Top 10 Science-Related Cannabis Stories for 2011 [View all]

[RainDog]

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/drug-law/top-ten-cannabis-science-stories-2011

Here are a few of them:

8. Two-thirds of patients surveyed substitute marijuana for prescription medications

7. Oxycontin is five times the “gateway drug” as marijuana

6. Drug testing is still unreliable, inaccurate, unnecessary, invasive, and counter-productive

5. For past two years, more Americans arrested for marijuana than all other drugs combined despite arrest protection for America’s One Million Legal Marijuana Users

When somebody mentions “The War on Drugs”, remind them what we’re really talking about is a “War on Marijuana”.

Nationally, there were 1,638,846 drug arrests reported to the FBI, with 52.1% of those arrests for marijuana charges. Last year, 51.6% of all drug arrests were for marijuana, showing a slight increase in marijuana as the majority of all drug arrests. The last time marijuana made up a majority of the “War on Drugs” was 1985, when 55.6% of all drug arrests were for marijuana.

Keep in mind that these annual marijuana arrests continue to climb even as we reduce the number of marijuana users eligible for arrest in the medical marijuana state, users who grow and use the most marijuana.

Between one to one-and-a-half million people are legally authorized by their state to use marijuana in the United States, according to data compiled by NORML from state medical marijuana registries and patient estimates. Assuming usage of one-half to one gram of cannabis medicine per day per patient and an average retail price of $320 per ounce, these legal consumers represent a $2.3 to $6.2 billion dollar market annually.

I included the text of this last one to demonstrate to those who want to claim arrest for possession is no longer an issue in the U.S. Even with medical marijuana, more people were arrested on marijuana-related charges in the U.S. than at any time since Ronald Reagan was in office and moved from "It's no one's business if they choose to use cannabis" to "Cannabis is dangerous and not an issue of personal freedom while driving without a motorcycle helmet must be protected as an important infringement of liberty." (If you wonder about why that quote - check out "Quote/Unquote" in the Drug Policy Forum.)

more at the link above...