DC: Seeking Treatment for Marijuana: Data from California - Marijuana.com

DC: Seeking Treatment for Marijuana: Data from California

Today, ONDCP highlighted the fact that the percentage of Californians voluntarily seeking treatment for marijuana as their drug of choice was higher than that for the rest of the United States. The information was based on data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's 2008 Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS).

The findings show:

51% of treatment admissions where marijuana was the primary drug involved came from non-criminal justice sources in California, compared to only 42% for the rest of the U.S. Referral sources included individual referrals, schools, substance abuse and healthcare providers, employers, and other community referrals. 47% of people receiving treatment for marijuana in California were under the age of 18, compared to 28% in the rest of the country. 65% of Californians who received treatment for marijuana began using the drug at age 14 or younger. This compares to 55 percent for the rest of the U.S.

ONDCP Director Kerlikowske cited the discussions of so-called "medical" marijuana, marijuana legalization, and downplaying marijuana's harms as a significant contributor in sending the wrong message to young people about the health consequences of drug use. Studies show marijuana use is associated with dependence, respiratory and mental illness, poor motor performance, cognitive impairment, and emergency room admissions. And young people are more susceptible to these negative effects and the long-term consequences of drug use.

During his visit to California, Director Kerlikowske gave a call to action, stating, "At a time when drug use in America is on the rise, we must focus our efforts on actions that will protect young people from the harms and consequences of illegal drug use, instead of supporting initiatives that will make our national drug problem – and the costs associate with it – worse."

Never mind that his 16 billion dollar budget is the second highest part of the costs associated with it,,,,,,,,watch this hand while I take your billfold with the other.

The largest cost to America is the judicial/correctional costs.

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US: The Drug Czar pulls more numbers from his cauldron

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

The Director of the ONDCP has an entire office full of trolls who never see the light of day, searching through various sets of data to come up with different combinations that might please His Worship. Then the Czar waves his wand over the numbers, mutters incantations and declares them to have…. meaning! He then assigns the meaning and reports it to the press, who dutifully record it in the sacred newspapers.

This time, he’s going after California with his bogus data analysis.

Today, ONDCP highlighted the fact that the percentage of Californians voluntarily seeking treatment for marijuana as their drug of choice was higher than that for the rest of the United States. The information was based on data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s 2008 Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS).

The findings show:

51% of treatment admissions where marijuana was the primary drug involved came from non-criminal justice sources in California, compared to only 42% for the rest of the U.S. Referral sources included individual referrals, schools, substance abuse and healthcare providers, employers, and other community referrals. 47% of people receiving treatment for marijuana in California were under the age of 18, compared to 28% in the rest of the country. 65% of Californians who received treatment for marijuana began using the drug at age 14 or younger. This compares to 55 percent for the rest of the U.S. ONDCP Director Kerlikowske cited the discussions of so-called “medical” marijuana, marijuana legalization, and downplaying marijuana’s harms as a significant contributor in sending the wrong message to young people about the health consequences of drug use. All right. Let’s take a quick look at this.

First, the whole “admitted for treatment for marijuana” thing is pretty much completely useless for determining anything. So many people are referred by the criminal justice system that it completely undermines the data. Here, you see the Drug Czar knows that we’ve already shown that to be bogus, so in the first figures, he tries to claim that “other than criminal justice” equals “voluntarily seeking treatment.” Of course, that’s bogus as well, since it includes all sorts of other referrals. Even individual referrals don’t necessarily mean much, since attorneys often advise their clients to enroll in a treatment program so it looks better when they’re in front of the judge.

The marijuana treatment data is so meaningless, the Government figures themselves show that over 37 percent of those who entered treatment “for marijuana” had not used it in the past month.

Now I’ve done my share of digging through the cauldron of TEDS data. I’m not going to take the time to do it just to show the Drug Czar is playing loose with the facts. I don’t have to.

The first stat he uses certainly doesn’t show that more people are voluntarily entering treatment marijuana in California. There’s a lot of possibilities, given all the parameters of referral sources, but there’s no evidence of what the Drug Czar claims.

Let’s move to the second one:

47% of people receiving treatment for marijuana in California were under the age of 18, compared to 28% in the rest of the country.

Hmmm… sounds significant, doesn’t it? Ah, but what’s missing? Context. Those are internal comparative figures. Without knowing how they relate to the total population, there’s no way that they demonstrate the significance attached to them by the Czar.

At first glance, it appears that the data says that a significantly higher percentage of children in California enter treatment than in other states. But it doesn’t say that at all. It only talks about comparative populations.

Just for fun, let’s make up some numbers.

People Owning Widgets Under 18 years 18+ years State A 30 20 State B 40 60 In this fictional set of numbers, 60% of the State A widget owners are under 18, whereas only 40% of the State B ones are children. And yet, as you can see in the figures, that doesn’t tell the story at all. The story is, in State A, adults are less likely to own widgets.

OK. Consider that California has medical marijuana and, as some have said, it’s pretty much de facto decriminalization for many adults. So it would actually make sense that a much smaller portion of the adult population of California would end up in situations where they were forced to enter treatment “for marijuana” (but without a corresponding reduction in youth susceptibility to criminal justice and school referrals). This would naturally make the youth portion seem larger in comparison. This would explain both points 2 and 3.

This, in fact, completely shoots down the Drug Czar’s argument that California liberalization of marijuana talk has increased the youth drug problem.

There may be other explanations for this data as well, if we cared enough to dig through the bubbling cauldron full of eye of newt and toe of frog, treatment admissions and tongue of dog.

The point is, that even in the relatively useless set of TEDS data (at least for analytical purposes due to the abuse of the treatment system), the Drug Czar comes up with numbers that can only superficially support his treatise. And even that support disappears like a wisp of dirty steam once you take those numbers into the light of day.

The Drug Czar is no true witch. He’s just a charlatan, playing with his trolls’ digits.

Don't you just love the internet,even more than Kerli hates it?