Posted on 12/02/2002 2:42:58 PM PST by Sparta
— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Countering a basic principle of American anti-drug policies, an independent U.S. study concluded on Monday that marijuana use does not lead teenagers to experiment with hard drugs like heroin or cocaine.
The study by the private, nonprofit RAND Drug Policy Research Center rebutted the theory that marijuana acts as a so-called gateway drug to more harmful narcotics, a key argument against legalizing pot in the United States.
The researchers did not advocate easing restrictions in marijuana, but questioned the focus on this substance in drug control efforts.
Using data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse between 1982 and 1994, the study concluded teenagers who took hard drugs were predisposed to do so whether they tried marijuana first or not.
"Kids get their first opportunity to use marijuana years before they get their first exposure to hard drugs," said Andrew Morral, lead author of the RAND study.
"Marijuana is not a gateway drug. It's just the first thing kids often come across."
Morral said 50 percent of U.S. teenagers had access to marijuana by the age of 16, while the majority had no exposure to cocaine, heroin or hallucinogens until they were 20.
The study, published in the British journal Addiction, does not advocate legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana, which has been linked to side-effects including short-term memory loss.
But given limited resources, Morral said the U.S. government should reconsider the prominence of marijuana in its much-publicized "war on drugs."
"To a certain extent we are diverting resources away from hard drug problems," he said. "Spending money on marijuana control may not be having downstream consequences on the use of hard drugs."
Researchers say predisposition to drug use has been linked to genetic factors and one's environment, including family dynamics and the availability of drugs in the neighborhood.
I will not do that; society performs that choice collectively, by means of more than one institution.
I guess I understand better now your use of the word "proportionality." When Y depends on X as Y = k X with some constant k, it is said to be proportional to X. Well, the sence of "importance" of X for Y may also be captured by other functions, with diminishing returns (Y = log X), or increasing returns, (Y = x^2, for instance).
Proportionality is not necessarily present or important. BAsed on the values, the decision-maker --- an individual or society as a whole --- may prioritise alternatives and put all resources on the one with the highest priority. One can show that in many cases this is actually optimal.
And you, as a member of society have a responsibility to help make that decision. For that decision to be implemented effectively, people must have some sense that there is a rational basis for that decision. IMHO, people tend to rebel against decisions they view as arbitrary, and this is not a bad thing.
You talk about "drawing the circle", and defining what is inside and outside that circle. Marijuana was once inside that circle, and is now outside. Alcohol was inside, put outside, and later moved back inside. You may defer to the majority, defend the status quo, and deny that proportionality or cost have any relevance - essentially maintaining that it is simply the will of the majority that is the deciding factor. But we can't all just sit back and wait to see what everyone else is going to do, and then go along with that. For there to be a "will of the majority", the majority have to decide, and I believe that when they make those decisions, proportionality and cost are, and should be part of that equation.
"Optimal" implies there is some relationship between the selective allocation of resources and the desired end result. This is exactly the question I posed earlier, which you pretty much declared to be irrelevant.
I agree and would not want you to think that I take a position that the cost is totally irrlevant; it clearly is not.
I am against, however, stopping the WoD because of cost.
As for the rebelion, I agree with your well-stated observation. It points also to an alternative: people need to understand better why we do what we do. And that is not the role of the goevernment as much as that of other institutions.
I would in general prefer that the WoD be fought not by the government but by other institutions, such as chirch and family. The problem is, those institutions lie in ruin.
Nor should we put too much emphasis---or even any emphasis at all---on the "will of the majority." Who gives a crap what the majority thinks? This nation was founded on the notion of natural law, and natural law doesn't come from a majority---it comes from God. As a matter of fact, our system of government is designed in such a way to thwart the tyranny of the majority.
And do you honestly see this as a life-and-death situation? Yes, the statement appeared to be extreme. Re-stating it as an absolute life-or-death scenario doesn't make it any less so.
I didn't realize we were discussing your "persona," nor do I have the slightest clue what you mean by that phrase.What I do know is that on a Free Republic Drug Thread, you opined that since marijuana was excluded from some great circle of social acceptability, all legislation and whatnot making it illegal was understandable and somehow a-ok with you. Yes or no?
In this particular instance, we are not talking about stopping the war, but about choosing our battles a little more wisely. You seem convinced that any consideration of a change of strategy is tatamount to surrender.
Great! I think we are on common ground. I am not opposed to any suggestion that can potentially make this war more effective (and, speaking of costs, efficient, too). At the level of details, I do not have sufficiently well-formed opinions because I have not studied the issue --- as that of policy-making -- thoroughly.
No, I do not view changes as surrender.
So your marijuana/circle philosophy was complete bravo sierra. We'll just leave it at that.
Yeh... let's leave it at whatever you want, officer. Just don't pull my fingernails out.
I believe we can put at least some emphasis on the "will of the majority" as long as that will stays within the bounds of the Constitution. Letting Congress and the USSC use "will of the majority" as an excuse to find ways to sneak across that line is a mistake. If the "majority" really wants it that bad, make them prove it. That's what amendments are for.
I have seen enough to believe that, in terms of combating the problem of drug abuse in general, the resources we are expending trying to enforce a prohibition on marijuana would be better spent elsewhere.
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