Tag: drug use

Manufacturing Addicts: Marijuana Use Doubles Among US Adults

Manufacturing marijuana addicts through commercialization and legalization.
As we permit legalization and commercialization of marijuana in any form, we move into the business of manufacturing new addicts.

As more marijuana becomes available in the U.S. over the past decade, marijuana use has doubled. And rates of cannabis dependence syndrome (addiction) are climbing as well. This biobehavioral disorder affects three out of every ten Americans who have used marijuana in the past year.

As we permit legalization and commercialization of marijuana in any form, we move into the business of manufacturing new addicts. Marijuana addiction now afflicts 6.8 million Americans. While addiction affects all socioeconomic and racial groups, notable increases in the disorder has occurred markedly among groups who are ages 45 to 64 and individuals who are black or Hispanic, with the lowest incomes, or living in the South.

In addition to more addiction, there have been notable increases in problems such cannabis-related emergency room visits and fatal vehicle crashes. Continue reading Manufacturing Addicts: Marijuana Use Doubles Among US Adults

Marijuana Industry Works to Erase Data But can’t Hide The Truth

Marijuana Industry Influences CO Crime Data Manipulation
In the CDC’s latest report, issued late last week, the two states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use — Colorado and Washington — are not represented. As the chart below shows, Colorado data were not weighted, essentially meaning the state failed to provide CDC researchers a sample size suitable for analysis. The State of Washington didn’t participate in the survey at all.

You can try to erase the data, but you cannot change the truth.

The Medical Marijuana Industry Group is just the latest organization dedicated to influencing policy and policymakers in the goal of corporate greed–this time in profit from marijuana addiction.

This corporate marijuana lobby, in its latest deception, issued in June a list of data that is a gross misrepresentation of the facts as it relates to youth use rates and crime statistics in Colorado.

Does drug policy affect the levels at which young people use mind-altering drugs? History has shown that, yes, indeed it does. Not only are youth use rates highest in the United States in “medical marijuana states”, but elsewhere in world, Sweden for example, each time the country softened its drug laws youth use went up, along with public health harms. Continue reading Marijuana Industry Works to Erase Data But can’t Hide The Truth