cannabisnews.com: Measure Threatens Drug-Use Decline Measure Threatens Drug-Use Decline Posted by CN Staff on October 01, 2006 at 15:20:26 PT By Thomas Gorman Source: Denver Post Colorado -- Let's start with good news about marijuana and other drugs of abuse. The percentage of people using illicit drugs in the United States has been reduced approximately 50 percent from its peak in 1979. Among our teenagers, from 2001 to 2005, drug use, primarily marijuana, has dropped by 20 percent. In fact, only about 6.8 percent of youths between the ages of 12 and 18 report using marijuana. Now the bad news: People such as the proponents of Amendment 44 are playing roulette with our youth and adults by trying to legalize marijuana, which will reverse this downward trend. What is the real motive behind trying to legalize marijuana? Proponents of 44 want to legalize an ounce of marijuana regardless of the evidence that marijuana use will increase among both teenagers and adults. We should take a lesson from the Netherlands, which made marijuana legal for adults, resulting in teenage marijuana use tripling in only seven years. In our own country, after Alaska legalized ounce quantities of marijuana for adults, teenage marijuana use in that state doubled to the then-national average (23 percent). Is this what we want for Colorado's future leaders? The perception of public acceptance of a behavior plays a significant role in increasing that behavior. Under Amendment 44, an adult, if not compensated, can legally provide marijuana to a youth 15 or older without fear of being prosecuted under Colorado drug laws. Unbelievable? The proponents in official documents called this loophole an "unintended consequence." They now claim that the person could be prosecuted under the statute for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Maybe that will be true, but we won't know until it is litigated in the courts. How would you feel about an adult giving marijuana to your high school freshman, then waiting for the courts to decide the law? Note: Thomas J. Gorman retired as deputy chief of the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement and is currently director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Area Program. For more information, go to: http://www.stop44.org Snipped:Complete Article: http://tinyurl.com/nl96kSource: Denver Post (CO)Author: Thomas Gorman Published: September 29, 2006Copyright: 2006 The Denver Post CorpWebsite: http://www.denverpost.com/Contact: openforum denverpost.com Related Articles & Web Sites:Safer Choicehttp://www.saferchoice.org/Safer Coloradohttp://www.safercolorado.org/Possession of Pot Object of Amendment 44http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread22222.shtmlMarijuana Proponent Stumps 44http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread22221.shtmlSmokin' Debate on Pot Issuehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread22206.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #6 posted by charmed quark on October 02, 2006 at 04:43:49 PT And oxycontin abuse is up 26% According to the official whitehousedrugpolicy.org ( whose numbers are probably very politically driven), while marijuana use is down 13% over the last couple of years (lifetime use) amount teens, cocaine and heroin use is stable and prescription drug abuse is up. Oxycontin use is up 26% amoung this group!And they really play with numbers - the number of users hasn't droped by 13%, the ratio of percentages has droped by this amount. The actual percent change is only around 4-5% for the combined 8th, 10th, and 12th graders.More importantly, you need to look at the big picture. The data shown for 1991 to 2005 that they are manipulating for their numbers shows that drug use, especially marijuana/hashish, amoung 8th,10th and 12th graders is very significantly higher now than in 1991. Even crack cocaine use is up a tad. There does look to be some decline from the peak in 2000, but the recent dip they were crowing about looks more like noise in the sampling process than a trend.Narcotic use is troubling. While marijuana/hashish use amoung 12th graders MAY have fallen 1.7 percent over the last three years (as I said, it just looks like it is within the sampling error) narcotic (optiates like heroin) use went up from 10% to 13% between 2000 and 2005. What a great tradeoff - the absolute numbers of 12th graders using narcotics went up more than the absolute numbers of those who haven't used marijuana.Barbituate use is also up a bit.Good news is that tobacco and alcohol use - both legal for adults - are both down significantly for teenagers.I'll let you draw your own conclusions about the imapct, if any, if the crusde against teenage use of illicit drugs. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by whig on October 01, 2006 at 19:07:53 PT fiskage Colorado -- Let's start with good news about marijuana and other drugs of abuse. The percentage of people using illicit drugs in the United States has been reduced approximately 50 percent from its peak in 1979.Cannabis is not a drug of abuse.Among our teenagers, from 2001 to 2005, drug use, primarily marijuana, has dropped by 20 percent. In fact, only about 6.8 percent of youths between the ages of 12 and 18 report using marijuana.What percentage of youths between the ages of 12 and 18 report using alcohol and cigarettes? Do you consider those drugs of abuse? They are.Now the bad news: People such as the proponents of Amendment 44 are playing roulette with our youth and adults by trying to legalize marijuana, which will reverse this downward trend.They are not playing roulette, they are stopping your failed experiment of cannabis prohibition, which was a gamble that has killed thousands of people and continues to plague our society with fear and suffering.What is the real motive behind trying to legalize marijuana? Proponents of 44 want to legalize an ounce of marijuana regardless of the evidence that marijuana use will increase among both teenagers and adults.The motive is to make this a better, safer world for ourselves and our children.We should take a lesson from the Netherlands, which made marijuana legal for adults, resulting in teenage marijuana use tripling in only seven years. In our own country, after Alaska legalized ounce quantities of marijuana for adults, teenage marijuana use in that state doubled to the then-national average (23 percent).If those statistics were valid, so what? What harms were suffered, and in comparison what harms were thereby reduced? That is the part of this whole discussion you ignore completely. The cost in lives tragically cut short and opportunity lost forever, for