Posted on 07/01/2008 11:29:29 AM PDT by TKDietz
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States leads the world in rates of experimenting with marijuana and cocaine despite strict drug laws, World Health Organization researchers said on Tuesday.
Countries with looser drug laws have lower rates of abuse, the researchers report in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.
The survey of 54,000 people in 17 countries found that 16 percent of people in the United States had used cocaine in their lifetimes -- far higher than the next highest rate, found in New Zealand, where 4.3 percent of people reported having used cocaine.
More than 42 percent of Americans admitted to having tried cannabis, closely followed by 41 percent in New Zealand, Dr. Louisa Degenhardt of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia and an international team of colleagues found.
Americans were also the most likely to have smoked, with 74 percent saying they used tobacco at some time in their lives, although current smoking rates are far lower at 21 percent.
The next-highest lifetime smoking rate was found in Lebanon at 67 percent, with 60 percent of Mexicans and the 61 percent of Ukrainians having ever smoked.
"Globally, drug use is not distributed evenly and is not simply related to drug policy, since countries with stringent user-level illegal drug policies did not have lower levels of use than countries with liberal ones," Degenhardt's team wrote.
-excerpt-
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
“US leads world in substance abuse.”
And people incarcerated. That is the effect of the Jihad on drugs.
Seems pretty obvious why. We have strict laws because we have a problem—not the other way around.
It’s the same deal with the death penalty. You can’t say that the death penalty doesn’t work, as show by the fact that the places that have the death penalty have higher murder rates. The reason we have the death penalty is because we have higher murder rates.
The Who are not ones to be giving speeches about drug abuse. “Teenage Wasteland”, “Who are You”, I mean come on someone was smoking or injecting something to come up with those. :)
LOL. Keith Moon alone should tell Townsend and the boys about pot meeting kettle. ;-)
The greater the number of laws, the more corrupt the society...
We’re #1...We’re #1!
Drug addictions are an expensive luxury - and Americans are usually better positioned than those in other countries to cultivate expensive luxuries.
\”U.S. leads world in substance abuse, WHO finds”
...look for the numbers to increase in the event of an Obama presidency.
“The United States leads the world ... “
USA! USA! USA!
I believe studies.
I see that the War on Drugs™ is working!!! /sarc
There is no evidence that our strict laws work. In fact, what appears to be the case is that a country's laws, its drug policy, has very little to do with per capita drug use. Americans are more likely to use drugs than anyone else even though we have rather strict drug laws. In other countries where drug laws are far more lax, say like in the Netherlands where they allow marijuana to be sold from coffeeshops, per capita drug use is lower. You see the same thing within the U.S. Several states have decriminalized marijuana. In many states all you get if you are caught with pot is basically a ticket and in many states you won't end up with a criminal record. Then in other states people are arrested and taken to jail. They have to bond out, might get more jail time. They'll probably end up with probation, have to do some forced “treatment, lose their drivers licenses, and will in most cases have a permanent criminal record. When you look at our drug use statistics for each state though you see that marijuana use is about the same in states that have decriminalized as it is in states that have not decriminalized. The laws really don't make a difference. People don't pay much attention to these drug laws. If they want to smoke pot, they smoke pot. If they choose not to use a drug, the biggest factor in that decision is probably not the legal status of that substance, it's other things like whether they think they think the drug will hurt them, whether they'll get addicted, etc. Whether the drug is legal or not is not such a big factor because drug laws are a long way from being universally respected and because young people know that the likelihood that they would ever get caught using illegal drugs is very slight.
In fact, what appears to be the case is that a country’s laws, its drug policy, has very little to do with per capita drug use.
So the crack and heroin addicts with needles still in their arms that I see passed out on the street as I walk from my train stop to get to work are actually quite wealthy?
I don’t think you can generalize by talking about marijuana. Marijuana isn’t a whole lot more problematic than alcohol, possibly less. But legalizing crack cocaine would be nuts.
Carolyn
I agree.
