quite available, it’s just a question of who controls and profits from the market – regulated businesses or violent criminals.

“Legalizing dangerous drugs would be a profound mistake, leading to more use, and more harmful consequences,” drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said this year.

Administration officials dispute the idea that nothing can be done to reduce the demand for drugs in the United States. A spokesman for the White House drug agency said U.S. consumption peaked in 1979, when surveys showed that 14% of respondents had used illegal drugs in the previous month. Now that figure has dropped to 7%.

Remember that when Gateway Gil says “drugs”, he means “marijuana”.  Among 12th graders, monthly use of marijuana peaked in 1978, but amphetamines peaked in 1981, cocaine use peaked in 1985, ecstasy use peaked in 2000, hallucinogen use peaked in 1975, heroin use peaked in 2000, and sedative use peaked in 1975.  Since marijuana is far more popular (15 million annual users) than all other drugs combined (6 million annual users), any movement of the marijuana numbers moves the “drugs” numbers.

And since he brought it up, I’d remind Gateway Gil that his claim of that monthly drug use dropped in half since 1979 came as sixteen states passed medical marijuana laws and two states decriminalized marijuana possession.  Your predecessors warned us that if we legalized marijuana, even in those very specific and limited ways, it would be a profound mistake, leading to more use, and more harmful consequences.  It’s understandable, since you and your predecessors are bound by law to oppose any move toward legalization, so you can understand when we completely ignore your Chicken Little warnings about legalization.

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!…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Which state has the most tokers? California? Sure, it’s a big state, but per-capita do they have more tokers than, say, Oregon? Is Colorado the new cannabis capital?

Nope! It’s our nation’s tiniest state with the toughest puffers, Rhode Island, where almost 11% of the population is consuming cannabis in the past month, according to the averages in the 2007-2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (latest figures available).

Click for a full-size copy

Marijuana is a Schedule I drug.  That means, according to the federal government:

• it has “a high potential for abuse” (some 16 million “abusers” every month);
• it has “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” (despite fifteen United States that do accept it and despite United States Federal Patent #6630507 describing its medical use);
• and there is no “accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision” (despite sending federal medical marijuana to four patients every month who use it safely under medical supervision).

But while the drug warriors were busy sounding the alarm about the new super-potent, wildly-addictive “Pot 2.0: It’s Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed!”, according to Martha Rosenberg at CounterPunch, drug manufacturers were making billions in 2010 selling to Americans the following ten drugs that mimic some of marijuana’s medical effects yet are far more dangerous:

1. According to research compiled by our own Paul Armentano in the new edition of NORML’s Emerging Clinical Applications For Cannabis & Cannabinoids: A Review of the Recent Scientific Literature, 2000 — 2011, “[T]he use of a standardized extract of Cannabis sativa … evoked a total relief … in an experimental model of neuropathic pain“.  Pfizer‘s Lyrica, Mylan Pharmaceuticals‘ Topamax and GlaxoSmithKline‘s Lamictal are drugs that are commonly prescribed for pain and migraine.  Their side effects?

All three drugs increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors according to their mandated labels, in addition to the memory and hair loss patients report.

2. The use of cannabis as an anti-depressant has been anecdotally reported for decades and recent research shows that in low doses, it can have an anti-depressant effect, but it seems to reverse if one takes too high a dose.  Regardless, you’re better off with the cannabis than with the side effects of Eli Lilly‘s Prozac, GlaxoSmithKline‘s Paxil, Pfizer‘s Zoloft, or other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRIs):

In addition to 4,200 published reports of SSRI-related violence, including the Columbine, Red Lake and NIU shootings, SSRIs can cause serotonin syndrome and gastrointestinal bleeding when taken with certain drugs. Paxil is linked to birth defects.

3. Combine our first two conditions, pain and depression, which we’ve shown cannabis to be effective at treating, and now you have the conditions addressed by a class of drugs known as selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs).  Pfizer‘s Effexor, Eli Lilly‘s Cymbalta, and Pfizer‘s Pristiq are commonly marketed in a cross-over fashion to both depression and pain sufferers, who get all the same risks of side-effects as the SSRI’s listed above, plus…

SNRI’s are also harder to quit than SSRIs. 739,000 web sites address “Effexor” and “withdrawal.”

4. Dr. Donald Tashkin found that people who smoke marijuana have not only less head, neck, and lung cancer risk than those who smoke cigarettes, but actually also have lower risk than those who don’t smoke at all.  Some of my friends have told me smoking marijuana helped address cravings as they were trying to quit smoking tobacco, but whether it actually helps medically is not known.  What is known is that Pfizer‘s popular anti-smoking drug Chantix is much more likely to affect your mental health:

After 397 FDA cases of possible psychosis, 227 domestic reports of suicidal behaviors and 28 actual suicides, the government banned pilots, air-traffic controllers and interstate truck and bus drivers from taking the antismoking drug Chantix in 2008.

5. Many a toker can relate that they use marijuana at the end of a long busy stressful day to relax and unwind, especially if they are having a tough time getting to sleep.  The popular sleeping pill, sanofi-aventis‘s Ambien, you may remember from the story of US Rep. Patrick Kennedy crashing his car in a fit of “sleep-driving”:

Law enforcement officials say it has increased traffic accidents from people who drive in a black out and don’t even recognize arresting officers.

6. THC may have the most powerful tumor-inhibiting properties known to medicine, something our government has been aware of since 1974.  There are at least four different scientific studies showing cannabinoids to inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells.  But then legal cannabis would severely curtail the sales of Astra-Zeneca‘s Tamoxifen breast cancer prevention drug:

As a breast cancer prevention drug, an American Journal of Medicine study found the average life expectancy increase from Tamoxifen was nine days. Public Citizen says for every case of breast cancer prevented on Tamoxifen there is a life-threatening case of blood clots, stroke or endometrial cancer.

7. ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) affects millions of Americans.  Recently new research has shown that cannabis can have very positive results for those trying to control their disorder.  However, we’re much more likely to hear of someone with ADHD using Novartis‘s Ritalin, Johnson & Johnson‘s Concerta, Eli Lilly‘s Strattera, Shire‘s Adderall, especially on children with ADHD:

ADHD drugs rob “kids of their right to be kids, their right to grow, their right to experience their full range of emotions, and their right to experience the world in its full hue of colors,” says Anatomy of an Epidemic author Robert Whitaker.

8. As strange as it may seem, many patients with asthma report using cannabis to help open their restricted airways.  Cannabis is a bronchodialator and can be used in a vaporized form to avoid the respiratory distress from cannabis smoke.  But cannabis is incapable of killing you, unlike the long-acting beta agonists (LABA) Foradil Aerolizer, GlaxoSmithKline‘s Serevent Diskus and Advair, and Astra-Zeneca‘s Symbicort often used to treat asthma symptoms:

Studies link them to an increase in asthma deaths, especially in African-Americans and children. They may have contributed to 5,000 deaths said Dr. David Graham at FDA hearings about the controversial asthma drugs.

9. Another set asthma control drugs known as leukotrine receptor agonists are also far more dangerous to you than vaporizing cannabis, like Merck‘s Singulair and Astra-Zeneca‘s Accolate.

Original FDA reviewers said asthma control “deteriorates” on Singulair and it may not be safe in children. Last month, Fox TV reported Singulair, Merck’s top selling drug, is suspected of producing aggression, hostility, irritability, anxiety, hallucinations and night-terrors in kids, symptoms that are being diagnosed as ADHD.

10. Finally, while not technically a medical use, many people use cannabis as a way to relax, have fun, and socialize with others.  Stress can be very damaging to one’s body and mind and cannabis is one of the most popular drugs used to combat it.  The most popular drug for socialization and relaxation, of course, is alcohol, marketed as Anheuser-Busch InBev‘s Budweiser, MillerCoors‘ Coors Light, Pabst‘s Blue Ribbon, and Boston Beer Co.’s Sam Adams.  While moderate consumption of alcohol may have some minor health benefits, habitual over-consumption, according to HealthCheck Systems, can lead to:

Arthritis - Increases risk of gouty arthritis
Cancer - Increases the risk of cancer in the liver, pancreas, rectum, breast, mouth, pharynx, larynx and esophagus
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome – Causes physical and behavioral abnormalities in the fetus
Heart Disease – Raises blood pressure, blood lipids and the risk of stroke and heart disease in heavy drinkers. Heart disease is generally lower in light to moderate drinkers.
Hyperglycermia - Raises blood glucose
Hypoglycemia - Lowers blood glucose, especially for people with diabetes
Kidney Disease - Enlarges the kidneys, alters hormone functions, and increases the risk of kidney failure
Liver Disease – Causes fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis
Malnutrition - Increases the risk of protein-energy malnutrition,; low intakes of protein, calcium, iron, vitamin A, vitamin C, thiamine, vitamin B6 and riboflavin, and impaired absorption of calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D and zinc.
Nervous Disorders – Causes neuropathy and dementia; impairs balance and memory
Obesity – Increases energy intake, but not a primary cause of obesity
Psychological disturbances – Causes depression, anxiety and insomnia

So why in the world would we prevent people from using the safe, natural, effective, non-toxic herb cannabis with so many proven benefits and so little risk of side effects?  Why would we force people to take a plethora of pills with proven dangerous side effects?  Why would we celebrate the use of poisonous alcohol and demonize the smoking of a benign weed?

2010 Reported Corporate Revenues:

Johnson & Johnson = $61.90 billion
Pfizer= $50.01 billion
GlaxoSmithKline = $45.83 billion
Novartis = $44.27 billion
Sanofi-Aventis = $41.99 billion
AstraZeneca = $32.81 billion
Merck & Co. = $27.43 billion
Eli Lilly = $21.84 billion
Anheuser-Busch InBev (2007) = $16.70 billion
MillerCoors = $3.03 billion
Pabst = $0.50 billion
Boston Beer Company = $0.46 billion
Every legal cannabis producing company combined = $0

Oh, wait, I remember…

Seems like the harder we work, the more often we smoke pot. Explain that "amotivational syndrome" to us again?

According to the latest National Surveys on Drug Use and Health, 10% of Americans working 31-to-50 hours per week have consumed cannabis over the past thirty days.  Over half of those (51%) will use cannabis more ten days per month and over one quarter (26%) will use cannabis almost every day.

The survey also indicated that among people working 30 or less hours per week who use cannabis, more used cannabis over the past thirty days than those working full time. Fifteen percent of those working 21-30 hours and 13% of those working 20 or less hours per week will consume cannabis.  However, their use rates are lower than the full time employed, with the majority (52% and 59%, respectively) using 10 or fewer days per month.  Only a little more than one fifth (21%) of these workers will use near daily.

Among those who work 51 or more hours per week, only about one in thirteen (7.65%) used cannabis in the past month.  However, that group also showed the most frequent rate by those who did use cannabis, with almost 30% using cannabis nearly every day.

There can be all manner of explanations for these data.  Employed people are more likely to be able to afford the marijuana they smoke more often.  People working longer hours may have less energy for other recreational activities.  One thing you can’t say, though, is that more marijuana use is leading to less productivity.