BS Claim#1:
"Today, our children are smoking more dope ... than at any time in recent memory."
5 Apparently, drug prohibitionists don't possess very long memories. Data from both the Monitoring the Future and the National Household Survey indicate that current rates of adolescent marijuana use, both regular and lifetime, are well below what they were just a few years ago. According to the Monitoring the Future Study, lifetime prevalence of marijuana use among high-school seniors peaked in 1979 at 60 percent, a figure that stands almost one-third higher than today's percentages.
6 During this year, the percentage of youths aged 12-17 who reported regularly using marijuana (defined as once within the past month) to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse also peaked, measuring 16.8 percent.
7 Put in historical perspective, this figure is more than twice as high as today's reportedly "epidemic" 7.3 percent usage rate. Moreover, today's figure is only slightly higher than the percentage of adolescents who regularly consumed marijuana in 1988 (6.4 percent), a date prohibitionists laud as being at the height of the drug war and "just say no" campaign.
60% in 1979?? Everybody was high back then. These are kids just being kids. We need to give our children all the facts, good and bad so they can make informed decisions. MJ use today is less than half what it was 30 years ago.