Political Crossfire Forums

[brian bennett]

bigstick61 wrote: Apparently not. So many judicial rulings these days fly in the face of what was said in the Federalist Papers; they are clearly erroneous, but given the status of being factual and nearly absolute, which is part of today's problem.

our citizens have abdicated their responsibility to keep the government in check. someday they may wake up -- but the clock seems to be ticking ever faster.

[bigstick61]

One of the biggest things which has led us down this path is the 17th Amendment, which made it so that instead of Senators being chosen by the State legislatures, they are now directly elected by the people. This has removed important checks, such as the States against the Federal government, and checks on the people, which has resulted in the expanded Federal government and the corruption and disrespect for rule of law we have now.

[brian bennett]

bigstick61 wrote: One of the biggest things which has led us down this path is the 17th Amendment, which made it so that instead of Senators being chosen by the State legislatures, they are now directly elected by the people. This has removed important checks, such as the States against the Federal government, and checks on the people, which has resulted in the expanded Federal government and the corruption and disrespect for rule of law we have now.

yeah, that certainly has corrupted the original intent behind separating the powers of government. but i think the 16th amendment is far worse: it gives an unlimited power of taxation on income. clearly, the people who pushed that one through were clueless about the concept of limited power. or worse, they understood it all too well and decided to pave the road for tyranny.

it's been downhill for liberty ever since.

[lovebush]

bigstick61 wrote: The solution is for the States to ban driving while high, just like they ban driving while drunk. In either case it is DUI and does not necessitate a total ban on marijuana, or do you also propose to ban alcohol as well?


I tend to think pot causes less harm than booze, but Im not an expert.

[Sukoi]

lovebush wrote: bigstick61 wrote: The solution is for the States to ban driving while high, just like they ban driving while drunk. In either case it is DUI and does not necessitate a total ban on marijuana, or do you also propose to ban alcohol as well?


I tend to think pot causes less harm than booze, but Im not an expert.

Maybe not an "expert" but still absolutely correct without any doubt. :tu:

[lovebush]

brian bennett wrote: lovebush wrote: brian bennett wrote: [

it seems to work with alcohol. gee, i wonder what we should do about people using different drugs. hmmmmmmmm ..... geee, this is really tough.


Sure it works great I know people who have destroyed their bodys drinking and are on permenent disabiulity, the state pays for their housing, food and medical bills. lets remember"the state" , thats me and you! hmmmmmmm.........geee great plan!

got any data to back yourself up? how much money is spent as you suggest?

the vast majority of drug users (yes, regardless of drug) do not cause problems for themselves or others. they even have jobs and pay taxes into the system you are worried about over burdening.

if you want to play games about who "costs" money, then i'm afraid that you'll have to go after the fat people and those with sunburns. fat people "cost" society way more than all the drug users combined, and (believe it or not) more than three times as many people die from skin cancer than from all illegal drugs combined.

if you don't want to see the persecution of the obese, i suggest you learn why we need to stop persecuting those who use the "wrong" intoxicants.


you've got to be kidding. While I was actively using drugs (Meth &coke) very few of the users I knew held down jobs for any length of time. several were on section 8 housing and many got food stamps. Pot and coke users are far more likely to hold down a job. the sight below was the first one I found. Im sure if you wanted more you could google it. it breaks it down so you could ignore the enforcement costs. addicts are a huge drain on health care. they end up in the emergency room alot and most dont have health insurance. the idea that users dont cost anyone but themselves is an argument you cant even come close to winning. now if we changed a few laws that said they could be refused emergency care. Or if all people on welfare could be randomly piss tested . we could chisel down some of those costs. then you might get more support for your libertarian Ideas.. the only grounds for a paternalistic law as far as Im concerned is to limit the cost to society.

I do think that obese people should pay more for their health care premiums, unless there obesity is caused from something other than over eating and a sedentary lifestyle


http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofacts/costs.html

[bigstick61]

Driving while high is driving while intoxicated nonetheless, and the driver is still a danger to others on the road. I know a couple of people who smoked pot using a houka and they could barely do very simple things, much less drive a car.. Regardless of the degree of imparity, your judgement and physical abilities are impaired nonetheless.

[Norrin Radd]

lovebush wrote: brian bennett wrote: lovebush wrote: brian bennett wrote: [

it seems to work with alcohol. gee, i wonder what we should do about people using different drugs. hmmmmmmmm ..... geee, this is really tough.


