Say Anything Blog

Bad law tends to metastasize, and American drug laws are a perfect example of that.

hmm, I wonder if China has drug laws, and if so, they appear to be working… very well.

“The Netherlands, with a less criminally punitive approach to cannabis use than the U.S., has experienced lower levels of use, particularly among younger adults,” they added.

From the chart, it appears we could do a hell of a lot better than the Netherlands.

What’s going on in New Zealand? Their pot use is hardly any different from that in the US, and since they are less prosperous than we are, their cocaine use is less, cocaine being more expensive than pot.

"Give the lefties a pile of money, and they’ll spend it buying votes.” - Rush Limbaugh on the “bailout”.

cocaine being more expensive than pot

that depends where you are and how good the pot is. in miami, for example, pot is generally more expensive and less widely available than cocaine.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

that depends where you are and how good the pot is.

That would have to be some awfully good pot. I’ve never heard of anyone paying more for an eighth of pot than an 8-ball of cocaine.

that’s a good point, but comparing weight doesn’t reflect how much $$ it takes to get a buzz off either one.
what about DMT? that’ll run you a pretty penny! only the rich guys can afford that stuff!

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

Now Cocaine is a new world product (Andean specifically), and hence I’d expect it to be much more prevalent here than in Europe--hard to get it past all the drug sniffing dogs on planes, after all, but simple to “island-hop” the Caribbean in a boat.

Now as heroin is an old world product, I’d be interested to see how usage stacks up for that.

that’s a good point, but comparing weight doesn’t reflect how much $$ it takes to get a buzz off either one.

True, but that’s an awful hard measurement. How do you measure the level of “buzz” (especially since both drugs give the user different kinds of highs)? Also, I’ve known people who can smoke a quarter of pot in a night and others that can shove an entire gram of blow up their noses at a time and yet there are others that can be high for hours after a few puffs on a pipe.

Notice the cherry picking of data, too--nothing on alcohol (U.S., contrary to article, actually trails many nations), only certain nations are mentioned, and so on.  Any decent statistician would tear this one to shreds in an instant.

bike bubba
i think the use rates are wide enough that even with a little error, one can still see that the drugwar is an abysmal failure.

i would be interested to see alcohol use stats. but this is a ‘drug’ (sic) survey.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

Seems to be a few people that keep themselves advised of drug prices hanging around here.

Seems to be a few people that keep themselves advised of drug prices hanging around here.

Why do you mention it? You holdin’, C.Y.?

Seems to be a few people that keep themselves advised of drug prices hanging around here.

I like to buy the name brand Bayer. It metabolizes better than the generic stuff.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

Sparkie, no, you can’t demonstrate that it’s a failure here.  You can only prove that use rates are higher, whatever the factors are.  One of the factors, to be sure, is that if you’ve got to sneak cocaine into a country (and it’s illegal in Europe, too), it sure helps if you don’t need to cross 5000 miles of ocean first.

Again, enough holes in this one to drive a truck through.

BB: By the statistical “logic” presented here, the success of China in eliminating drug use should be a call for more enforcement here, not less.  According to this chart, more repression works.

"Give the lefties a pile of money, and they’ll spend it buying votes.” - Rush Limbaugh on the “bailout”.

Notice they didn’t cover Singapore or Malaysia?  Good point. 

Maybe the entire Wal-Mart truck fleet could drive through this one.

TrikeBaby

if you’ve got to sneak cocaine into a country (and it’s illegal in Europe, too)

it comes on boats to the states too, bro. also, i don’t know if you’ve been there, but cocaine is widely available on the street in am*dam. how do you explain away the cannabis use rates? imagine if the Dutch had been waging a 20+ billion-million someadd dollar war against the stuff. there aren’t too many holes, if you pay attention to the context of the comparison.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”