Search Results: drug use (2563)

This week, the Colorado Department of Human Services, in conjunction with Governor John Hickenlooper’s office, formally requested that the General Assembly allocate more than $6 million annually from the state’s marijuana-tax cash fund for a new program that would offer help to chronic drug users as opposed to criminalizing them. Art Way, senior director for criminal-justice reform and Colorado director with the national Drug Policy Alliance, which worked closely with state agencies in crafting the proposal (it’s on view below), sees the impact of this approach as potentially revolutionary for those struggling with addictions to heroin and other heavy narcotics.

If approved, Way says, “marijuana tax revenue and marijuana legalization will fund broader drug-policy purposes and drug-policy concerns that have long had more of an impact on society, both from a human perspective and a fiscal perspective. We’re talking about other substances on which users become truly dependent, and people who are on the chaotic end of the use spectrum. So for marijuana legalization to fund this is a game-changer.”

For the past four decades, the University of Michigan and the National Institute on Drug Abuse have been conducting a study named Monitoring the Future, which collects and reviews annual changes in drug and alcohol use among American teenagers. Their latest study surveyed over 47,000 students in 8th, 10th & 12th grade, and the numbers regarding teen marijuana use have some people incredibly concerned.

The St. Louis Riverfront Times cover story this week tells the horrible and frightening tale of Schwagstock founder and Grateful Dead cover band musician Jimmy Tebeau, who was sentenced to federal prison not for any drugs he bought, used or sold – but for the drug usage of the people who attended his festival.
For simply being the venue owner, federal agents have ruined the 45-year-old’s life and put him in prison for the next 30 months.

While teen marijuana use has been rising since 2005, an analysis of data from 1993 through 2009 has found no evidence to link the legalization of medical marijuana to increased use of pot among high school students — and in fact, the data often showed teen marijuana use decreased after medicinal cannabis was legalized.

“There is anecdotal evidence that medical marijuana is finding its way into the hands of teenagers, but there’s no statistical evidence that legalization increases the probability of use,” said Daniel I. Rees, a professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver, reports Science Codex.

Zazzle
It’s the smart thing to do.

​The next time some buzzkill tries to hit you with the old drooling stoner stereotype, tell ’em about a new British study that finds children with high IQs are more likely to use drugs as adults than people who score low on IQ tests as children.

The data come from the 1970 British Cohort Study, which has been following thousands of people over decades, reports Jennifer Bixler at CNN. The children’s IQ scores were taken at ages 5, 10 and 16. The study also asked about drug use, among other questions.
When the participants turned 30, they were asked if they had used drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin in the past year.
The study found that men with high childhood IQs were up to twice as likely to use illegal drugs than their lower-IQ former classmates. The difference was even more pronounced in girls, where those with high IQs were up top three times more likely to use drugs as adults.

Kush And Orange Juice

​Asian and black teenagers in the United States are less likely to use drugs or alcohol than adolescents of other races, a new study has found.

The survey of 72,561 teens found that American Indian (Native American) youth had the highest rates of drug or alcohol use, with 48 percent reporting they had used the substances in the past year. That was followed by 39 percent of whites, 37 percent of Hispanics, 36 percent of mixed-race teens, 32 percent of blacks and just 24 percent of Asians, according to the research published on Monday in Archives of General Psychiatry, reports Nicole Ostrow at Bloomberg.

The Telegraph

​Possession of any drug for personal use should be decriminalized. That’s the official recommendation of the U.K. government’s drug advisors as of Thursday night. But the Home Office on Friday quickly rejected the suggestion.

If the proposals had been accepted, tens of thousands of people arrested for drugs from cannabis to heroin would have gotten drug education courses instead of getting punished in the courts, The London Times reported on Friday.

Photo: Associated Press
Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske: Marijuana is “an entry drug”

​A new U.S. government report blames increased marijuana use for a rise in the overall use of illicit drugs among Americans. That’s good news, for anyone who’s familiar with just how non-toxic is marijuana, compared with other illegal drugs.

The annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows the rate of “illicit drug use” (including marijuana) rose from eight percent in 2008 to 8.7 percent in 2009, reports Peter Maer at CBS News. The survey also found more use of ecstasy and methamphetamine.
Officials claim they are especially concerned about use of illegal drugs by young people. The survey, by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), found 21.2 percent of young adults experimented with illegal drugs in 2009.
The trend “was also driven in large part by the use of marijuana,” according to the report.
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