

A serious drug problem - blahedo
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/12/22/930871/-America-has-a-serious-drug-problem

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jat850
This submission's title could have done without the editorializing. The
article touched briefly on the actions of the cops themselves, in a few
places, but focused far more on the systematic issues as a whole, related to
the prosecution of drug crimes, as well as about 75% content covering the
writer's medical condition.

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Alex3917
The whole point of the article is that government policies are causing
systemic suffering among those with debilitating medical conditions. It's
about the hundreds of thousands of people dying each year in the U.S. because
of drug prohibition, and the millions more who are in horrific pain.

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tptacek
Is there _one person_ on Hacker News that will write a heartfelt comment in
support of drug prohibition? I don't think there is but am prepared to be
surprised.

Otherwise, what is this post doing here? What are we learning from it? Is this
just an opportunity for us to bicker about Obama vs. Bush vs. Ron Paul?

~~~
Alex3917
There's a difference between being vaguely against drug prohibition and having
the facts and stories necessary to convince others. In the past 18 months I've
read 6 or 7 books about drugs, gone to three conferences on the science of
drugs, and listened to another 50+ hours of podcasts. From all this I've
learned an enormous amount of stuff that I would have never learned just by
reading Reddit or whatever.

There is a world of difference between knowing that many people smoke weed,
versus having not only memorized the numbers from the most reputable surveys
but also having read through their methodology, as well as all of the
scientific research that methodology is based on. (If your curious about the
validity of self-reported drug use, check out this:
[http://archives.drugabuse.gov/pdf/monographs/Monograph167/Mo...](http://archives.drugabuse.gov/pdf/monographs/Monograph167/Monograph167.pdf))

I'm not trying to defend this story specifically, although I thought it was
good, but there are definitely reasons for learning more about drugs even if
you're already against prohibition.

(Also, for what it's worth, if you go through my submissions page there is an
enormous amount of really intellectually interesting stuff related to drugs,
drug use, the war on drugs, etc., and virtually all of it would be completely
new to those reading it.)

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tptacek
I agree, but that's not this post, is it? You think it's a good story, so, how
about saying why? It'll likely be the only productive debate on the thread.

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Alex3917
What I thought was interesting:

* The information about Anklyosing Spondylitis. I know someone who has it.

* The low-income workers flushing their medications that they legitimately need because they are afraid of getting arrested, being forced to pay thousands to retain a lawyer, etc.

* The fact that if the DA says they have "reason to believe" you are going to sell your legally prescribed medication, you aren't even allowed to say that your doctor prescribed it or why you need it for medical reasons in your defense. So you essentially aren't allowed to defend yourself at all, which means you are all but guaranteed to go to prison based on the flimsiest of accusations.

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tkeller
Why would any of these people have consented to a search? If a cop approaches
you in the parking lot, be polite but firm, and waive no rights.

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noarchy
Cops can be very intimidating, especially for people who do not know their
rights.

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kachnuv_ocasek
I feel like I have to be that guy. How is this Hacker News?

 _Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than
hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might
be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity._

~~~
lkrubner
I guess if I really needed to, I could make some argument that connected
stories like this to the forces that either support or cripple innovation. I
realize that the crowd that reads Hacker News is mostly into software, but
Hacker News is also an important website for anyone who is into innovation and
entrepreneurialism. Some people who read Hacker News have ideas for startups
that, if successful, would come up under the regulatory review of the FDA. As
such, the heavy-handed tactics that the US government uses against anything
drug related becomes a block on innovation in that field. An entrepreneur
contemplating some new bio-tech, say some interesting use of new proteins from
bio-engineered stem cells or bacteria, has to feel a chill when reading an
article like this.

The problem is that the government's actions appear to be both arbitrary and
heavy-handed, meaning that even when an entrepreneur has good reasons for
taking whatever action they take, they may not be given a fair chance to
explain themselves.

Hacker News sometimes upvotes articles that are not about software or
startups, but they are about the US economy. This article (above) could be
tied into that category of posts. After all, the USA is at risk of getting a
very uneven form of innovation. If everyone who wants to do a startup dealing
with drugs has to face (or their customers have to face) arbitrary actions
from the government, whereas those entrepreneurs working with software face
very little regulatory review, then the USA is going to get a lot of
innovation with software, and relatively little innovation in fields in which
drugs are involved. We will have an abundance of small web startups and a
shortage of small biotech startups.

For a variety of reasons, too long to cover in this comment, it would be
better for the USA, and the world, if innovation could happen evenly across
all sectors, so that the only brake on entrepreneurs was their own
imaginations.

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Alex3917
Crossposted from DailyKos:

82% of Americans report using or having used Marijuana, and 73% report using
illegal drugs other than marijuana. 89% admit to having used any illicit drug.

Can someone remind me again why Obama wants to lock 89% of Americans in cages?

Source: p. 101 & 102
[http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol2_2009...](http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol2_2009.pdf)

original thread:
<http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2010/12/22/6310/2857/12#c12>

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klbarry
That's absurd to me - really 82% have used marijuana? I guess the source is
trusty but that blows my mind.

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Alex3917
It's actually much higher than that, for a few reasons.

* It doesn't correct for students (12th graders) who were absent on the day of the survey, or for the 12-15% of students who drop out of high school before the fall of their senior year. By using clever methodology they are actually able to measure how the differences in drug use among students who were absent the day of the survey, but they don't correct for it. (They explain the differences in the methodology though.) And as for students who dropped out, Appendix A of volume 1 of the same report explains how they concluded that dropouts were probably 1.5x more likely to have used marijuana by 12th grade. So if you take into account that the 20% of dropouts and absentees have a lifetime prevalence closer to 88%, then that would increase the total lifetime prevalence of marijuana use by about 1%, so to 83%.

* About 1.8% of those who admit marijuana use recant each year. It's likely those who recant actually did use the drug, for reasons that are explained here: [http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/statistics/statistics_ar...](http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/statistics/statistics_article2.shtml)

The survey partially corrects for this by counting those who recant after
admitting to use on at least two previous surveys (multiple years apart) as
having used marijuana. However, students weren't surveyed until 12th grade, so
it stands to reason that if the 1.8% linear rate of recanting held until age
13 years 11 months, the average age of first marijuana use, then you'd have to
add about 5.5%. Again this is somewhat speculative, but probably roughly
accurate.

* It seriously undercounts those who later become heavily addicted to drugs. So anyone who didn't use drugs through 12th grade but then became a drug addict essentially wouldn't be counted at all.

* It doesn't count people who would have used marijuana at some point after 12th grade, but who died of non drug-related causes before they got a chance to. This is significant because unlike alcohol where virtually everyone who will ever drink has already started by age 18 or so, a large percentage of eventual marijuana users are still trying the drug for the first time up until their mid 30s.

The fact is that if you make it to age 50, your chances of having smoked weed
are probably closer to 88-90%. The Erowid thing I linked to is also good in
general for as a quick way of grokking the validity of the numbers.

