cannabisnews.com: Pot Smokers Tend To Become Dropouts 





Pot Smokers Tend To Become Dropouts 
Posted by FoM on March 10, 2000 at 18:11:04 PT
Health Economics 2000
Source: Reuters Health
Teens who smoke marijuana may be more than twice as likely to drop out of high school than their nonsmoking peers, results of a recent study suggest.The study, in a recent issue of Health Economics, found that students who have smoked marijuana at least once are about 2.3 times more likely to quit school. 
The decision to drop out was also found to be influenced by the age of the student and the use of other substances such as alcohol, cigarettes and drugs such as cocaine, hallucinogens, or sedatives."The results suggest that marijuana initiation is positively related to dropping out of high school," write Jeremy W. Bray and colleagues at the Research Triangle Institute in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.The findings confirm the results of previous research linking substance use to lower educational attainment. The study included more than 1,300 teenagers, aged 16 to 18, who attended public school in the southeastern US.The survey showed that 41% of 16-year-old students, 46% of 17-year-old students, and 49% of 18-year-old students had smoked marijuana at least once.These rates were 62%, 65% and 67% for cigarette use and 76%, 79% and 82% for alcohol use, respectively. Forty percent of teens had used other drugs by the age of 16 and more than 44% had tried other drugs by the age of 18, researchers found.The investigators found that dropout rates were higher for students who had tried any of the substances than among students who had not tried marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes or other drugs, "and in many cases it is more than double the rates of students who have not initiated substance use."However, the authors note that their study did not include a nationally representative sample of students and defined substance initiation as any use of the substance, including one-time experimentation, rather than regular use.Still, the study may be used by policy makers and researchers seeking to understand the causes of dropping out and the changes that teenagers undergo toward the end of their high school years."Such a broader appreciation will be necessary if research is to inform policy makers not just about the extent of high school dropout, but also about effective ways to prevent this problem," Bray and colleagues conclude.According to the report, marijuana use among US teens aged 12 to 17 rose to 9.4% in 1997 from 4.4% in 1990. Source: Health Economics 2000: 9:9-18  Updated 1:21 PM ET March 10, 2000 NEW YORK, Mar 10 (Reuters Health) Copyright © 1995-2000 Excite Inc. CannabisNews Articles on Surveys:http://www.google.com/search?q=cannabisnews+survey&num=10&sa=Google+Search
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Comment #10 posted by kaptinemo on March 11, 2000 at 14:17:26 PT:
Talk about synchronicity
Thanks again to Observer! Unfortunately, I am not as well read as he(?) is; the book from which he quoted is a much more erudite explanation of what I believe is happening right this minute. In short, a propaganda 'barrage'. The idea is to negate all the hard won successes reformers have made by dredging up old 'studies' long discredited. The average Joe Blow has no idea that these studies were torn to pieces by other (real!) scientists who did *not* have their financial jaws clamped on the NIDA-grant teat. Or get thrown bones from the PFDFA. The antis are hoping that the traditional short memories which the American people suffer from will enable them to snowjob the various legislatures in which MMJ is coming up for vote. By presenting these BS studies, they seek to confuse the issue, enabling them to buy further time to rally *their* forces. But the fact that they are resorting to such tactics are heartening... for us. For these 'studies' were conducted - and dismissed - long ago. The scientists who conducted the peer reviews of them (and villified their authors for being such poor excuses for scientists) are still around. I hardly believe that they will remain silent when these catspaw groups start becoming more vocal and waving their discredited studies about as if they were valid.This is but more proof that the antis are - literally - scraping the bottom of the barrel for ammunition. This is their last attempt to appear reasonable in the face of growing opposition to their policies. But, because they are resorting to pseudo-science, they have endangered their stature as significant, credible groups. If they lose this round, their credibility will be, singly and together, totally shot. 
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Comment #9 posted by observer on March 11, 2000 at 12:38:04 PT
Barrage is About to Begin
[excerpt from "RAPE OF THE MIND", chapter: "TECHNIQUES OF MASS SUBMISSION"] `` Just as the technological advances of themodern world have refined and perfected theweapons of physical warfare, so the advance inman's understanding of the manipulaton of publicopinion have enabled him to refine and perfectthe weapons of psychological warfare. The Indoctrination Barrage The continual intrusion into our minds of thehammering noises of arguments and propagandacan lead to two kinds of reactions. It may leadto apathy and indifference, the I-don't-carereaction, or to a more intensified desire to studyand to understand. Unfortunately, the firstreaction is the more popular one. The flight fromstudy and awareness is much too common in aworld that throws too many confusing picturesto the individual. For the sake of ourdemocracy, based on freedom andindividualism, we have to bring ourselves backto study again and again. Otherwise, we canbecome easy victims of a well-planned verbalattack on our minds and consciences. We cannot be enough aware of the continualcoercion of our senses and minds, the continualsuggestive attacks which may pass through theintellectual barriers of insight. Repetition andPavlovian conditioning exhaust the individual andmay seduce him ultimately to accept a truth hehimself initially defied and scorned. ''-- THE RAPE OF THE MIND: ThePsychology of Thought Control, Menticide,and Brainwashing. (1956) Joost A. M. Meerloo,M.D., Instructor in Psychiatry, ColumbiaUniversity Lecturer in Social Psychology,New School for Social Research, FormerChief, Psychological Department,Netherlands Forces, http://www.ninehundred.net/control/mc-ch5.html
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on March 10, 2000 at 20:57:56 PT
Good Information People!