The story may very well be true, but I’ll have to hear it from a source other than the WHO, with Reuter’s reporting the story.
Crack addicts don't have needles in their arms. You smoke crack, you don't inject it.
I'll dismiss your claim as hyperbole.
However, people don't realize that America's "urban poor" have plenty of disposable income.
If you can afford to eat at McDonald's every day, have gold jewelry, the latest Nike sneakers, a cell phone and a pimped-out Civic then you can also afford to piss it all away chasing a drug addiction.
Being "poor" in America and being poor in Bulgaria or Peru are radically different propositions.
I agree with that. A major study by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction just came out addressing that very topic, “Cannabis safer than alcohol or tobacco,” says 700 page report: http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2008/06/27/story66083.asp
Insightful! Add that to the same comment regarding veganism, hysterical environmentalism, obese poor, and a host of other social maladies which can only exist at the height of luxury.
Crack addicts don't have needles in their arms. You smoke crack, you don't inject it.
Heroin addicts DO
However, people don't realize that America's "urban poor" have plenty of disposable income. If you can afford to eat at McDonald's every day, have gold jewelry, the latest Nike sneakers, a cell phone and a pimped-out Civic then you can also afford to piss it all away chasing a drug addiction.
You have obviously never seen a truely poor person then. I see them everyday. And no, they do not eat at McDonalds's every day, do not have gold jewelry, often times have shoes that are falling apart (if they have shoes at all), and certainly don't have a cell phone or a 'pimped-out' Civic. I suggest you take a look around in the downtown of some of our bigger cities before coming back with ridiculous assertions that no one is poor, and that those who consider themselves to be can afford all the stuff you mentioned.
Hell, just walk around downtown Washington and take a look at some of the 'pimped out' Civic owners who obviously haven't showered in weeks, have clothes that are disintegrating because they are so dirty and old, sleeping on park benches and using nasty plastic bags filled with garbage as a pillow. I guess they just do this because they get tired of sleeping in their cars, and they don't like taking showers.
I thought there were no more drugs left since Keith Richards already did them all.
New Zealanders are more reluctant to admit cocaine use than Americans, but feel it’s OK to admit to cannabis use.
Common claim, but not true.
A crack addict can buy enough crack to get high for a lower price than a drunk can purchase sufficient alcohol to get drunk.
And alcohol is legal - the transaction costs of evading detection and the transaction costs of regulation aren't radically dissimilar.
Legalize them and they become dirt cheap, eliminating the profit for criminal and terrorist organizations.
The main goal is not depriving criminals of profits - that is a positive externality. The goal is to attenuate the enormous cost that addiction has on society.
In many other countries without our drug laws, they don't cost nearly as much - and people use them less.
Let's say that a syringeful of decent heroin costs $10 in America, while in Kenya or Cambodia it costs $1.50.
People will still use heroin less in those countries because $1.50 is prohibitively high to them.
Of course, heroin is also illegal in Kenya and Cambodia and their drug laws are harsher than ours.
When people say "our drug laws" they mean that US drug laws are more criminally punitive than the laws of other countries.
However, that simply isn't the case.
In which countries is it legal to buy crack or heroin?
“And has the rate of drug usage risen or declined since we enacted these strict laws?”
I don’t know how you can conclude that it hasn’t any more than you can conclude that it has. They’ve been in effect for decades, and the rate of use has fluctuated wildly during that time, possibly due in part to the way in which they are being enforced, as well as various aspects of the problem that we have little control over, such as the Latin American pipeline... Also, the development of new drugs over that period of time.
The only way to find out would be to repeal them, and that could be catastrophic, if you’re wrong.
Like I said, though... Separate marijuana from the rest of the drugs. It’s not any worse of a problem than alcohol.