Sure it works great I know people who have destroyed their bodys drinking and are on permenent disabiulity, the state pays for their housing, food and medical bills. lets remember"the state" , thats me and you! hmmmmmmm.........geee great plan!

got any data to back yourself up? how much money is spent as you suggest?

the vast majority of drug users (yes, regardless of drug) do not cause problems for themselves or others. they even have jobs and pay taxes into the system you are worried about over burdening.

if you want to play games about who "costs" money, then i'm afraid that you'll have to go after the fat people and those with sunburns. fat people "cost" society way more than all the drug users combined, and (believe it or not) more than three times as many people die from skin cancer than from all illegal drugs combined.

if you don't want to see the persecution of the obese, i suggest you learn why we need to stop persecuting those who use the "wrong" intoxicants.


you've got to be kidding. While I was actively using drugs (Meth &coke) very few of the users I knew held down jobs for any length of time. several were on section 8 housing and many got food stamps. Pot and coke users are far more likely to hold down a job. the sight below was the first one I found. Im sure if you wanted more you could google it. it breaks it down so you could ignore the enforcement costs. addicts are a huge drain on health care. they end up in the emergency room alot and most dont have health insurance. the idea that users dont cost anyone but themselves is an argument you cant even come close to winning. now if we changed a few laws that said they could be refused emergency care. Or if all people on welfare could be randomly piss tested . we could chisel down some of those costs. then you might get more support for your libertarian Ideas.. the only grounds for a paternalistic law as far as Im concerned is to limit the cost to society.

I do think that obese people should pay more for their health care premiums, unless there obesity is caused from something other than over eating and a sedentary lifestyle


http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofacts/costs.html

So, how much do drug users cost society compared to say, alcoholics?

Or compared to say, deadbeats who are not alcoholics, or drug users, but collect welfare, or other government assitence, while working under the table?

The war on drugs has done very little to stop people from using drugs and we already have the problems you speak of, even though drugs are illegal. In addition to the problems you mentioned with drugs use we have more problems with costs of enforcing drug laws, violence from increased prices, theft from increased prices, as well as increasing the number of bitter hardened criminals from drug law convictions.

If we were to legalize drugs, this would likely cause a rise in the number of users, although in my opinion this rise would be brief before leveling off at a rate slightly above, or below, current use.

Of course this is speculation on my part and the only way to know for sure what would happen is to actually legalize drugs, but I won't be holding my breath. Prescriptiond rug abuse is becoming as big a problem as illegal drug abuse and people don't seem as concerned about this aspect of the drug issue. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe it's because there hasn't been coulntless hours of propaganda spoonfed to the people yet.

People like you just don't seem to get it. You can't stop drug use. You may as well take 50 billion a year and flush it down the toilet. The war on drugs has taken a managable problem and turned it into a nightmare from hell.

According to psychiatrist Donald Hauser, The Right Step's medical director, pharmaceutical abuse is rampant among his young patients.

"By far, the most common trend I think we're seeing are sedative hypnotics, particularly Xanax — 'bars' is what they call 'em — and the opiates, the hydrocodone derivatives, the Vicodins, the Loracets," Hauser said.

"Almost every adolescent that comes in this program has used some of them."

National data support Hauser's observations. Last year's results of the Monitoring the Future study, an annual collaboration by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the University of Michigan, found a 26 percent rise in teenage abuse of Oxycontin — a powerful opiate — since 2002. Overall, the number of teens abusing prescription drugs has tripled since 1992.

NEWSFLASH: You can't stop drug abuse.

The only logical approach is to legalize drugs and regulate them.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1726349&page=1

[brian bennett]

lovebush wrote: brian bennett wrote: lovebush wrote: brian bennett wrote: [

it seems to work with alcohol. gee, i wonder what we should do about people using different drugs. hmmmmmmmm ..... geee, this is really tough.


Sure it works great I know people who have destroyed their bodys drinking and are on permenent disabiulity, the state pays for their housing, food and medical bills. lets remember"the state" , thats me and you! hmmmmmmm.........geee great plan!

got any data to back yourself up? how much money is spent as you suggest?

the vast majority of drug users (yes, regardless of drug) do not cause problems for themselves or others. they even have jobs and pay taxes into the system you are worried about over burdening.

if you want to play games about who "costs" money, then i'm afraid that you'll have to go after the fat people and those with sunburns. fat people "cost" society way more than all the drug users combined, and (believe it or not) more than three times as many people die from skin cancer than from all illegal drugs combined.

if you don't want to see the persecution of the obese, i suggest you learn why we need to stop persecuting those who use the "wrong" intoxicants.


lovebush wrote:
you've got to be kidding. While I was actively using drugs (Meth &coke) very few of the users I knew held down jobs for any length of time. several were on section 8 housing and many got food stamps. Pot and coke users are far more likely to hold down a job.

