If Tobacco Regulation Works, Why Not Regulate Marijuana?
By Rob Kampia, AlterNet. Posted December 24, 2007.
If we really want to control marijuana and keep it away from kids, why not try a method that actually works?President Bush recently touted new survey results showing a modest drop in teen use of marijuana and other drugs, but he failed to mention the drug for which prevention efforts have had the most spectacular success -- tobacco. If he had, he might have had to make some troubling comparisons.
Citing the results of the annual Monitoring the Future survey, Bush noted that drug use has declined from its recent peak in 1996, but sidestepped the longer-term picture that doesn't look nearly so rosy.
If you go back 15 years, to 1992, drug use is up almost across the board. For example, in 1992, 3.7 percent of eighth-graders were current marijuana users, compared with 5.7 percent in 2007. For 12th-graders, the figures were 11.9 percent and 18.8 percent, respectively.
This contrasts sharply with the figures on adolescent cigarette use. Here, too, there was a bit of a rise in the mid-1990s, but overall, the trend is much more encouraging.
While marijuana use is higher among all age groups than it was 15 years ago, cigarette smoking has dropped remarkably. Among 12th-graders, current cigarette smoking has dropped from 27.8 percent in 1992 to 21.6 percent this year. For eighth-graders, the drop is even more dramatic, from 15.5 percent down to 7.1 percent. ............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/71504/