Buzzby

Marijuana Treatment Admissions on the Rise
Study shows treatment admissions for marijuana use nearly tripled over a ten-year period from 1992 to 2002
NARCONON | PRWeb | 03/24/2005

(BuzzNote: Not your father's "Reefer Madness"! This one actually has some original lies. I leave it to you good netizens to rip it to shreds.)

(PRWEB) March 24, 2005 -- The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced this month a trend of individuals being admitted for treatment for marijuana use. The report comes from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS), which is an annual compilation of data on substance abuse treatment admissions.

That data showed that in 1992 there were 45 treatment admissions for marijuana use per 100,000 people aged 12 or older. This number more than doubled to 93 admissions by 1997 and in 2002 was 118. This resulted in an increase from six percent to 15 percent of all treatment admissions.

In a release issued by SAMHSA, Administrator Charles Curie exclaimed, “Marijuana is not a harmless substance, and these treatment trends emphasize that point.”

Executive Director of Narconon Arrowhead Gary W. Smith reports, “Although the number of people coming to us who are abusing pot is a smaller percentage of our total clientele, in the 30 years I have been in the drug rehabilitation field I have not seen these numbers of individuals literally hooked on marijuana and unable to stop on their own. We’ve known for a long time that marijuana use can lead to other drugs but it is shocking to see people whose lives are being destroyed by smoking pot just like others we are treating who are addicted to crack or alcohol. I believe this is happening because the strength of the pot that is being smoked today is probably ten times stronger then the pot of 20 years ago.”

Narconon Arrowhead is one of the largest and most successful programs in the country and it uses the proven effective drug rehabilitation and education methodology developed by American author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard.

Marijuana has often been viewed as one of the milder illicit drugs, but data from the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) shows that the increased potency of the drug has contributed to this trend. The 2002 DAWN survey showed a dramatic increase in marijuana-related hospital emergency room visits. Though in past most of these incidents included a mixture of drugs being reported, the number of emergency visits for only marijuana rose 45 percent over a two-year period.

There are over 400 chemicals found in marijuana smoke and 60 of them have been proven to cause cancer. Marijuana contains the neurotoxin THC, which is a poison that affects the brain and nerves. When someone smokes pot, two things happen to them: 1) There is an almost immediate burn-up of vitamins and minerals in the body. 2) Nerves in the body go numb.

These two things happen every time someone takes the drug and it causes that person's health to steadily decrease. A person's tolerance to the drug also builds and eventually the individual has to smoke pot almost continuously just to feel somewhat normal because they have caused so much damage to themselves.

Marijuana's negative effects also last well beyond the initial use. THC is lipophilic, meaning the chemical is fat-bonding and gets stored inside a person's body for weeks, months and even years after use ceases. This means the drug residues continue to cause adverse reactions, which has been proven by numerous studies.

To help someone overcome marijuana use or to get more information on Narconon Arrowhead call 1-800-468-6933 or visit www.marijuanaaddiction.com.

For more data on treatment admissions reports and other drug use statistics log on to www.oas.samhsa.gov.

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SacredJellybean

Hahaha! Hoo-boy. I won't comment on the article, but I went to marijuanaaddiction.com, and clicked on a link called "pot information". I found this little exerpt amusing:

Blunts are "often" laced? What a load of bull! I've smoked many a blunt in my day, but never have I come across any person who would taint a perfectly good blunt with a drug like crack or PCP. Any regular pot smoker should recognize this as a lie on the spot.

I suppose when you're trying to demonize a drug like marijuana, it helps to associate it with all sorts of other scary drugs! Crack, smack, and E, oh my! This must also where the idea of the gateway theory spawns from.

__________________
"Every age has its peculiar folly and if Charles Mackay, the author of the 19th century classic, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds were alive today he would surely see 'cannabinophobia' as a popular delusion along with the 'tulipmania' and 'witch hunts' of earlier ages. ... I also believe that future historians will look at this epoch and recognize it as another instance of the 'madness of crowds.'"
~Dr. Lester Grinspoon

Burninbrooke

These people are idiots, they are using scare tactics to fill their treatment centers. My best friends parents sent him to rehab for pot his senior year, he came out knowing how to shoot up coke, he's dead now.