your personal experience is hardly a reflection of what happens across the nation as a whole. the reality is that most people are responsible people. using drugs, in and of itself, is not an irresponsible act, and the vast majority of people who do use drugs do so repsonsibly. even the former czar mccaffrey was claiming that 77% of illegal drug users hold down jobs.

lovebush wrote:
the sight below was the first one I found. Im sure if you wanted more you could google it. it breaks it down so you could ignore the enforcement costs. addicts are a huge drain on health care. they end up in the emergency room alot and most dont have health insurance. the idea that users dont cost anyone but themselves is an argument you cant even come close to winning. now if we changed a few laws that said they could be refused emergency care. Or if all people on welfare could be randomly piss tested . we could chisel down some of those costs. then you might get more support for your libertarian Ideas.. the only grounds for a paternalistic law as far as Im concerned is to limit the cost to society.

I do think that obese people should pay more for their health care premiums, unless there obesity is caused from something other than over eating and a sedentary lifestyle


http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofacts/costs.html

i've actually deconstructed both that study and the one that replaced it in 2004. the fatal flaw in the report (both times) is that three rather arbitrary cost categorizations were developed (health care, lost productivity, and "other"). i took those categories and made them into two: the cost of drug abuse versus the cost of drug war. drugwar costs about three times as much as the alleged costs of drug abuse. i use the word "alleged" because some of the cost components in the lewin group study were actually fabricated. indeed, they said so themselves in the original report.

here's the debunking of the original study: http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/costs/costs.htm

and here is the same thing for the revised one: http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/costs/costs05.htm

[brian bennett]

Norrin Radd wrote: lovebush wrote: brian bennett wrote: lovebush wrote: brian bennett wrote: [

it seems to work with alcohol. gee, i wonder what we should do about people using different drugs. hmmmmmmmm ..... geee, this is really tough.


Sure it works great I know people who have destroyed their bodys drinking and are on permenent disabiulity, the state pays for their housing, food and medical bills. lets remember"the state" , thats me and you! hmmmmmmm.........geee great plan!

got any data to back yourself up? how much money is spent as you suggest?

the vast majority of drug users (yes, regardless of drug) do not cause problems for themselves or others. they even have jobs and pay taxes into the system you are worried about over burdening.

if you want to play games about who "costs" money, then i'm afraid that you'll have to go after the fat people and those with sunburns. fat people "cost" society way more than all the drug users combined, and (believe it or not) more than three times as many people die from skin cancer than from all illegal drugs combined.

if you don't want to see the persecution of the obese, i suggest you learn why we need to stop persecuting those who use the "wrong" intoxicants.


you've got to be kidding. While I was actively using drugs (Meth &coke) very few of the users I knew held down jobs for any length of time. several were on section 8 housing and many got food stamps. Pot and coke users are far more likely to hold down a job. the sight below was the first one I found. Im sure if you wanted more you could google it. it breaks it down so you could ignore the enforcement costs. addicts are a huge drain on health care. they end up in the emergency room alot and most dont have health insurance. the idea that users dont cost anyone but themselves is an argument you cant even come close to winning. now if we changed a few laws that said they could be refused emergency care. Or if all people on welfare could be randomly piss tested . we could chisel down some of those costs. then you might get more support for your libertarian Ideas.. the only grounds for a paternalistic law as far as Im concerned is to limit the cost to society.

I do think that obese people should pay more for their health care premiums, unless there obesity is caused from something other than over eating and a sedentary lifestyle


http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofacts/costs.html

So, how much do drug users cost society compared to say, alcoholics?


good call norrin.

indeed, the answer is in the first two sentences in the very first paragraph of the link:

Quote:
"A study prepared by The Lewin Group for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimated the total economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse to be $245.7 billion for 1992. Of this cost, $97.7 billion* was due to drug abuse."


the score would be:

alcohol - $148 billion

all illegal drugs combined - $97.7 billion

alcohol is always conveniently ignored.

[perdidochas]

brian bennett wrote: Quote:
"A study prepared by The Lewin Group for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimated the total economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse to be $245.7 billion for 1992. Of this cost, $97.7 billion* was due to drug abuse."


the score would be:

alcohol - $148 billion

all illegal drugs combined - $97.7 billion

alcohol is always conveniently ignored.

However, if we change those figures to per capita users, alcohol is not nearly as bad as the illegal drugs.

From the CDC:Fastats table on Substance use

According to the table, 51% of the population 12 and over drank alcohol in the past year. 8.3% had any illicit drug use at all.

