Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Not Quite Useful Information

Americans are world's top drug users: study
Americans are the world's top consumers of cannabis and cocaine despite punitive US drug laws, according to an international study published in the online scientific magazine PLoS Medicine.

The study, released Monday, revealed that 16.2 percent of Americans had tried cocaine at least once, and 42.4 percent had used marijuana.

In second-place New Zealand, just 4.3 percent of study participants had used cocaine, and 41.9 percent marijuana.

The research was conducted at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, based on World Health Organization data from 54,068 people in 17 countries.

Rates of participation differed from country to country, and researchers noted uncertainty over how honestly people report their own drug use.

Emphasis added by me.

I'm tempted to swing these statistics over my head like a shillelagh, but I'd like more information. "At least once" and "had used" are really meaningless.

It's chronic use that matters.

And there has to be some of that going on, given the smuggling being done.

And also given the miscreants I see walking around all fly who I can't ever envision holding down something resembling a job.

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