__________________
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"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." — George W. Bush Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

SkyTripper

It's articles like this one that just make me wanna puke!
If in fact, admissions (emergency rooms/treatment) have increased so dramatically over the past few years for marijuana alone......most likely it was due to 1 of 2 possible reasons:
1. Court-ordered treatment for an individual charged with possession who felt they had no choice but to comply with a judge so as to potentially have their record wiped clean upon successful completion of "treatment."
2. Emergency room visits due to "tainted" buds or as a result of a combination of various substances other than the marijuana......maybe too much alcohol? Pills?
Either way, I see so much bias and an overall scapegoating of weed by itself and think its a shame that lies and propaganda continue to be so prevalent in regards to weed.
I have smoked bud for the better part of 25 years now and continue to be amazed at the perpetuation of all the same lies and BS scare tactics associated with the use of marijuana or the "gateway theory" these idiots try to convince the misinformed, ignorant people with.

Livin Happy, High and Free
Toke responsibly and with respect to all of Mother Nature

__________________
SkyTripper

Cassius

If 118 is fifteen percent of all treatment admissions tracked by this "data set", then this data set only tracked 787 treatment admissions for the entire year.

Do you think in one year, out of the 280 million people in the country, more than 787 people were treated for a substance addiction? I'd say FAR more. This "index" obviously doesn't track much at all -- with a sample size of 787, how you can possibly reach ANY conclusions? The margin for error is bigger than the size of marijuana admissions! (when you consider the total population)

In my mind, this "rise" is an indication of only one thing -- that the prohibitionists are getting more desperate, and sending their friends and family to rehab for such a paltry "addiction".

I mean, out of 787 treatment admissions for an ENTIRE YEAR for an ENTIRE COUNTRY with almost three hundred million people -- do you think that an "increase" or "decrease" in numbers would be anything but coincidental?

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Cassius

There's probably more than 787 rehab admissions in a year for ANY major city in the country, let alone all of them put together plus all the suburban and rural populations as well.

Somebody drawing conclusions from data as dubious as this makes me angry, but I don't know whether I'm more angry at the person doing it, or at the general population for being apathetic enough to not spot the immediate fallacy.

WNB

Uh, way to get the statistics wrong, guys. It's 118 per 100,000, so your arguements are bunk. The real problem with that is it is just a raw number: The population has increased since 1992.

Also, the whole problem with looking at treatment admissions is that many people don't attend treatment of their own free will as a result of having a serious problem. If I'm sitting on my porch smoking a joint and a cop sees me, you can bet I'll be attending "treatment" too, whether or not I actually have a problem.

Marijuana is also readily available to kids as a result of the failed drug war, and people under 18 are a significant portion of those forced into treatment. Legalizing marijuana and putting a legal age limit on it is the way to deal with this. It's alot harder for high school kids to regularly get alcohol than marijuana, and that's because alcohol is legal.

Finally, they make some pretty serious factual errors near the end. MJ is not a poison because you cannot overdose on it. A banana also contains over 400 chemicals, as do most things; this is not evidence that it is bad. Finally, stored drug residue is not active THC, as it has been processed by the body and is no longer psychoactive.

But I guess you can't except good information in an article written by the public relations branch of Narcanon, founded by everyone's favorite cult leader L. Ron Hubbard.

__________________
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Buzzby

That's a classic mis-read!


The US population is somewhere over 300,000,000. Say two-thirds are over 12: 200,000,000. If there were 118 marijuana admissions per 100,000 that would be 236,000 admissions. If that's 15% of all admissions, the total number of admissions for all drugs would be 1,573,333.

That's an amazing figure. I'd guess that each admission is worth at least $8,000 to a treatment center. That's a gross of $12,586,664,000.

Is it any surprise that NARCONON and other players in the treatment scam are willing to say anything to bring in business? Drug treatment is ineffective in the extreme. The relapse rate is something over 70% (that get caught) so they have a lot of repeat business, too.

RL in IL

THC a neurotoxin ? THC a poison? This article is bunk. THC has been proven to be non-toxic.

This seems to have come out of left field. Apparently the basis for these statements come from marijuana that is often purposefully laced with crack cocaine and used in the ghetto and crime-ridden neighborhoods.

Buzzby

The basis for these statements is the fervid imagination of someone nutty enough to be a follower of L. Ron Hubbard. They promote a coherent body of knowledge concerning drugs that has absolutely no basis in fact.

Laced marijuana is largely mythological. Anything you'd lace it with would cost a lot more than than the marijuana itself. It would be more profitable to sell the crack or PCP by itself.