Pubdate: Tue, 15 Feb 2005
Source: Journal Times, The (Racine, WI)
Copyright: 2005 The Journal Times
Contact:  http://www.journaltimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1659
Author: Rachel Campbell

FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE MIDWEST

The Associated Press announced Monday that the Midwest wears the nation's 
crooked and frequently dropped Binge Drinking crown, with some of the 
highest rates of marathon drinking in the Union. But before you start 
blaming college students for everything, note that North Dakota has the 
highest rate of all.

According to the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 31 percent of 
residents 12 and older - let me repeat that: 12 and older - reported 
drinking more than five drinks in a single sitting at least once in the 
last month. Must be some rough middle schools in the N.D. (The national 
average, according to data released last September, is 23 percent.) The 
survey also reported that although Oregon had a relatively low 20.5 percent 
binge drinking population, it had one of the highest populations of pot 
smokers: About 9 percent of ... Oregonites? Oregonians? Oregonos? age 12 
and older toked up in 2003. New Hampshire, with just a single percentage 
point over Oregon, won the five-pointed Pot Smoking award.

Personally, I found this surprising. The highest rate of marijuana smoking 
in the nation is 10 percent? Including the middle school crowd? Seriously? 
But as the article continued, this started to make sense: "National results 
released in September found that fewer American youths were using 
marijuana, LSD and Ecstasy, but more were abusing prescription drugs. The 
survey also found that youths and young adults were more aware of the risks 
of using pot."

As a card-carrying "young adult," I would say that's pretty accurate. I 
could probably get ahold of some Percocets or Ativans or Luminals or any 
number of antidepressants in a matter of hours, but I honestly can't 
remember the last time anybody offered me a hit off their pipe. (Just 
typing that feels a little strange. "Hit off their pipe"? Is that even how 
you say that anymore?) What the article doesn't mention, unfortunately, is 
the prevalence of methamphetamine. Easily and cheaply made on American 
soil, powerfully addictive, and exponentially tolerable (that is, you need 
more and more to get high every time you use it), meth is a drug dealer's 
dream come true. And it shows: The fact sheet on the 2003 survey (available 
on the White House Drug Policy Web site) gives marijuana most of the ink, 
reporting only that meth use nationwide is "down slightly" from 0.9 percent 
to 0.7 percent - or 600,000 "past month users," as the survey's press 
release diplomatically calculates it. This would explain why the subsequent 
news coverage overwhelmingly fails to mention meth.

But what neither the fact sheet nor the press release report is the 
survey's finding that "Lifetime use of methamphetamines was reported by 
12.3 million (5.2 percent of the population)." That's up from 9.4 million 
in 1999, which itself was triple the rate of 1994. Meth abuse, in other 
words, which carries a mortality rate of approximately 40 percent, has 
quadrupled over the past 10 years.

Prescription drug use "nonmedically at least once in (a) lifetime," which 
you'll note was reported by the press, stands at 8.8 percent. Strange.
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MAP posted-by: Beth