New Survey Data: More Pot Smoking, Less Heroin and Cocaine Use

brainchaw.com

Yesterday the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released survey data that cast doubt on popular wisdom about certain drug trends. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), marijuana consumption continued to rise in the general population last year but leveled off among teenagers, who supposedly are more inclined to smoke pot nowadays because looser laws have made it more appealing. Heroin use, which according to numerous press reports constitutes an "epidemic," fell by about 14 percent (as measured by the percentage of respondents who reported past-month use). Nonmedical use of prescription painkillers also was down. And cocaine consumption continued to decline, despite the malign influence of the nicotine in all those e-cigarettes the kids are sucking on these days.

The numbers released yesterday are a subset of the 2013 NSDUH results. SAMHSA says "the complete NSDUH report should be available in the next few weeks."

Comments

[Dances-with-Trolls]

So the beatings, home invasions, mass incarceration, summary executions, propaganda campaigns, asset forfeiture, and general erosion of the Bill of Rights is working!

What more do you libertarian anarchists want!?

[Headless Body of Agnew]

Heroin use, which according to numerous press reports constitutes an "epidemic," fell by about 14 percent (as measured by the percentage of respondents who reported past-month use).

Well, the death of PSH scared the millenials. Didn't Reason poll that angle?

[Pope Jimbo]

What? We just had a summit here in Minnesoda because H is now an epidemic.

http://www.startribune.com/loc.....41611.html

"It's like playing Russian roulette with this drug," said Andrew Baker, medical examiner for Hennepin, Dakota and Scott counties. "Users don't know the purity."

Of course further criminalization will make that problem go away.

[Hyperion]

All drugs should be legal because people should own their own bodies. Period. There are no other reasons necessary.

[Episiarch]

Well, the US government disagrees with you. Try and give up your citizenship sometime and see how much they charge you for the "privilege".

[Hyperion]

Well, until they build that wall to keep me in, I just might not give a shit. I don't believe that FATCA is enforced all around the world, but we'll see, and it's popularity is diminishing by that day. So we'll see.

[Episiarch]

Is FATCA what charges you an exit fee if you give up your citizenship?

[Hyperion]

No, you apply to give up your citizenship when you give a big fucking rat's arse about FATCA. If you don't, why would you bother?

They recently decided to raise the filing fees for renouncing your citizenship from like 500 to more than 2000 dollars.

But here's what I ask. If I can afford to just pack up and leave the country and I am moving to a country that bent over and took it up the arse so the USA can enforce their fascist shit, then what is 2k to me anyway? If I can't afford to pack up and leave, well then I don't need to be renouncing my citizenship. The entire thing is stupid and ill conceived. All they are doing it getting the most money they can while the party lasts.

[Jesus H. Christ]

i think Epi is referring to an ezpatriation or exit tax. It's applied as some sort of capital gains tax against the value of the estate at the time of renunciation of citizenship. Yes, it's lawful theft, really a disgusting thing. Not sure what the rate is or exactly how it's figured.

[Episiarch]

Yes, that is what I'm talking about. You cannot cease to be a US citizen without paying the US government (and the more money you have, the huger the chunk they will take). They literally own you.

[Hyperion]

Unless you have a LOT of money, there is only the filing fee.

[Hyperion]

Also, they can't stop you from leaving, at least not for now.

[Episiarch]

What if you can't pay or refuse to pay the fee? "I'm leaving, see ya"?

[Agammamon]

The FBI gets the locals police force to arrest you and extradite you back to the US for tax evasion.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

The joys of neo-serfdom.

[Hyperion]

There is a fee for filing. There is also an expatriation tax, but I wouldn't worry too much about that unless you're a millionaire.

[Sudden]

So if I use an e-cig but also smoke pot, but cocaine consumption should remain more or less unchanged?

[Hyperion]

Look, here's the danger. If you're just laying back at home and you got yourself an e-cig and you light that baby up, and you also have a big ol bag of coke lying right next to you while you're smoking that e-cig, you MIGHT decide that you should do some of that coke too. And if it takes killing everyone on the planet to prevent that, then aren't we obligated to do it?!

[Sudden]

Only if it's presumably for teh chilrunz. Or if my consumption hits women and minorities hardest.

[Hyperion]

Even if it kills all the children, it was for there own good!

[Irish]

TNR claims it's 'voter suppression' that, pursuant to Kansas law, a Democrat who dropped out of the race is still going to have his name on the ballot.

