National drug survey shows big drop in methamphetamine use

LogicSoDeveloped

LogicSoDeveloped

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 12, 2010
Messages
3,427
Location
The Mountains
Marijuana is as popular as ever while methamphetamine is falling out of favor, a national drug-use survey has found.
Click to expand...

Nearly one in 10 Americans report regularly using illegal drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, inhalants or prescription drugs used recreationally, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health made public today. The survey, sponsored by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), collects the data from interviews with 67,500 randomly selected people 12 years or older.
Marijuana, with about 17.4 million regular users, is by far the most commonly used drug. Its popularity is growing: 6.9% of the population reported using marijuana regularly, up from 5.8% in 2007, the survey found. Among 12- to 17-year-olds, 7.4% reported having used marijuana in the past month, about the same as last year.
Drug use among young adults 18 to 25 has inched up steadily from 19.6% in 2008 to 21.5% in 2010, driven largely by an increase in marijuana use, the survey found. Marijuana use in that age group grew from 16.5% in 2008 to 18.5% in 2010.
Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, attributed the uptick in marijuana use to the increase in the number of states that have approved it for medical use. Delaware in May became the 16th state to approve medical marijuana.
"People keep calling it medicine, and that's the wrong message for young people to hear," Kerlikowske said.
Marijuana use rates rise and fall in medical marijuana states in the same fashion as they do in non-medical marijuana states, said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for decriminalizing marijuana.
"In the field of medicine, whether or not a youth might abuse something doesn't determine whether or not an adult should have access to a medication and whether a doctor should prescribe it," Piper said.
Meanwhile, methamphetamine use, which raced across the USA for a decade, has declined sharply. The number of past-month users declined from 731,000 in 2006 to 353,000 in 2010.
Since methamphetamine emerged as a problem drug in 2001, states have outlawed or restricted the sale of ingredients used to concoct homemade meth, such as pseudoephedrine found in cold medicines such as Sudafed, said Peter Delany, director of the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality at SAMHSA.
"We've seen better attention for law enforcement and policy changes. You can't get all the Sudafed you want anymore," Delany said.
The percentage of the population who used prescription drugs, such as narcotic painkillers, for non-medical reasons stayed at 2.7%. The survey found that 55% of them got the drugs free from a friend or relative; 11.4% bought them from a friend or relative, and 5% stole them from a friend or relative. Just 4% purchased them from a drug dealer, the survey found.
Prescription-drug abuse has gotten widespread attention over the past two years from news media and public health authorities, Kerlikowske said. Police and lawmakers acted quickly to curb the problem, he said.
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called it a public health epidemic, he said, law enforcement agencies cracked down on doctors who write thousands of prescriptions with little or no medical examination and states created programs to monitor the prescribing of narcotics.
"I think we're starting to see some positive results, but we're by no means out of the woods," Kerlikowske said.
On Wednesday, the Drug Enforcement Administration clamped down on "bath salts," the nickname for a synthetic drug that some public health experts have identified as an emerging drug problem. The synthetic drugs, often sold at convenience stores under names such as "Cloud Nine" or "Ivory Wave," allegedly mimic the effects of cocaine or LSD and can cause hallucinations and paranoia. The American Association of Poison Control Centers has logged 4,137 reports of illness from those drugs as of July 31, up from 302 calls in 2010.
The DEA used its emergency powers to temporarily control the sale of three synthetic stimulants, Mephedrone, MDPV and Methylone, used to make the salts. The action makes possession and selling the chemicals illegal in the United States for at least a year while the DEA and the Department of Health and Human Services study them.
Click to expand...
source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washin...ws-big-drop-in-methamphetamine-use/50309360/1
 
It's quite ironic you can get opiates and methamphetamine prescribed but god-forbid you get marijuana prescribed.
 
I blame the psuedoephedrine bottle-neck. Not because people are becoming less of meth-heads.

But at the same time, it makes it a hassle for a guy like me to go to the store and get some ephedrine. Which I plan to put in my body to use as a fairly harmless stimulant for studying and working out.

Also, you can still get "all the sudafed" you want. Too bad its phenylephrine.

"In the field of medicine, whether or not a youth might abuse something doesn't determine whether or not an adult should have access to a medication and whether a doctor should prescribe it," Piper said.
Click to expand...

I agree. The use of "children" and "youth" has become an increasingly annoying sword used by the media to 'slash away' any progress in medicine.

Parents have enough resources to become self-educated about drugs and use that influence to deter their children from addictive behavior. The government already has the public education system to baby-sit the nation's youth.
 
Last edited:
ephedrine is illegal to sell in supplements not because of meth labs, (REGULAR ephedrine, not pseudo) because it has too much a tendency to cause cardiac arrest and whatnot to be safe enough for use in supplements.
ephedra itself too is also banned.
but if you're not running a meth lab i dont see why the pseudo thing would bother you that bad, cause i thought you can buy a few boxes a month, which i'm sure would be enough pseudo to be completely snot free for a while...
does anybody else just see the govt like...almost taking jobs away from americans with the pseudo limits, cause now the mexican cartels just run it mostly i thought instead of biker gangs who cook it themselves.
so a hard workin' american cant cook up some crystal meth and make money any more, his "job"/livelyhood got outsourced to mexico
they took our jerbs.
i wonder how much money would be pumped into the economy if there was no limit on pseudo
cause people buying it makes the pharm companies profit, the truckers/people who get it to the stores profit, the stores that sell it profit....
walmart and lowes/home depot would probably make record profits if that happened.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY: LET AMERICANS BUY FUCKTONS OF PSEUDO AND COOK METH
the meth will cause people to pawn mroe shit and make dealers get more money that they'll spend on luxury stuff/frivolous stuff that would pump more money into the economy...
oh lawd if i ran the US...
 
Last edited:
I think the survey is wrong as far as meth use, maybe it is down among some teens surveyed, but the meth "epidemic" has been raging where I live since the mid 1980's and while local meth production is way down , the Mexican cartels and drug dealers have saturated my area and many other areas with crystal meth aka Ice and so on for over a decade, what was once a drug done by local bikers,truckers ,etc..is know more avialable and used more than weed is, in fact in my area more people use crystal meth than use coke,heroin(which is not common usaully) and even weed, likly combined..everyone that gets arrested for a weed possesion or sale charge is 90% of the time also in poss. of crystal meth, the two seem to go hand in hand here sadly..Only a few people that sell weed or grow weed in the area are not involved in selling or using crystal meth!! I only get weed from one or two people becasue of this, most weed dealers here also sell a lot of crystal meth, and have shady speed freaks hanging around their houses, and I don't want to go get a bag or an ounce of weed and end up in some large scale meth busts, which have happened to a few people I know in the past! Went to get a bag or so of weed only, speed freaks all hanging at the weed dealers house, becasue he/she also used and or sold meth or had meth dealers hanging out, and one day a friend was getting an ounce of weed from a guy, and the cops raided the house with them still there, speed freaks ran out every door they could and the cops end up finding loaded guns, a total of almost a 1/2 LB. of meth and a few pounds of weed..my friend was arrewsted for poss. for sale of meth and poss of guns,and weed,etc..until the cops figured out what drugs belonged to who,etc..but they were held on a no bond drug task force hold for a few days just for being there with cash in their pocket!! It's certainly not safe to associate with anyone for weed here, unless you know for sure they are not into or allow meth to be used or sold at their house or property!! Sad days when it's riskier to buy weed from someone you know, but may be a closet meth user/dealer!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top