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Politics : View from the Center and Left

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To: quehubo who wrote (126389)12/5/2009 5:20:37 PM
From: epicure  Read Replies (2) of 542019
 
Your question got me thinking- why did you think everyone here would have a family member damaged by drug abuse? Obviously you have had experience with this damage, and so you project your experience on to the world. But it got me thinking- how common is true drug damage?

So I went looking for statistics. You want a real scientific scandal? Start trying to get some real numbers on the drug problem in America. I don't mean the "problem" as law enforcement see it (It's huge! It's a cash cow) or the problem as legislators see it (It's huge- it's a bread and butter issue with older voters who eat this up)- nor can you trust the media- which follows an "If it bleeds it leads" strategy- so a meth head drowning a baby could go nationwide, even if that only happens once.

So where do we get the stats? Judging from this thread, your perception is out of tune with reality- but after trying to find some real numbers on the net, I begin to worry there are none. Everyone seems to have an axe to grind and grind hard in these studies.

I think with areas where emotions run high it begins to be tough to get good data- whether it's drugs, or terrorism, or anthropogenic climate change. You can't really believe either of the extremes, which leads you to plow around in the middle trying to ignore the screamers on the edges- but that's tough.
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