Sunday, May 9, 2004

Marijuana shown not addictive, not gateway The recent study comparing marijuana use in San Francisco and Amsterdam is a real blow to the drug warriors. Not only did it show that prohibition does not reduce marijuana use, there were a couple of other very interesting things in the study. The full report is now available online as text and as a pdf with graphs. I've had a little time to look at the study, and I'd like to share two particular tables with you, that go beyond the main reported results of the study. The first one fairly effectively debunks the myth of marijuana as an addictive drug. TABLE 1—Trajectories of Overall Career Use: Pattern Amsterdam No. (%) San Francisco No. (%) 1: declining 17 (7.9) 18 (6.8) 2: escalating 13 (6.0) 17 (6.4) 3: stable 24 (11.1) 5 (1.9) 4: increase/decline 104 (48.1) 133 (50.4) 5: intermittent 7 (3.2) 25 (9.5) 6: variable 51 (23.6) 66 (25.0) Total 216 (100.0) 264 (100.0) Claims that cannabis produces addiction or dependence lead one to expect that many experienced users would report Pattern 2—escalation of use over time. But this pattern was reported by only 6% in both cities, which means that 94% of respondents had overall career use patterns that did not entail escalation across careers. This is something that is common sense to those who are familiar with how marijuana works, but it's an important refutation to the drug warriors' claims. It also shows the most common way cannabis is used -- an increase followed by a decline. People use it for a while and then stop or reduce their use voluntarily -- certainly not the trend of a dangerous drug. Here's another interesting table from the study. This one focuses on regular cannabis users in the two cities and the degree to which they experiment with other drugs. TABLE 2—Prevalence of Other Illicit Drug Use, Lifetime and During the Past 3 Months:   Amsterdam (n = 216) San Francisco (n = 264)   LTP P3MP LTP P3MP Cocaine 48.1 9.3 73.2 7.5 Crack 3.7 0.5 18.1 1.1 Amphetamines 37.5 1.9 60.4 4.5 Ecstasy 25.5 9.3 40.0 6.4 Opiates 21.8 0.5 35.5 2.7 LTP=Lifetime Prevalence, P3MP=Past 3 Months Prevalence Note that in the city where prohibition is the rule, there is significantly higher rates of experimentation with other drugs. As opposed to the gateway theory, this indicates that prohibition actually increases the likelihood of using other illicit drugs. As the study notes: The “separation of markets,” in which lawfully regulated cannabis distribution reduces the likelihood that people seeking cannabis will be drawn into deviant subcultures where “hard drugs” also are sold is one public health objective of Dutch decriminalization. Looks like their idea works better than ours. Good stuff. Would like to see the media run with this more, though. 4:38:34 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Alternet has a big week AlterNet.org's Drug Reporter is a good source of articles, although usually spotty, with some long gaps between them. However, this past week has seen a burst of articles worth reading. Check these out: Hooray for Bruce Mirken's Lies and the Lazy Reporters Who Repeat Them, where he takes to task the media that carry the government's alarmist stories about pot potency without doing their job as reporters. For shame. Way to go, Bruce! We need more people keeping the mainstream media honest (particularly when the government is not). Erik Davis, in Don't Get High Without It gives us a nice, detailed feature about the Vaults of Erowid, which may be the most comprehensive source of useful information about the wide range of drugs which are used. Davis notes that the mainstream science channels have become less useful (particularly with all the biased research) and more people are turning to Erowid for information (including health professionals). Though it largely ignores policy debates, Erowid is a striking example of guerrilla information war. Millions of people, particularly young people, regularly access a repository of data whose very accessibility erodes the coercive exaggerations, hysteria and outright lies common to government and mainstream-media discussion of drugs. In addition, the very form of Erowid, which presents a model of an honest and open-minded psychoactive culture, encourages intelligent decision making. Particularly appropriate on Mother's Day is Martha Rosenbaum's Personal Voices: A Mother's Advice about Drugs. This is a great letter to any child who will be facing difficult choices. Ann Harrison in Counting the Costs of the Drug War, discusses an Independent Institute forum held this week, where analysts tried to quantify the real costs of the drug war. The forum included Boston University economist Jeffrey A. Miron, who is author of the new book Drug War Crimes. "There is no reason to think that the benefits of reducing myopic drug use balances the costs that prohibition places on society," says Miron. "The best policy is to legalize drugs and do it sooner rather than later." It's nice to see economists and analysts putting an additional legitimate voice to this issue that those of us in the drug reform community have known for years. 11:34:03 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Guest Drug WarRant Just a reminder that guest rants are welcome here. Check out Terry Scott's latest entry -- a fascinating series of connections. 11:29:50 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Commencement Last night was our commencement ceremony. It was a blast, and I can't say how much I enjoyed greeting our students as they crossed the stage. For those students who read this blog regularly, please keep in touch and keep reading DrugWarRant. The responsibility is yours to make something happen in this drug war. Vote. Get involved. Tell people. Don't worry about what people will think if you speak up -- in many cases, they feel the same way, but are too frightened to say so. Others can be taught, and if you take the time to learn some basic facts, they'll appreciate that you are speaking from a position of strength. And thanks for your inspiration. The response to my talks about the Drug War at Theatre of Ted and the enthusiasm of those of you who came to me for material for papers and speeches provoked me to start this blog. To my other readers: Thanks for your patience the past couple of weeks. Some interesting things have happened in the drug war, and I'll be trying to do a little catch-up. 11:25:25 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []