Americans: Largest Drug Consumers
September 17th, 2008 by SocProf and tagged Health, Science, Social Deviance, Sociology
The full study is here. One of the important aspects is that the United States has the most repressive legal apparatus against drug use – the famous War on Drugs (take a look at the Drug War Clock as well as the Wikipedia page and a pretty extensive FAQ) – and still ends up with these highest numbers.
From the study:
PLoS Medicine – Toward a Global View of Alcohol, Tobacco, Cannabis, and Cocaine Use: Findings from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys via kwout
The inverse relationship is true as well: the Netherlands, with their relatively liberal drug legislation report only 2% have tried cocaine and 20% have used cannabis, way below US levels.
This bears repeating: severity of punishment has a very loose connection to volume of behavior or activity.
Posted in Health, Science, Social Deviance, Sociology | No Comments »
