How about a survey on how accurate present surveys are?
Both from discussions with users, and our own intervention data, it's more than evident that there's an alarming rise in the numbers of people who will do anything NOT to reveal their drug use, even if that's in confidence with medical professionals. It even extends to within 'safe' environments with friends. Times have changed, and like discriminated groups of the past and present, many users now choose – or are forced to choose - to live in silence.
The alarming part of this is that if drug use is seen to be decreasing while it is actually doing the opposite, policies intended to curb or reform current laws, or better facilitate for the health of users are made on the basis of inaccurate information. I recently spoke with two young people who did a phone based survey where questions about drug use were raised. They both said they lied about their usage, fearing reprisal. How many other "never used" responses fall into this category?
To put it mildly, it's truly interesting when present policy is founded on lies produced by past policies which in turn forced users into the proverbial closet. It reminds me somewhat of the Gay and Suffragette movements, although in many ways this present discrimination of drug users has more serious and far reaching implications to any who sit or fall on this side of the fence. With ~50% of Australians having tried cannabis at one time or another, and the enormous numbers of <40 year olds who’ve tried MDMA, the overall drug using part of modern society is hardly a minority, yet the level of discrimination shown towards drug users far outweighs the battles most other minority groups of modern society have had to endure.