ONDCP Has Failed to Cut Marijuana Use, Misused Treatment Stats, New Report
Shows

October 8, 2008

 (Washington, N.Y.) The major U.S. government study of drug use shows that
 the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has badly failed
 to meet its own goals for reducing use of marijuana and other illegal
 drugs, according to a pair of new reports by George Mason University
 senior fellow Jon Gettman, Ph.D. In addition, ONDCP and its chief,
 “Drug Czar” John Walters, have misused treatment statistics to
 suggest that marijuana is dangerously addictive when the government’s
 own data suggest that arrest-driven treatment admissions have wasted tax
 dollars by treating thousands who were not truly drug-dependent.

Both reports and a summary of all the findings are available at
http://www.drugscience.org/Archive/bcr5/bcr5_index.html.

“The government’s own statistics demolish the White House drug
czar’s claims of success in his obsessive war on marijuana,” said Rob
Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington,
D.C.  Kampia noted that during Walters’ tenure, ONDCP has released at
least 127 separate anti-marijuana TV, radio and print ads and 34 press
releases focused mainly on marijuana, in addition to 50 reports from ONDCP
and other federal agencies on marijuana or anti-marijuana campaigns.
“The most intense war on marijuana since ‘Reefer Madness,’ including
record numbers of arrests every year since 2003, has wasted billions of
dollars and produced nothing except pain and ruined lives.”

Gettman, who made international headlines in December 2006 with an
analysis showing that marijuana is the top cash crop in the United States,
noted the following in his new report:

    * In 2007 there were 14.5 million current users of marijuana in the
    United States, compared with 14.6 million in 2002, while the number of
    Americans who have ever used marijuana actually increased. * ONDCP has
    not come close to meeting its goal of reducing illegal drug use by 25
    percent by 2007. * There was a marked jump in the percentage of
    marijuana treatment admissions referred by the criminal justice system
    from 1992 to 2006, while just 45 percent of marijuana admissions met
    the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV)
    criteria for marijuana dependence.

With more than 25,000 members and 100,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide,
the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform
organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to
minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a
manner similar to alcohol.

For more information, please visit http://MarijuanaPolicy.org.

####

Bruce Mirken,
MPP director of communications
415-668-6403 or 202-215-4205
Jon Gettman, Ph.D.
540-822-5739

http://www.newsli.com/2008/10/08/ondcp-has-failed-to-cut-marijuana-use-misused-treatment-stats-new-report-shows/

-- 
Dr John Watson
Baker Street

On Oct 9, 4:39 am, Dr John Watson 
wrote:

> ONDCP Has Failed to Cut Marijuana Use, Misused Treatment Stats, New Report
> Shows
>
> October 8, 2008
>
>  (Washington, N.Y.) The major U.S. government study of drug use shows that
>  the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has badly failed
>  to meet its own goals for reducing use of marijuana and other illegal
>  drugs, according to a pair of new reports by George Mason University
>  senior fellow Jon Gettman, Ph.D. In addition, ONDCP and its chief,
>  “Drug Czar” John Walters, have misused treatment statistics to
>  suggest that marijuana is dangerously addictive when the government’s
>  own data suggest that arrest-driven treatment admissions have wasted tax
>  dollars by treating thousands who were not truly drug-dependent.

A wasteful, deceitful program from the government ... who'da thunk it?
The bigger surprise is that many American conservatives continue to
support this wasteful, deceitful program.

On 10 okt, 22:15, M_P  wrote:
> On Oct 9, 4:39 am, Dr John Watson 
> wrote:
>
> > ONDCP Has Failed to Cut Marijuana Use, Misused Treatment Stats, New Report
> > Shows
>
> > October 8, 2008
>
> >  (Washington, N.Y.) The major U.S. government study of drug use shows that
> >  the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has badly failed
> >  to meet its own goals for reducing use of marijuana and other illegal
> >  drugs, according to a pair of new reports by George Mason University
> >  senior fellow Jon Gettman, Ph.D. In addition, ONDCP and its chief,
> >  “Drug Czar” John Walters, have misused treatment statistics to
> >  suggest that marijuana is dangerously addictive when the government’s
> >  own data suggest that arrest-driven treatment admissions have wasted tax
> >  dollars by treating thousands who were not truly drug-dependent.
>
> A wasteful, deceitful program from the government ... who'da thunk it?
> The bigger surprise is that many American conservatives continue to
> support this wasteful, deceitful program.

If banging your head against the wall doesn't seem to help in curing
your headache, maybe you've not been banging your head against the
wall long and ferociously enough.

Noticed at Sat, 11 Oct 2008 07:57:17 -0700: sobriquet informed us:

> If banging your head against the wall doesn't seem to help in curing
> your headache, maybe you've not been banging your head against the
> wall long and ferociously enough.

Isn't it psychosis that causes people to believe that if an action doesn't
work then doing it again will make it work?

-- 
Dr John Watson
Baker Street

Dr John Watson wrote:
> Noticed at Sat, 11 Oct 2008 07:57:17 -0700: sobriquet informed us:
>
>   
>> If banging your head against the wall doesn't seem to help in curing
>> your headache, maybe you've not been banging your head against the
>> wall long and ferociously enough.
>>     
>
> Isn't it psychosis that causes people to believe that if an action doesn't
> work then doing it again will make it work?
>
>   
    No it is not necessarily psychosis that causes repeating
fruitless actions but one is tempted to call it such.  For thousands
of years people prayed to various deities for the end to plagues
of divers descriptions but it never worked but sometimes it
seemed to work so they kept doing so.  Sometimes the drug
prohibition seems to work though the drugs keep coming
through national barriers but since we don't teach history
properly in many countries we fail to learn that every drug
prohibition previously attempted has failed.  It failed against
tobacco when wise and fore-sighted monarchs degreed against
it.  It failed to control the spread of coffee drinking when
nervous and insecure monarchs insisted laws be made against
it and it failed to control the use of alcohol when legislators
satisfying their Progressive constituents amended the Constitution
of the USA to prohibit all but medical use, wiping out a US
distilling industry and viticulture.  Statistically it appears to
have failed in everything but the attempt to keep Lysergic Acid
DiEthyl Amide out the hands of the people but that is more
easily controlled than most other popular drugs.   Cannabis is
not only still imported into the USA but the prohibition against
cannabis has created an American cannabis cultivation industry
which is the most profitable crop in California.  The attempt to
limit the use of amphetamines has lead to cottage production of
methadrine the most dangerous form of the substance in nearly
every state of the USA, in rural and urban setting despite its
dangers and ensuing pollution of the environment.  The
Harrison Narcotics Act of 1916 addressed a illusory problem and
created more crime than it ever protected anyone from creating
in passing a new class, "the junkie(s)",  out of former morphia
dependent working class and professionally employed citizens.

    Limbaugh group trimmed as I don't care to mix with that
class of person.

	Truely the poet has written: 

    Ningen banji          Human beings do
    Samazama no           Every single kind
    Baka a suru           Of stupid thing
        --- 117th edition of Haifu Yanagidaru published in 1832


	later as it is time for my cocoa
	bliss -- C O C O A  Powered... (at california, for a while yet, dot com)

-- 
  bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
 It is by the beans of cocoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
 the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
 It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
	--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.