Comments on: BREAKING NEWS: Americans Love War, Drugs, see War on Drugs as No-Brainer

BREAKING NEWS: Americans Love War, Drugs, see War on Drugs as No-Brainer

saulgoodman — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:02:48 -0800

A new WHO study finds that Americans by far lead the world in rates of illegal drug use, despite America's crusading role in prosecuting the Global War on Drugs.

The study concludes, in part: "Globally, drug use is not distributed evenly and is not simply related to drug policy, since countries with stringent user-level illegal drug policies did not have lower levels of use than countries with liberal ones." A simple, stupid Reuters' summary of the results here.

By: phrontist

phrontist — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:07:10 -0800

U! S! A!

By: loquacious

loquacious — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:11:56 -0800

STOP THE DRUG WAR.

By: The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:21:19 -0800

Actually - according to the study - a lot of Americans have TRIED the drugs in question. PANIC!

By: Liquidwolf

Liquidwolf — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:32:33 -0800

People like Drugs!!!!!!!!!!! Get used to it!

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:39:15 -0800

Income was positively related to lifetime use of both legal and illegal drugs. That's why you see more cocaine use in the USA than Colombia, where they make the stuff.

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:39:55 -0800

STOP THE DRUG WAR. This bears repeating. Again and again.

By: CitizenD

CitizenD — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:42:10 -0800

FINALLY! a reason to be proud to be american. ...can somebody pass the triptamines?

By: doctor_negative

doctor_negative — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:47:04 -0800

Folks, as long as the CIA and their friends can continue to use the drug war to pay for their off the radar projects (and make a little cash on the side), the drug war isn't going anywhere. People who are making money off the drug war are donating money (or making money available) to the politician who protect their interest. Pointing out that the drug war is illogical, wrong-headed and unlikely to achieve it's supposed goals will have no effect, the people that are enforcing it don't believe in it anyway. Look at all the people connected to Jack Abramoff, and figure that we're really only seeing 20% of the iceberg. A good chunk of congress and the senate are dirty and they're not going to rock the boat.

By: daksya

daksya — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:48:42 -0800

The UK's missing. So's Australia. And also places like Morocco or India. Also, they only surveyed cannabis and cocaine use among illicit drugs. What about 'opioids' as a category or 'any illegal drug'? Probably the raw dataset does have this covered, as opposed to the focus of this paper. And from the abstract, it seems that lifetime use is gauged, methinks recent use is the more valid variable to correlate with drug policy.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:49:09 -0800

Well, smartypantses, if we stop the drug war we'll have to come up with some other excuse for incarcerating millions of (mostly) black poor people and destroying (or at least minimizing) any possibility of a fulfilling life for them. If only there were some other vague thing that we could declare war on...

By: batmonkey

batmonkey — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:52:02 -0800

We need a list of who all we should be voting against to make this craziness stop and get some sanity around our approach to plants and substances with recreational consciousness-altering applications. If we prescribed and anti-prescribed, taxed and regulated, educated and de-mystified...I truly believe, admittedly perhaps somewhat idealistically, that we would have a better society, infrastructure, and nation.

By: dirtynumbangelboy

dirtynumbangelboy — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:03:37 -0800

The problem, of course, is that the nutbars look at this and see evidence for being even 'tougher' on drug use.

By: liza

liza — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:07:41 -0800

so the US wins for out-snorting out-bonging and out-speedballing the rest of the world? uh ... ok.

By: The Straightener

The Straightener — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:13:03 -0800

*surprised face*

By: saulgoodman

saulgoodman — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:26:13 -0800

The problem, of course, is that the nutbars look at this and see evidence for being even 'tougher' on drug use. Yeah, and doesn't it seem like exactly the kind of thinking that leads gamblers down the path to financial ruin, too? ("Heh, well, I've been losing every hand I play all night, but if I just stay at the table a little longer...")

By: DecemberBoy

DecemberBoy — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:36:31 -0800

what about 'opioids' as a category Well, not to be pedantic, but every opioid I can think of besides heroin and poppy tea is a legal, schedule 2 drug, and from what I've seen, the vast majority of non-heroin pharmaceutical opioid users at least started off with legal prescriptions.

By: Unicorn on the cob

Unicorn on the cob — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:47:00 -0800

The economy's in the shitter. Maybe the government should think about ways to tax the black market... by making stuff legal, and regulated... nah, that'd make too much fiscal sense. What would God tell us to do? Oh wait... he created opium poppies and psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana plants and coca leaves. Well, His will be done, right, God-fearing government?

By: Samuel Farrow

Samuel Farrow — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:30:57 -0800

If the war on drugs is indeed a war on personal freedom; and I believe it is; then this study indicates US citizens are indeed winning the war against those that deny personal freedom through tyranny and oppression. This is something to be proud of - well done you. I am also pleased to note New Zealand coming in at number two, at least as far as cannabis is concerned. Also and for the record I believe the issues surrounding the consumption of drugs should be dealt with by the health sector, not by criminal justice.