so many of our promising young people, due not to marijuana, but your insane policy of cannabis prohibition.Is this what we want for Colorado's future leaders? The perception of public acceptance of a behavior plays a significant role in increasing that behavior.How many people will you kill to maintain a public standard of behavior that other adults do not agree with? What religions should we ban to comply with your demand?Under Amendment 44, an adult, if not compensated, can legally provide marijuana to a youth 15 or older without fear of being prosecuted under Colorado drug laws. Unbelievable? The proponents in official documents called this loophole an "unintended consequence."It's also irrelevant, because nothing in the Amendment prevents the legislature in its own right from adopting corrective language immediately, specifically aiming to address this hypothetical problem.They now claim that the person could be prosecuted under the statute for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.They did say that. It was a recognition that there are still laws that might prohibit giving cannabis to a minor even if the legislature did nothing to address this. But you and I know that the legislature can fix this immediately upon passage.Maybe that will be true, but we won't know until it is litigated in the courts. How would you feel about an adult giving marijuana to your high school freshman, then waiting for the courts to decide the law?This is, of course, a pure flight of fancy, an imaginary scenario in a world in which there is no legislature. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by lombar on October 01, 2006 at 18:28:27 PT All their numbers are suspect. For the claim 'drug use declined' to be accurate, one would have needed to know how much use there was then and now, not something they actually know, they are just guessing. People don't generally admit to crimes. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by BGreen on October 01, 2006 at 17:37:45 PT Teen use PEAKED during Dutch Prohibition! TRENDS AND PATTERNS IN CANNABIS USE IN THE NETHERLANDS Dirk J. KorfUniversity of Amsterdam (Bonger Institute of Criminology)Paper to be presented at the Hearing of the Special Committee on Illegal DrugsOttawa, November 19, 2001It is striking that the trend in cannabis use among youth in the Netherlands rather parallels the four stages in the availability of cannabis identified above. The number of adolescent cannabis users peaked when the cannabis was distributed through an underground market during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Then the number decreased as house dealers were superseding the underground market during the 1970s, and went up again in the 1980s after coffee shops took over the sale of cannabis, and stabilised or slightly decreased by the end of the 1990s when the number of coffee shops was reduced.****************************************************************************************The US has a relatively long tradition of surveys on drug use and the American figures consistently appear to be higher then those in the Netherlands. A comparison with the Netherlands using identical measurement instruments revealed that in the 1980, US school children clearly were starting to use cannabis earlier and in far greater relative numbers than Dutch ones [Plomp, Kuipers & van Oers, 1988]. More recent figures show that ever use among Americans aged twelve years and above is over twice as high as it is in the Netherlands [16]. Clearly then, the US as the prototypical example of a prohibitionist approach towards cannabis is more in the lead with respect to cannabis consumption than the Netherlands, being the prototypical example of anti-prohibitionism. TRENDS AND PATTERNS IN CANNABIS USE IN THE NETHERLANDS [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on October 01, 2006 at 16:47:54 PT: As always, consider the source Note: Thomas J. Gorman retired as deputy chief of the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement and is currently director of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Area Program.Boy, do they squeal loud when their meal ticket gets threatened.Of course, the DrugWarriors have to couch their squealing as righteous indignation; they can't come out and say it's really just self-interest masked as 'public service'. Well, the bill for the public's 'service' so far has been to the tune of over 200 Billion at the most conservative estimates and a Trillion dollars by other sources' calculations. For this so-called 'service', we have the highest incarceration rate in the world, the really bad dope is cheaper, purer and more plentiful than ever, border towns like Nuevo Laredo are being turned into no-man's lands, and toilet paper has more value than the Constitution thanks to it's being befouled by DrugWarriors.But what really gets me is their selective memories: I distinctly recall a few years back that the DrugWarriors of this Administration were pee-ing and moaning about how during the Klinton years drug use whent up. (Must have been a problem ol' Billy Boy's penis, I suppose.) Now they are saying drug use has gone down since 1979. Well, which is it? Up or down? Do they even know? Or is it that they are the ones suffering from short-term memory difficulties? Must be using that there drug called alcohol; I hear that, unlike cannabis which preserves brain cells, alcohol destroys them. Maybe they should switch drugs? [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by FoM on October 01, 2006 at 16:12:54 PT Tennessee: Marijuana Issue Hits Home Sunday, October 1, 2006Adherence to law should go in hand with broader medical research.A Wall Street Journal report on Vanderbilt University Chancellor Gordon Gee certainly became a talking point in Nashville last week, but if there is any portion that bears more public scrutiny it's the issue of medicinal marijuana.The Journal story, which appeared on its front page Tuesday, dealt with Gee's $1.4 million annual compensation and oversight of his spending at the university-owned residence where Gee and his wife, Constance, live. The spending at the mansion is Vanderbilt's business and up to the board of trustees at the school. But the story's revelation that trustees learned Constance Gee was using marijuana at the residence for an inner-ear ailment is certainly fodder for discussion. Possession of marijuana in Tennessee, whether or not it is for medical purposes, is illegal. The university's rules for students and faculty prohibit possession of illegal drugs in campus facilities. Snipped:Complete Article: http://tinyurl.com/z8sqv [ Post Comment ] Post Comment