Cannabis Use in Europe
Via The Economist.Interesting that two of the European countries known as having the some of the most liberal drug laws (Netherlands and Portugal) in the world have relatively low cannabis usage rates compared to other European countries. Here's a previous CD post on Portugal's experience with drug decriminalization.
15 Comments:
These countries tax it, right? And whatever you tax, you get less of, right?
Well that explains why Denmark is such a locus of social disorder and societal dysfunction.
Fire up a reefer for me...:-)
I'll pay the taxes later if I remember to...
I wonder if Dr. Perry tokes up.
I wonder if Jaundros tokes up and walks around loaded for bear..or just loaded. Let's pray for the the latter....
"I wonder if Jaund[r?]os tokes up and walks around loaded for bear..or just loaded. Let's pray for the the latter"...
Can YOU say CCW?
Go ahead, it just will roll of your tongue...
Just don't try that on a US Army base....especially after you toke up.
Anon: "These countries tax it, right? And whatever you tax, you get less of, right?"
I think the way it works is you legalize it to get more of it and then tax it to get less of it.
The goal is to maximize taxes, i.e. make the goose lay as many golden eggs as possible without killing it.
The survey asked if you had used marijuana ANY TIME in your life. This survey has little value. It just shows that countries like Denmark had low risks for using and high availability of marijuana, and countries like Romania had either high risks for using or low availability of marijuana. We need to see the data on current usage.
Yeah, "taken during their lifetime" is a pretty iffy definition of "user".
I'm not sure of all the medicines and drugs I've taken over the years, but apparently I'm a user of all kinds of stuff.
Results from the 2008
National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings (highlights below data links-SAMHSA-U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES):
Comparisons of alchol use (legal) and marijuana use (illegal)
"Slightly more than half of Americans aged 12 or older reported being current drinkers of alcohol in the 2008 survey (51.6 percent). This translates to an estimated 129.0 million people, which was similar to the 2007 estimate of 126.8 million people (51.1 percent)."
"Marijuana was the most commonly used illicit drug (15.2 million past month users). Among persons aged 12 or older, the rate of past month marijuana use in 2008 (6.1 percent) was similar to the rate in 2007 (5.8 percent)."
I lived in Denmark for a little while and there's an area called Freetown Christiana where cannabis is not legal but the law isn't enforced (although in recent years Danish authorities have been stricter). So while it's not legal...everyone knows where to get it!
But see Colin's post above.
I can understand why a young healthy person would not want to buy health care insurance. It’s just not a good investment and the reward simply does not justify the cost. After all, how much do they stand to lose if they don’t own anything? Not much. At the same time, these are the people you need paying into the system.
You still have to look at total yearly health care costs and not insurance costs alone. And you have to decide how much risk you want to assume either way. A lot of people have to file for bankruptcy because of medical bills that have good insurance.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but I think the solution will be through a competitive market and a complete change in how health care is delivered.
speaking of "Cannabis Use"...i think weight loss must be smoking some him/herself. wrong post for that comment...
These "studies",like most everything in the "Dismal Science", are co-relative and not causitive. Speculation is delusory and entertaining at best.
Just saw a local production of the reefer madness musical. Awful.
Maybe the cause is in the opposite direction - Netherlands & Portugal can have loose drug laws because their populations are culturally inclined not to use drugs in the first place.
I think we should decriminalize most drugs here in the US, but these statistics don't mean much in and of themselves.
Same goes for government controlled health care btw.
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