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As a teacher, from personal experience, it seems crystal clear to me that young people today are becoming more and more conservative. There is no question in my mind.

Accusing another poster of "anecdotal" evidence, a trend you yourself started! As a teacher, you see a slim statistical sample of our kid's from one armpit town in the USA, and make a wild claim based on it. The number's reported in this "survey" from stellar types such as John Walters, are about as believable as your's. I turn 45 Saturday, trust me, we fudged their number's many decades ago, and it has been a concerted effort ever since. Blackbird.

Couldn't agree more!

The so-called 'war on drugs' is corrupt -- it has turned into careers for many who would otherwise have to work for a living, and is now purely about politics and money.

Kids have wised up to the fact that if they answer surveys the 'wrong' way they will get more restrictive legislation thrown at them. They also have moved on to other substances (like glue, and mixing 'legal' drugs to get hallucinogenic effects).

Political contributors (like Wayne Huizenga) are being rewarded (he owns a large block of Psychemedics, a drug-testing company) by the administration promoting their industry, at the same time justifying more money for the WOD by claiming 'progress.'

It's ALL b.s.

Accusing another poster of "anecdotal" evidence, a trend you yourself started!

First: There is nothing wrong with using anecdotal evidence in and of itself. However, anecdotal evidence is inferior to empirical evidence. If we couldn't rely on acecdotal evidence, we wouldn't be able to make the kinds of basic decisions we make on a daily basis. But our decisions are biased by cognitive schemas; for example, we tend to notice evidence that confirms our own already entrenched beliefs.

In short: When faced with the choice between anecdotal evidence and empirical evidence, the empirical evidence wins. Period.

Second: I did not only cite anecdotal evidence. You only partially quoted my post. Since you have a cognitive schema that biased you from correctly interpreting my post in order to fit your own preconceptions, let me quote it again so you can have another chance to read the whole thing:

"As a teacher, from personal experience, it seems crystal clear to me that young people today are becoming more and more conservative. There is no question in my mind. Surveys I've seen appear to support this trend."

Two parts: First I talk about my personal experience, and then I mention that surveys I've read support this trend. So, I am not only using anecdotal evidence, I am also recalling empirical evidence. If you want citations of empirical evidence, I can get them.

Finally: If you believe these researchers are "fudging" their evidence, that is a serious allogation. If you're going to make those kind of allogations, you should back it up with some evidence; otherwise, it is just hot air. Not only that, it is defamation of character.

Looking at their sampling methodology, I don't think a 10% fluctuation due to sampling variance is out of reason, nor do I think it unreasonable to question wheather the "random selections" were entirely random.

I'm sure some people will see this as simply "sour grapes" by someone who just wants to denigrate Bush, but I think the reality is that the grunt work of producing these numbers is being done by career bureaucrats, many of them the same bureaucrats that were there way before Bush. When you tell them "We want to see a 10% reduction in these numbers, or heads are going to roll.", then they'll find some way to produce that 10% reduction. It's not so much an issue of Bush or Walters as it is of the way things work inside the beltway.

I told a young man from the high school that was rated one of the worst in the country, about this discussion and he laughed. He said he remembered taking the poll that I mentioned and he said that he and his friends answered all the questions positively, that they just marked the worst answers to every question. On the other hand, the high school that really is one of the worst had just gone through a federal trial of one of the most popular students whose parents were both teachers at the school and the kids there knew not to answer any incriminating questions. But over all drug use continues to be a serious problem among young people, the drugs of choice just continue to evolve.