Let's compare the per person cost for people who have used alcohol with those that have used illicit drugs.

Yes, alcohol costs $148 billion, but that's due to it's consumption by over half of the population. That's 2.9 billion for a single percent of population.

Illicit drugs cost $97 billion, but only 8.3% of the population tried illicit drugs in that time period. That's 11.7 billion for a single percent of population. If as many people used illicit drugs as used alcohol, we could extrapolate that the cost would be $596.7 billion. If on the other hand, as few people used alcohol has use illicit drugs, we could extrapolate the alcohol cost as $24.07 billion.

Now which is REALLY more expensive?

[Norrin Radd]

All I can say is it is amazing how well propaganda has fooled the sheeple. It is sad the American people allow others to tell them what to think, instead of actually doing some simple research and reflecting on this issue.

I know a lot of cops and have talked with many of them about drugs and alcohol. While almost all of these cops are as brainwashed as the typical American regarding the dangers of drug use, they at least admit that alcohol causes way more problems than all illegal drugs combined. Now, some people will say this is because of the percentage of drinkers compared to the percentage of drug users and this is a factor, however, no drug causes more violence, more child abuse, more spousal abuse, more pain and suffering than alcohol causes.

The war on drugs has made EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM ASSOCIATED WITH DRUG USE WORSE.

I have made this statement several times at this forum and even the sheeple will not deny it is true.

Anyone care to disagree?

Anyone?

Stupid people make me want to puke.

[brian bennett]

perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote: Quote:
"A study prepared by The Lewin Group for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimated the total economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse to be $245.7 billion for 1992. Of this cost, $97.7 billion* was due to drug abuse."


the score would be:

alcohol - $148 billion

all illegal drugs combined - $97.7 billion

alcohol is always conveniently ignored.

However, if we change those figures to per capita users, alcohol is not nearly as bad as the illegal drugs.

From the CDC:Fastats table on Substance use

According to the table, 51% of the population 12 and over drank alcohol in the past year. 8.3% had any illicit drug use at all.

Let's compare the per person cost for people who have used alcohol with those that have used illicit drugs.

Yes, alcohol costs $148 billion, but that's due to it's consumption by over half of the population. That's 2.9 billion for a single percent of population.

Illicit drugs cost $97 billion, but only 8.3% of the population tried illicit drugs in that time period. That's 11.7 billion for a single percent of population. If as many people used illicit drugs as used alcohol, we could extrapolate that the cost would be $596.7 billion. If on the other hand, as few people used alcohol has use illicit drugs, we could extrapolate the alcohol cost as $24.07 billion.

Now which is REALLY more expensive?

alcohol.

while you may think that extrapolating the current "costs" for drug abuse is a simple linear operation, it is not: among other things, you need to take into account that three-quarters of those "costs" are the price for trying to stop people from using the drugs in the first place.

then you need to bear in mind that part of the "cost" model involves silly stuff like "lost productivity" -- from being in jail. indeed, in the cost model that forms the bais for the government claims, there are large portions of those "costs" which are entirely invented.

and don't forget to include the "costs" of preventable deaths. the current scenario for some of the drugs is a bit of russian roulette -- and that is not going to happen with legal, pure drugs taken in known dosages. (and hey, if the threat of immediate death doesn't stop people from using the drugs, then the rest of what we we're doing can hardly be expected to "work.")

the drug czar's office did a big report on the "costs" and how they break down. so yours truly decimated it:

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/costs/costs05.htm

[brian bennett]

Norrin Radd wrote: All I can say is it is amazing how well propaganda has fooled the sheeple. It is sad the American people allow others to tell them what to think, instead of actually doing some simple research and reflecting on this issue.

I know a lot of cops and have talked with many of them about drugs and alcohol. While almost all of these cops are as brainwashed as the typical American regarding the dangers of drug use, they at least admit that alcohol causes way more problems than all illegal drugs combined. Now, some people will say this is because of the percentage of drinkers compared to the percentage of drug users and this is a factor, however, no drug causes more violence, more child abuse, more spousal abuse, more pain and suffering than alcohol causes.

The war on drugs has made EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM ASSOCIATED WITH DRUG USE WORSE.

I have made this statement several times at this forum and even the sheeple will not deny it is true.

Anyone care to disagree?

Anyone?

Stupid people make me want to puke.

i certainly can't disagree with most of what you're saying here norrin -- except that perhaps we should bear in mind that most people aren't actually stupid, they are merely brainwashed.

and they have been given very little personal reason to learn the truth for themselves. if their perception is that it doesn't impact them directly, they safely ignore the situation and believe the government's propaganda.

maybe we'll get farther down the road on changing their minds if we remember that. after all, we're asking them to understand that their government has overstepped its boundaries and is not acting in their best interests.

that's like taking santa claus away from them.

