Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday August 19 2016, @08:13AM   Printer-friendly
from the where-*DO*-addicts-come-from? dept.

Medical Daily reports

Utilizing data from four decades of U.S. government drug use surveys, an extensive and easy-to-use collection of charts has just been created.

[...] The Brian C. Bennett Drug Charts provide a more accurate and illuminating picture of the use and abuse of drugs in America. The visual data components break down people's habits consuming alcohol, amphetamines, cocaine, crack cocaine, hallucinogens, heroin, inhalants, LSD, marijuana, MDMA, methamphetamines, nonmedical prescription pills, nonmedical prescription pain relievers, oxycontin, PCP, sedatives, stimulants, and tranquilizers.

"The Bennett charts graphically illustrate the natural course of the use of psychoactive drugs", William Martin, director of the Baker Institute's Drug Policy Program, and Katharine Neill, the Alfred C. Glassell III Postdoctoral Fellow in Drug Policy at the Baker Institute, wrote in an issue brief called Drugs by the Numbers: The Brian C. Bennett Drug Charts.

"Most people who ever use such drugs stop using them shortly after initiation or a period of (usually brief) experimentation. As the introduction to the collection explains, this pattern is closely correlated with age, with illicit drug use (and other risky behaviors) reaching a peak between 18 and 20, declining sharply by age 26 and then dropping gradually over the rest of the lifespan", the researchers explained.

"This calls into question policies that levy harsh penalties and apply indelible criminal records to people for what may be experimental or incidental use likely to stop on its own in the normal course of maturation without treatment, 12-step programs or relapse. More rational and compassionate responses exist and deserve close attention."


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by Chromium_One on Friday August 19 2016, @09:12AM

    by Chromium_One (4574) on Friday August 19 2016, @09:12AM (#390002)

    The resistance to legal pot has been ideological from the get-go, and the expert opinions spurned from the start.

    Here, quick bit of googling turns up http://archives.drugabuse.gov/pdf/monographs/31.pdf [drugabuse.gov] ... "Marijuana Research Findings: 1980"

    Executive summary: This stuff gets you high. While you're high, don't drive, don't go to work, don't go classes, etc. There may be cause for concern about long-term health effects and more study is needed. A good chunk of indicators (so far, in 1980) were that it wasn't terribly worse than smoking and certainly not as bad as drinking.

    Yeah, this is best of research from 1980. I'm still skimming to see what more was being said at the time, but keep in mind this was the research available to the Reagans as they were telling us on national TV that the devil weed was coming to kill us all.

    --
    When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by Chromium_One on Friday August 19 2016, @09:18AM

    by Chromium_One (4574) on Friday August 19 2016, @09:18AM (#390004)

    (Self reply, bah!)
    managed to cut and leave out the bit about how there's an entire section on promising looking therapeutical uses, too!

    --
    When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @09:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @09:23AM (#390008)

    the devil weed was coming to kill us all

    Devil's weed [wikipedia.org] is coming to kill us all. Not only is it perfectly legal, an accidental overdose is fatal. I got high on this stuff at summer camp once, and I was lucky I didn't die.

    • (Score: 2) by Chromium_One on Friday August 19 2016, @09:28AM

      by Chromium_One (4574) on Friday August 19 2016, @09:28AM (#390011)

      Good reason not to let the camp counselors (or attendees) be your suppliers, maaaan!

      --
      When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @09:33AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @09:33AM (#390012)

        No, man, it's a weed, and it was growing wild at the camp. I was the dumb kid who was sucking nectar out of flowers. I hallucinated for days and I didn't even know why at the time.

        • (Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday August 19 2016, @01:47PM

          by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Friday August 19 2016, @01:47PM (#390054) Journal

          You amuse me! Next you'll be warning us about peppers because you bought some ghost peppers at the supermarket once not knowing what they were.

          Don't let this person near nutmeg! That's another one that will cause an altered state of mind for days!

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @05:56PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @05:56PM (#390189)

            Ok smartass, you should try being the bored young kid sucking perfectly innocuous nectar, who hours later develops dilated pupils, extreme photosensitivity, tunnel vision, and a persistent murmuring of voices that just aren't there. And then you go back for more nectar because you don't know you have temporary amnesia and can't understand the nectar is causing your symptoms. The adults warned you about obvious things like poison ivy, but they never mentioned datura, you wouldn't know to ask for help if they had, and you're not acting strangely enough for anyone to notice something is wrong with you. Meanwhile you have no idea the nectar is poisonous or how close you are to overdose.

            • (Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday August 19 2016, @08:51PM

              by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Friday August 19 2016, @08:51PM (#390273) Journal

              Well, ok. If you're not trolling, I shouldn't be so harsh. How did you make it to safety? What was your condition when it wore off? Have you submitted an experience report to Erowid?

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @10:14PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @10:14PM (#390319)

                I was sucking the flowers for one weekend, in a daze and hallucinating the whole time, but I was functional enough. The direct effects wore off after a couple of days, although I had flashbacks for a few months. For years I thought I had social anxiety from going to camp, until I happened to find datura on Wikipedia. I recognized it immediately and knew then that I had been on a drug at the time, and I realized how lucky I was only to drink the nectar and not eat any other parts of the plant. Never looked at Erowid before today but I know from my own experience as a child, this warning from the site is surely true: "Small children should not use Datura."

        • (Score: 2) by Chromium_One on Friday August 19 2016, @02:48PM

          by Chromium_One (4574) on Friday August 19 2016, @02:48PM (#390092)

          Didn't I cover that case? You weren't an attendee?!

          --
          When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
  • (Score: 2) by CoolHand on Friday August 19 2016, @12:51PM

    by CoolHand (438) on Friday August 19 2016, @12:51PM (#390042) Journal

    The resistance to legal pot has been ideological from the get-go, and the expert opinions spurned from the start.

    I'd argue that the resistance to legal pot has more-so always been economic. There are a lot of players that would lose money with legal cannabis. These include the alcohol industry, the big drug companies, the textile industry, the paper industry... I'm sure I'm missing a lot, but the point is that cash is king in the US (and most of the Western world). Politicians ideological ideas change with the flow of cash lining their pockets..

    --
    Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
    • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday August 19 2016, @01:55PM

      by deimtee (3272) on Friday August 19 2016, @01:55PM (#390062) Journal

      All of those, but the big two you missed are the for-profit prison industry and the asset seizure (highway robbery) industry.

      --
      If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @02:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19 2016, @02:35PM (#390087)

      The demonizing was easy back then. Jut tell people it makes white girls have sex with negro men. Done.

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Friday August 19 2016, @09:08PM

      by edIII (791) on Friday August 19 2016, @09:08PM (#390292)

      The textile industry was responsible for Reefer Madness [wikipedia.org] as well as the Marihuana Tax Act [wikipedia.org].

      From the very beginning, weed was demonized because it took profits away from rich men that had powerful friends in government to help them get it back.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.