Hi Tim and everyone,I do refer people to MapInc. I work very closely with them but what this would be is different in that some people don't get a chance to read the news as often as others and a daily news highlight with the comment section would be a benefit to those who would like to say something but their schedule doesn't dictate it. Since I bring links back and attach them their comments would then become a part of the on going threads that we all our creating. It still is an idea and when I picked these five for a test page I didn't concentrate on if they were necessarily the best but more about a format. Check the link out because you will wind up back in Cannabis News going into it or use your back button to get back here. I also could make each article open in it's own window which I didn't think of until I had it put together. Thanks for the advice.Peace, FoM!
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Comment #7 posted by Tim Stone on March 10, 2000 at 20:49:28 PT
Research Triangle Inst.
I haven't been able to figure out the Research Triangle Institute yet. On the one hand, they are the gutter scientists responsible for much of the totally bogus data from an '82 "study" on annual productivity lost due to on-job drug use. You know the figure about 60 billion, or 80 billion, lost annually due to drug use, one of the prime statistics used to justify rampant suspicionless drug testing? That's from the RTI. On the other hand, I have read of one or two other, more recent RTI opi that actually sounded like a legit dispassionate attempt to find information, rather than flog an agenda. As for the study cited above, I would very much like to see if the definition of "dropout" might include students expelled because they were caught smoking pot. I wouldn't put that errant statistical chicanery past drug war researchers at all. As for the guts of the study itself, as skeletonly outlined above, yeah, as kaptinemo points out, it's the standard confusion of correlation and causality. The actual primary factor causing the trouble may well not be "drugs," but rather the drug war, Prohibition, with all the horrors Prohibition brings, always, no matter what the substance. 
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Comment #6 posted by observer on March 10, 2000 at 20:43:04 PT
Heavy Users: No Decline In Mental Function
``American Journal Of Epidemiology Report That Long-Term Use Of Marijuana Does Not Lead To A Decline In Mental Function ... Scores Actually Fell More Among Non-Users Than Among Heavy Users!''http://www.marijuananews.com/american_journal_of_epidemiology.htm
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Comment #5 posted by observer on March 10, 2000 at 20:34:20 PT
Carl Sagan, Pot Smoker
http://www.marijuananews.com/at_dinner_with_carl_sagan_the_on.htm `` Grinspoon shared the joints with Sagan and his last wife, Ann Druyan. Afterward Sagan said, "Lester, I know you've only got one left, but could I have it? I've got serious work to do tomorrow and I could really use it."  Grinspoon's 1971 book "Marihuana Reconsidered" included a long essay by an unidentified "Mr. X," who described his happy experiences with the drug. The essay identified Mr. X as "a professor at one of the top-ranking American universities" but disguised his identity by saying he was "in his early forties."  In my interview with Grinspoon, he revealed that Mr. X was Sagan (who turned 37 the year the book was published by Harvard University Press).To Grinspoon, Sagan's use of the drug is dramatic disproof of the popular wisdom that pot diminishes motivation: "He was certainly highly motivated to work, to contribute." ''http://www.marijuananews.com/at_dinner_with_carl_sagan_the_on.htm``Sagan told friends some of his most intellectual work was inspired by pot-induced highs. . .''http://marijuananews.com/if_carl_sagan_hadn.htm
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Comment #4 posted by Tim Stone on March 10, 2000 at 20:28:50 PT
FoM's Best Articles per Day Idea
Hi, FoM. Along with Richard Cowan's MarijuanaNews site, http://216.9.192.67/ , your site is a daily visit for me. Thanks for all your work in setting this site up and keeping it going. About posting Daily Highlights, it sounds like a fine idea, if you're able to do ther extra work. I'm kinda wondering a little though if it might be easier just to refer people to the MapNews website that has mass quantities of news items from the U.S. and around the world. But for those visitors who may not want to wade through ten or twenty articles a day and who might prefer a "Best of..." quickie referral list, your Best Articles list idea sounds great. 
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on March 10, 2000 at 19:30:48 PT:
CannabisNews Daily Highlights - March 10th, 2000
It is going to get worse because they haven't been able to make anyone believe that their way is the right way and they aren't taking it very nicely. It will get worse before it gets better in my opinion.kaptinemo, Would you think you might help me with a small future project? I made this test page because people have emailed me about do I have a mailer. I hope maybe I can figure out how to put a daily mailer together with 5 of the best articles per day. If you would help me pick the top five by a time that we would agree on it took me an hour to do this. It was my first try so I would get faster. I have information bookmarked on how to send e mails. I have a lot happening and this might not happen as quickly as I want because of personal circumstances but when things return more to normal I would like to do this in a month or so. I don't want to start it until I know I have the time to do it the right way. Let me know.Peace, FoM!Check out the test page.
CannabisNews Daily Highlights - March 10th, 2000
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Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on March 10, 2000 at 18:53:39 PT:
Don't forget your rubber boots
because the latest phase of the antis BS barrage is about to begin, and it will get mighty deep before it gets washed away.
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Comment #1 posted by Freedom on March 10, 2000 at 18:37:53 PT
It never ends.
This is Gateway, reinvented for public consumption.The dropouts also drank milk. Correlation does not equal causation.Why do kids dropout? Answer - Poverty. Duh. I suppose the authors did not note that someodd 30% (could be 37%) of college students have smoked once or more in the past year. That 50% of high schoolers experiment with marijuana before graduation.What a dose of reefer madness we are being treated to this week. I need my rain coat!
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