U.S. Teen Marijuana Use Rises In 2009, Cocaine Declines

[Purveyor]

By Jennifer Corbett Dooren, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Marijuana use among teenagers increased this year after previous declines while the use of other illicit drugs like cocaine mostly declined.

According to an annual National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded survey of nearly 47,000 students, almost one-third of 12th graders and more than one- quarter of 10th graders reported using marijuana in 2009. Almost 12% of eighth graders reported marijuana use, an increase from about 11% in 2008.

The survey, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, asks teenagers to report on the use of smoking, alcohol use and drug use including non-medical uses of prescription painkillers and over-the-counter cold and cough products.

The report showed cigarette smoking was at the lowest point since the survey started in 1975, although the use of smokeless tobacco products increased on some measures this year.

Daily cigarette use by 12th graders was 11.2%, a slight drop from 11.4% in 2008 while any use during the past 30 days was 20.1%, also a slight decline from 2008. Smokeless tobacco use during the past 30 days in 2009 was reported by 8.4% of students in 12th grade, up from 6.5% in 2008.

Researchers said one of the reasons smoking rates have declined is that the percentage of students who reported ever trying smoking has "fallen dramatically." For example in 1996, 49% of eighth graders reported trying cigarettes compared with 20% this year. Alcohol use stayed about the same last year with more than half of 10th graders and about two-thirds of seniors reporting alcohol use in the past year.

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=200912141424dowjonesdjonline000277&title=us-teen-marijuana-use-rises-in-2009-cocaine-declines

[fl_dem]

1. if smoking pot was the worse thing my kids did

I could live with it. I wouldn't tell them that though!

[Taverner]

2. This is good news

Cocaine is a killer

Pot, on the other hand, is safer than alcohol

[Echo In Light]

3. Project Censored: 2009 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record 4th Yr In A Row

For the fourth year in a row, US marijuana arrests set an all-time record, according to 2006 FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Marijuana arrests in 2006 totaled 829,627, an increase from 786,545 in 2005. At current rates, a marijuana smoker is arrested every thirty-eight seconds, with marijuana arrests comprising nearly 44 percent of all drug arrests in the United States. According to Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), over 8 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges during the past decade, while arrests for cocaine and heroine have declined sharply.

The number of arrests in 2006 increased more than 5.5 percent from 2005. Of the 829,627 arrests, 89 percent were for possession, not sale or manufacture. Possession arrests exceeded arrests for all violent crimes combined, as they have for years. The remaining offenders, including those growing for personal or medical use, were charged with sale and/or manufacturing.

A study of New York City marijuana arrests conducted by Queens College, released in April 2008, reports that between 1998 and 2007 the New York police arrested 374,900 people whose most serious crime was the lowest-level misdemeanor marijuana offense. That number is eight times higher than the number of arrests (45,300) from 1988 to 1997. Nearly 90 percent arrested between 1998 and 2007 were male, despite the fact that national studies show marijuana use roughly equal between men and women. And while national surveys show Whites are more likely to use marijuana than Blacks and Latinos, the New York study reported that 83 percent of those arrested were Black or Latino. Blacks accounted for 52 percent of the arrests, Latinos and other people of color accounted for 33 percent, while Whites accounted for only 15 percent.1

Over the years, roughly 30 percent of those arrested nationally have been under the age of twenty. The Midwest accounts for 57 percent of all marijuana-related arrests, while the region with the fewest arrests is the West, with 30 percent. This is possibly a result of the decriminalization of marijuana in western states, such as California, on the state and local level over the past several years.

“Enforcing marijuana prohibition . . . has led to the arrests of nearly 20 million Americans, regardless of the fact that some 94 million Americans acknowledge having used marijuana during their lives,” says St. Pierre.

In the last fifteen years, marijuana arrests have increased 188 percent, while public opinion is increasingly one of tolerance, and self-reported usage is basically unchanged. “The steady escalation of marijuana arrests is happening in direct defiance of public opinion,” according to Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, DC, “Voters in communities all over the country—from Denver to Seattle, from Eureka Springs, Arkansas to Missoula County, Montana—have passed measures saying they don’t want marijuana arrests to be priority. Yet marijuana arrests have set an all-time record for four years running . . .”

Meanwhile, enforcing marijuana laws costs between $10 and $12 billion a year.

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/20-marijuana-arrests-set-new-record/