I have no doubt that there is a considerable amount of underreporting on these government drug use surveys, especially about the harder drugs which are less socially acceptable and for which the penalties for possession tend to be a lot greater. I suppose there could be differences from one country to the next in percentage of people who would lie or underreport on these surveys. I would think though that the more punitive a countries drug laws the more likely people would be to deny drug use when they really have used drugs. We do an annual survey in the U.S. where government workers come to people's homes and ask them about drug use, illegal conduct. We put people in prison for drugs here, especially the hard stuff. I would think people here would be more likely to lie than in those countries where they treat drug addiction more as a health problem and are far less likely to ever arrest someone for drug violations.
However, that simply isn't the case.
In which countries is it legal to buy crack or heroin?”
Does any country put anywhere near the number of people we put in prison for drug offenses? No way, no other country puts anywhere near as many people in prison for drugs as we do, on a per capita basis or in total numbers. There are countries where it is legal to buy heroin within very limited “drug maintenance” programs. But there are no countries where it is legal for just anyone to purchase these drugs. There are countries where some use and transactions and use are allowed to some degree even with hard drugs. There are plenty of countries though where one will not be left with a criminal record for possessing heroin. There are certainly countries where prison for simple possession of heroin isn't even a possibility. A lot of countries treat drugs as more of a health problem than a criminal problem. They don't necessarily have the police out in force looking for druggies. They don't have “informant societies” where they use paid informants and people who are in trouble themselves to go around setting up their friends and acquaintances. Even though drugs aren't legal in these countries their systems are far less punitive than ours.
How old are you? My perception is that it’s a lot less severe of a problem now than it was in the 70’s and even the 80’s. A lot less severe.
New Zealand has “legal” alternatives; they call them party pills and are usually a BZP/TFMPP mix, though I think pFPP is also available nicknamed Flipipiperazine.
They are all piperazine derivatives and are not available legally in the USA.
I think having legal alternatives will influence choices made when looking for intoxicants, and can certainly influence attitudes toward those drugs.
As for drugs being easy to find, that's true. From what I've seen representing people in criminal cases and dealing with narcotics officers, drug prices are actually lower in my area than they were before. Cocaine prices are way down. It's a lot cheaper and more pure than it was in the 1980’s. Marijuana costs about what it did in the mid 1980’s in my area, at least the commercial grade stuff, the Mexican brick weed. It's supposedly a lot better smoke on average too, so when you factor in inflation and the rise in potency it is actually a lot cheaper than it was in the 1980’s. Our narcs are picking it up for $400 pound. Because Mexican is so cheap, we don't see much of the really expensive indoor grown stuff...or maybe it's just that they almost never arrest the kind of people who can afford the expensive stuff.
LSD used to be passed out for free at concerts and parties, and the average cost was a few dollars per dose, and that dose was over a hundred micrograms. It was available in a variety of forms from a number of vendors.
It's hard to find now and much more expensive, with the average dose being around 25 ug.
So making it illegal sure cut back on availability and potency.
MDMA likewise used to be available over-the-counter in some bars and dance halls, was inexpensive and plentiful. Not any more! Sure, it's available, but you'd not get any by asking a barkeep.
They made Foxy Methoxy illegal probably before you even heard about it, and you'll be hard pressed to find any now.
The feds are working up to ban salvia divinorum, another substance that is not terribly popular right now.
Qat they got on right away, you only find small amounts in Somali refugee areas now.
The ban on absinthe was pretty effective, though small communities of users did exist, the total number of users was rather small even though it's pretty easy to make.
It's all relative; the cost of the local distilled spirit and cans of spray paint/glue are always just within reach of the local populace in any country.
The survey reports say marijuana use peaked in 1979/1980 and less people are using marijuana today. Cocaine use peaked in the mid 1980’s and far less people use cocaine today. But now we have meth, and an awful lot of prescription drug abuse, hydrocodone, Oxycodone, Xanax, etc. There is less illegal drug use going on, but in some ways the problems have just shifted from one drug to the next. I doubt we ever see what we saw in the late seventies and early eighties again though. That was the peak of the party that started in the late 1960’s when everyone was a lot more naive about drugs. A lot of people had to learn lessons the hard way, but on the whole I don't think we're so naive anymore.
