It should come to no surprise that less and less teens are actually buying your load of bullshit when it comes to anti-drug ads. That's at least what the L.A Times is saying
The federal government's annual report of kids’ alcohol and drug abuse seems reassuring: Compared with earlier in the decade, use of hallucinogens was down in 2008, marijuana use was way down, and use of methamphetamines was way, way down.
But the researchers and public officials who crunch those numbers warned that some of the statistics gleaned from an annual survey of 46,000 American eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders were worrisome.
Though drug and alcohol use seems to be declining or holding steady, there has been slippage in teen disapproval of such practices and perception of the risks, officials warned.
Take marijuana use, which had declined steadily among teens since the mid-1990s. This year, 19.4% of high school seniors said they had smoked marijuana at some point in the prior 30 days, as did 13.8% of 10th-graders and 5.8% of eighth-graders. The downward trend has stalled in the last two years, and kids' attitudes suggest a reversal may be ahead.
In 1991, 58% of eighth-graders said they thought occasional marijuana use was harmful. By last year, that number had fallen to 48%, and this year, to 45%.
In a Washington, D.C., news conference Monday, Gil Kerlikowske, the Obama administration's drug czar, called such numbers "a warning sign."
"When beliefs soften, drug use worsens," said Kerlikowske, whose office is expected to release its first policy initiatives to combat and treat drug abuse in February.
University of Michigan researcher Lloyd Johnston, who oversees the annual survey, said there was "serious softening" in the perceived risks of LSD, inhalants and the party drug Ecstasy -- a sign that "a new generation of kids are interested . . . in rediscovering these drugs, because they don't understand why they shouldn't be using them."
Johnston also flagged a phenomenon the survey has recently begun to track -- "extreme binge drinking," or the consumption of more than 10 drinks on a single occasion. Coming on the heels of the weekend death of South Pasadena's Aydin Salek, an 18-year-old suspected of having succumbed to alcohol poisoning, the survey's findings suggest that such high-risk drinking is not unusual among older teens.
Binge drinking, defined as consumption of five drinks or more in a row, has declined since peaking in 1983. But Johnston said there has been "not much decline" in numbers of extreme binge drinkers.
Among high school seniors, 11% said they had drunk 10 drinks or more in a row in the two weeks prior to the survey; 6% said they'd had 15 or more.
The survey also showed that U.S. adolescents continue to raid their parents' and friends' medicine chests. Use of prescription painkillers is at an all-time high: 10% of high-school seniors reported taking Vicodin for nonmedical reasons in the last year, and 5% reported taking OxyContin.
Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has commissioned the survey for 35 years, said at the news conference that teen use of prescription stimulant drugs is holding steady, with just over 7% of 10th- and 12th-graders reporting they had taken amphetamines -- drugs prescribed to many kids in treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder -- for nonmedical reasons. Volkow said that in many cases, teens take these drugs before tests or study sessions as "cognitive enhancers."
Although fewer kids reported taking Ritalin, much of that decline was because kids had merely shifted to Adderall, a newer ADHD drug.
The officials said that youths report some confidence that prescription drugs are less harmful than street drugs.
In the survey's first accounting of where kids get drugs, it found that 66% who reported illicit drug use said they got the drugs from a friend or relative. Almost 19% said they got drugs with a doctor's prescription.
Maybe I should underwrite a grant to get requiem for a dream shown in every kindergarten class in the country. I'm sure there will be plenty of people who support that action. But on the other hand, Kids these days, what with the internet and all, are legitimately much smarter than previous generations and this is evidenced through much better writing ability, critical thinking skills, and political awareness.
They ain't geniuses and they're still utterly embarrassing, but they're a damn lot smarter than kids before. Even the stats in this study show evidence of this. Kids know that drug use is not very harmful, and yet choose to not do drugs anyway. Where as kids in the past thought drug use to be more harmful and did comparatively more drugs. Kids are making informed choices and it's not because of the war on drugs.
Perhaps, just perhaps these stats show a more informed population. Kids are actually learning that drugs are not the devil and are still choosing not to use them as much. So it's sort of comical when they still consider occasional marijuana use "harmful". Back in my day, they'd bring in a cracked out hobo to scare the shit out of you. Nothing like a gently weeping man in the front of the classroom to scare kids off drugs, or in my case, make me hate cops.
To be honest, nobody has ever needed a cop to come to their class to inform them that maybe heroin and crack aren't great. All DARE did for me was bring psychedelics to my attention. They sounded pretty cool. And as it turns out they are pretty neat in the way they'll allow you to experience The Matrix. If you want to see how it feels, pop in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or any other Terry Gilliam film and you're half way there.
I also had anti-gang education in addition to anti-drug education. Yeah, I was in that part of town. They told us that gangs often have initiation ceremonies wherein the members of the gang get to rape your mom. I don't doubt that has ever happened, but let's be real here. That's probably kind of rare. You can't pass that shit as completely real. Unless of course your kids are complete morons. Or your educators are also.
I remember watching an episode of Law and Order in the 9th grade and I kept asking the teacher if the cops could get away with it, like breaking open doors without warrants or throwing people on the ground that had voluntarily surrendered. All the teacher could tell me was that "yeah, of course. They caught the rapist after all." I'm not going to defend a rapist, hell I'm not even sure why I used it as an example, but I've seen the way that a cop works.. Not gonna happen that way.
I'm a little surprised that ten drinks is extreme binge drinking. I mean, I'm a fucking lush apparently. If there's no last call or if I'm at a friendly kick back and I have all the night to indulge myself, I'm at least knocking back 15. Shit, just the other week at an event I had at least 7 drinks and I was still way sober by the end of the night. Sober enough to drive home safely.
When you think about it. Of all the drugs one can abuse, pot is by far the most benign. It's really a case of one vice in exchange for another. Liquor abuse will make you slow and fat and destroy your kidneys. Amphetamine abuse fucks with your circulation and makes you a sweaty jittering mess. Hallucinogen abuse makes you lose touch with reality and yourself.
Pot abuse, on the other hand, makes you funny, charming, handsome and brave. That is if you're not one of those lazy pot heads. Fuck those douches. But the US government will never, ever, ever admit that illegal drugs are not harmful 100% of the time, because neither party wants to be seen as being soft on crime. They live in a bubble
"When beliefs soften, drug use worsens," said Kerlikowske, whose office is expected to release its first policy initiatives to combat and treat drug abuse in February.This is literally the opposite of the truth. The best thing we could do for the war on drugs is not make drugs taboo so that kids get bored with them. Just like we did with prescription medication and yet people don't take prescription medication as a form of drug abuse. Did you know that prescription painkillers kill more people than heroin and AIDS combined? And that shit you can get with a doctors note over the counter.
Salvia can give you a much uglier, more frightening and uncomfortable version of the DMT experience and is legal to boot. So make some sense out of all that if you will. I know I can't. The worse part about Salvia is the way retarded head shops promote it as a sort of legal alternative to weed, which couldn't be further from the truth. See also "Purple sticky" brand Salvia. Why any news agency ever started reporting that it was a legal form of pot was beyond me. It's far from it and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wants to simply skirt the law to get their high.
In my experience, eating mushrooms could have been probably my least favorite drug experience, its like chewing on a bunch of twigs. Though the pay out was pretty interesting. One thing an ex discovered was that if you ever have an relationship issues, taking ecstasy together would be a great way to fix any relationship problems and be completely open with each other. I'm just going to leave this topic off on that note.. Cause really, do I have to say anymore?
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