They claim this is voter suppression because, I am not kidding, Democrats might be too stupid to realize he dropped out, will vote for him instead of the independent, and the Republican will win. Money quote:

But they'll also have vouchsafed the strategy Republicans always employ when they fear the electorate isn't on their side. Normally that means making it hard for Democrats to vote in the first place. This time around it means trying to trick low-information Democrats into voting for a candidate who isn't running. But it's still voter suppression.

Man, it is just so unfair that the majority of our party is filled with such drooling, incompetent morons that they don't even know who's running before they show up to vote. Clearly it's the Republicans' fault that Democratic voters are morons.

I just love the Democratic party hack using the term 'low-information' to describe his own party's constituencies.

[Episiarch]

Well, at least he was honest. You don't often see that.

More seriously, it's a mask-slippage about how they get people to the polls: just pull the lever for our TEAM. Don't know anything about the candidate, that's not important. Just vote TEAM.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

It suddenly occurs to me that perhaps the input of a person unaware of the candidates in the running might not be invaluable to the healthy operation of a republic.

[drugwarisevil]

Your share on facebook links never work anymore. Fourth time I've commented on this.

[Dances-with-Trolls]

/points down

There is a section called: Contact Us

It leaps to my powerful intellect that you might use the information it contains to... wait for it... contact them.

[e-mail]

[Ted S.]

You say that as thought it were a bad thing. I wouldn't mind if all the antisocial "share" shit disappeared, and people just copied and pasted the link to share it. Those widgets seem to be a horrible memory hog.

[sarcasmic]

Marijuana is only a gateway drug because it is illegal. The more legal it becomes, the less of a gateway it becomes.

Has the guy behind the counter of the liquor store ever offered you LSD or cocaine? Didn't think so.

Same deal with legal marijuana sellers. They're not going to offer "hard" drugs because they want to stay in business.

Not so much with illegal marijuana dealers.

I'm not a fan of "hard" drugs. While in principle I do not think they should be illegal, I don't exactly favor them being available to anyone.

I think legalizing marijuana would be a good start. Because marijuana is so ubiquitous, legalizing it would slam shut the easiest door to the black market, making "hard" drugs more difficult to obtain.

Thing is, the cops rely on this same gateway to the black market to make busts. They pressure a low level pot dealer into divulging every contact he's got, and that's how they go after dealers of "hard" drugs.

So cops will never agree to legalizing marijuana because by making it harder for users and experimenters to find "hard" drugs, it makes it more difficult for them to find people to resist arrest.

[gaoxiaen]

NS"DUH".

[Copernicus]

OT Help:

Hey guys, sorry for this but...

Is there a way/ can someone learn me how I can search for my own (or other poster's) old HandR comments (search by username)?

Much thanks in advance.

[The artist known Dunphy]

I will be curious to see what happens here in Washington state now that we legalized marijuana. Granted it was already almost de facto legal anyway since it was incredibly easy to get a medical marijuana card and most real street cops didn't give a flying fuck about it. As far as I can tell it's been exactly as I predicted, legalizing marijuana hasn't made any apparent difference to anything not crime and not Twinkie consumption.

[The artist known Dunphy]

It's just allowed pot smokers to do their thing without having even the slightest worry about negative consequences from the state. Heck it's had so little effect that you can still run into a lot of a political people who have no idea that it has been legalized. I'd be curious to see if there have been any changes in usage rates among various age groups etc. and also if the medical marijuana clinics lose any business. I'm not so sure about heroin. Our state has recently passed such draconian limitations on doctors to prescribe opioids that many legitimate pain patients have no option except to get Street heroin. I remember once I was talking to a driver at acollision who told me that he was taking just over 100 mg a day of morphine due to chronic low back pain . He was in his 60s and what's a guy like that going to do if his doctor fearing the new regulations and the DEA drops him as so many have done? Also for all the oxy fans since the new oxy formulation is so much more difficult to smoke and it's expensive the natural progression is to heroin, which is very very cheap compared to oxy on the street. Right around the time the new Oxy formulation was released we saw an incredible jump in heroin overdoses exactly what you would expect. that disappeared pretty quickly presumably as the transitional users got a fucking clue. I suspect it was partially drug machismo something I've witnessed many times 'dude I smoke 300 g of oxy day load up that fucking needle I can handle it'

[Gene]

Where's the all caps?

Welcome back?

[Gene]

Where's the all caps?

Welcome back?

[userve32]

Oh a little pot never hurt anyone.

http://www.Crypt-Anon.tk

[AlmightyJB]

Have you ever been hit in the head with one?

[bhavinder]

http://www.arrowseason3.com