Drugs may be more part of our culture though, and it is true people get less worked up about them these days. What's happening is that those who grew up before drug use really went up in this country are slowly but surely retiring and dying off and being replaced by people likely to have at least smoked pot themselves. These people are far less likely to get all worked up over something like marijuana than those who have never seen it and who have only heard “Reefer Madness” type propaganda about it. And regardless of our age we've all seen decades of a drug war that clearly isn't all that effective, if it's effective at all. People's attitudes in general are changing and I think we'll probably see some major policy changes in the next two or three decades as older politicians and older voters are replaced by younger folks.
Yep. That’s my point. It’s difficult to make comparisons because the illegality of various substances has not changed, while other things have. Cocaine, for example, has been illegal for a long time, yet use goes up and down.
OK, mid 30’s. I’m 50, so I have a longer perspective. Drugs are more potent now than then, but I think they were used much more commonly then. When I was in highschool, it was a fairly common occurrence if one of your classmates OD’d and ended up in the morgue.
I wonder how you can square that statement with the fundamental economic principle that lower prices increase demand? Does the availability of junk wine like Thunderbird at a low price magically cause bums to give it up?
It is really not reasonable to compare the U.S. with other countries which have very different ethnic composition and cultural mores. And whatever their cost, drugs are a luxury. Except perhaps for medicinal marijuana, they are not needed or useful; in fact most are absolutely deleterious.
I'm not for legalizing all drugs. I think if we legalized a drug like cocaine, made it available cheap at nice clean stores where people can by certified “clean” drugs from nice smiling clerks who won't rob them, we'd see more people do cocaine. I think the high price of that drug keeps a lot of people from trying. Someone is a lot more likely to break out a two dollar joint at a party than a hundred dollar package of cocaine. Because if the high price you are less likely to have the opportunity to try it, and if you do try it you are less likely to be able to afford do it in sufficient quantity and with sufficient frequency to become addicted.
If people could pick up clean cocaine for ten bucks a gram from a nice clean store where they don't have to deal with scary people, I think a lot more would try it, and more would get sucked into doing it all the time, because they can, and we'd end up with more cocaine addicts than we have today. Really, only a very small percentage of our population does cocaine. I think the government estimates it's only around a couple of percent. I think most people wouldn't do cocaine if it was legal because most people are smart enough to know how stupid it is to mess with cocaine, but there will be more who try it and more who become addicted and it wouldn't take many more to double the amount of addicts we have today. A big percentage of these people would become unemployed and would steal to support themselves and their habits. Each one may not have to steal as much, but we'd have more out there stealing so the harm to society would end up being worse. They wouldn't even be able to deal to support their habits if people could get the drugs from a store cheap. Now most will sell a little. Without that they'd have to sell their bodies or steal or something. We'd end up being in worse shape than we were.
I think a lot of our drug laws are overkill though. Our politicians get frustrated. They didn’t know what else to do. So they just keep passing more punitive laws. It doesn't work, but at least they can say they are doing something. They're getting tough on drugs. They keep passing tougher and tougher laws, and then of course our prisons end up getting packed beyond capacity and as states run out of money to continue building new prisons they have to figure out ways to let people out of prison earlier and earlier.
I don't think we're ever going to get rid of drugs. I don't think any amount of cracking down is really going to make much difference. Maybe we'd see a big difference if we tore up the Constitution and went around rounding people up we suspect of involvement with drugs and summarily executing them all, but short of that I don't see us putting much of a dent in the problem through law enforcement. We aren't going to go around summarily executing people.
We're going to have to make some changes someday. What we are doing is extremely expensive, highly intrusive, and it's obviously not producing much in the way of positive results.
The war on drugs has been every bit as much a disaster as prohibition. We have spent a fortune locking up more people by percentage than anyother country on Earth and have very little to show for it. It hasn’t put a dent in drug use but has led to a ton of violence, has helped to destabilize places like Mexico which is narcostate now, and cost us a ton of money.
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