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:44:28 -0800

Bogart is American. America Bogarts.

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:52:58 -0800

Once nanites are available that can be smaller than red blood cells and programmed to alter the building blocks of the human body, a single infusion of nanites can replace everything from LSD to steroids. You'll be able to remotely dictate what happens to your innards by way of a wifi ready laptop. If you want your brain to hallucinate bugs crawling all over you, just point and click. If you want your exercise regimen to generate ungodly amounts of beefed up muscle tissue so every swing of the bat is a grand slam? Just point and click. Wanna pass a drug test that'll prove you have no drugs or nanites in your body? Just point and click. As nanotechnology improves, I'm increasingly of the opinion, we ain't seen nuthin' yet.

By: three blind mice

three blind mice — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:14:22 -0800

I am also pleased to note New Zealand coming in at number two, at least as far as cannabis is concerned. It found that 16.2 per cent of people in the United States reported using cocaine in their lifetime, the second highest level of cocaine use was in New Zealand, where 4.3 per cent of people reported having used the drug. Cannabis use was highest in the US (42.4 per cent), followed by New Zealand (41.9 per cent). Don't the kiwis know cannabis is a gateway drug? 4,3% turning on to cocaine in NZ versus 16,2% in the US isn't anything to brag about.

By: roofus

roofus — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:21:25 -0800

Although daska is right to point out that the UK is not included, the US are still ruling over Brits when it comes to cannabis and cocaine use. Comparison with the most recent British Crime Survey demonstrates that although the yoof of Britain are just as deep into illicit substances, the elderly have a long way to catch up.

By: Liquidwolf

Liquidwolf — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:43:22 -0800

the US are still ruling over Brits when it comes to cannabis Hell, our joints are ALL weed.

By: Dark Messiah

Dark Messiah — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:05:34 -0800

If you want your exercise regimen to generate ungodly amounts of beefed up muscle tissue so every swing of the bat is a grand slam? Not to be overly analytical, but 'roids don't make you better at hitting the ball -- they may help you hit it harder, but that's it. Steroids are no substitute for talent. And furthermore, your theory does not seem to take into account that roids are half of the equation; you still need to hit the gym.

By: wigglin

wigglin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:38:01 -0800

If only there were some other vague thing that we could declare war on... Oh! How about pov...povert....errr TERRORISM! (I would have said chiristmas, but the liberal media already has that covered, amirite?)

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:47:04 -0800

PANIC! What's that? I don't like designer drugs.

By: telstar

telstar — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:12:00 -0800

Does anyone know of anyone studying the impact of illegal drug markets on macroeconomics? As in perhaps large concentration of liquidity (cash drug profits) having a measurable effect on, say, stock markets, or maybe being instrumental in forming bubbles in general? I'm not looking for information on direct costs like drug war funding (plenty of that readily available), but rather studies on indirect economic effects. (yeah, I know, AskMe, but since we're already here...)

By: Avenger

Avenger — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:52:54 -0800

What would God tell us to do? Oh wait... he created opium poppies and psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana plants and coca leaves. Well, His will be done, right, God-fearing government? See, we're talking about America -- a nation sunk knee-deep in the dour Calvinist Nationalism of the Puritans. They believe in a God who specifically created a delicious-looking fruit, but told Adam and Eve not to eat it, just to fuck with them. Then, of course, when they did eat it (which, cmon', you knew they would), he cursed them and all their descendants with pain and death for all eternity, just because he could. Maybe a kinder, gentler nature-based religion would be responsive to the "But God made it!" argument, but American religion is founded on the idea that God has purposely inserted evil temptations into His natural order which we must avoid at all costs.

By: bunnytricks

bunnytricks — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:21:26 -0800

telstar: There's this paper, but it's behind the great wall of JSTOR.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:15:16 -0800

We also lead the world in Money. That might have something to do with it.

By: loiseau

loiseau — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:35:16 -0800

I guess this is sort of how telling kids not to have sex makes 'em more pregnanter.

By: saulgoodman

saulgoodman — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:50:53 -0800

We also lead the world in Money. That might have something to do with it. well, i'm not sure how exactly one quantifies a metric like money (so i'll take it at face value we lead the world in it), but according to this, we also lead the industrialized world in income inequality, average household debt, and percent of children in poverty, and we rank somewhere in the middle when it comes to overall prosperity. that probably gives us lots of excuses to seek out comfort at the brightly-lit end of a glass pipe loaded up with ye olde devil's weed.

By: daksya

daksya — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:22:55 -0800

DecemberBoy: Schedule 2 drugs aren't anymore "legal" than Schedule I, they just have some medical use allowed over Sch I.; cocaine, one of the illegal drugs surveyed here, is Sch. II. Use of opioids for non-medical purpose is not allowed under the CSA, so my point's a fair one. And you could easily delineate prescribed use by a question on the survey, if there's not one already.