New Drug Use Data Spoils Prohibitionist Propaganda

Last week the the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released survey data that will likely cause no small amount of consternation to the likes of Kevin Sabet and his ilk. While cannabis use in the general population has showed a steady increase (unsurprisingly in our softening cannabis culture), it has leveled off among teen users.

“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.”

I predicted this months ago. It is common sense that, as the boogeyman mystique blows off of marijuana, more and more people are using it. It also makes sense that heroin, cocaine and pain pill use is in decline considering marijuana is now seen more as a potential exit-drug than the fearmonger’s dream of a gateway substance.

The more important finding, to my eyes, is the fact that as the culture becomes more open to marijuana and more adults are embracing it, teen use numbers aren’t increasing. Certainly, the propaganda blasters were counting on much higher teen use rates to bolster their causes. I would imagine this survey data will disappoint them about as much as the data that showed crime did not increase in Colorado as a result of legalization, and in fact, it went down.

Stoners have known forever that pot = peace. Also, it crosses my mind that with the culture more openly looking at the reality of marijuana, the teen education/prevention aspect of that will get an additional boon as well. For the first time in my memory, what the authority figures in schools are telling students about marijuana is tempered by an increasingly lax attitude toward marijuana that sort of forces said authorities to be honest, or at least give them information that is much closer to the truth than erstwhile, DARE-esque campaigns.