[perdidochas]

brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote: Quote:
"A study prepared by The Lewin Group for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimated the total economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse to be $245.7 billion for 1992. Of this cost, $97.7 billion* was due to drug abuse."


the score would be:

alcohol - $148 billion

all illegal drugs combined - $97.7 billion
alcohol is always conveniently ignored.

However, if we change those figures to per capita users, alcohol is not nearly as bad as the illegal drugs.

From the CDC:Fastats table on Substance use

According to the table, 51% of the population 12 and over drank alcohol in the past year. 8.3% had any illicit drug use at all.

Let's compare the per person cost for people who have used alcohol with those that have used illicit drugs.

Yes, alcohol costs $148 billion, but that's due to it's consumption by over half of the population. That's 2.9 billion for a single percent of population.

Illicit drugs cost $97 billion, but only 8.3% of the population tried illicit drugs in that time period. That's 11.7 billion for a single percent of population. If as many people used illicit drugs as used alcohol, we could extrapolate that the cost would be $596.7 billion. If on the other hand, as few people used alcohol has use illicit drugs, we could extrapolate the alcohol cost as $24.07 billion.

Now which is REALLY more expensive?

alcohol.

while you may think that extrapolating the current "costs" for drug abuse is a simple linear operation, it is not: among other things, you need to take into account that three-quarters of those "costs" are the price for trying to stop people from using the drugs in the first place.

then you need to bear in mind that part of the "cost" model involves silly stuff like "lost productivity" -- from being in jail. indeed, in the cost model that forms the bais for the government claims, there are large portions of those "costs" which are entirely invented.

and don't forget to include the "costs" of preventable deaths. the current scenario for some of the drugs is a bit of russian roulette -- and that is not going to happen with legal, pure drugs taken in known dosages. (and hey, if the threat of immediate death doesn't stop people from using the drugs, then the rest of what we we're doing can hardly be expected to "work.")

the drug czar's office did a big report on the "costs" and how they break down. so yours truly decimated it:

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/costs/costs05.htm

That was the biggest mess of misinterpretation I've read in a while.... However, I've got one question. Why didn't you divide your costs into alcohol vs. illicit drugs? Also, how do you categorize lost productivity as a drug war cost--a person who doesn't show up at work because he/she can't function due to the substances they just ingested is not the problem of the "drug war" but is caused by natural consequences. Things that alter your perceptions like alcohol or illicit drugs cause temporary problems. Categorizing that as a "drug war" cost is absurd.

Tell me what you think the true cost of drug abuse vs. the true cost of alcohol abuse. IN the earlier post of yours, which I destroyed, you seemed to agree with the $148 billion to $97.7 billion breakdown. That is the figure I used, because you seemed to be in agreement with it (see the red in your original quote above). I just interpreted according to other data. Do you have anything to show that the % of people that used either drugs or alcohol in that year are radically different from the figures I found?

ALso, I agree with the extrapolation issue. I stretched a bit on that. However, just using the simple proportion of ACTUAL costs versus population, there is no doubt that per user, illicit drugs are much more expensive than alcohol. Now, if you were to separate out the alcohol related costs to the total drug costs that you did in your report, we could evaluate that more efficiently, however, for some reason that escaped your analysis.

[Norrin Radd]

brian bennett wrote: Norrin Radd wrote: All I can say is it is amazing how well propaganda has fooled the sheeple. It is sad the American people allow others to tell them what to think, instead of actually doing some simple research and reflecting on this issue.

I know a lot of cops and have talked with many of them about drugs and alcohol. While almost all of these cops are as brainwashed as the typical American regarding the dangers of drug use, they at least admit that alcohol causes way more problems than all illegal drugs combined. Now, some people will say this is because of the percentage of drinkers compared to the percentage of drug users and this is a factor, however, no drug causes more violence, more child abuse, more spousal abuse, more pain and suffering than alcohol causes.

The war on drugs has made EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM ASSOCIATED WITH DRUG USE WORSE.

I have made this statement several times at this forum and even the sheeple will not deny it is true.

Anyone care to disagree?

Anyone?

Stupid people make me want to puke.

i certainly can't disagree with most of what you're saying here norrin -- except that perhaps we should bear in mind that most people aren't actually stupid, they are merely brainwashed.

and they have been given very little personal reason to learn the truth for themselves. if their perception is that it doesn't impact them directly, they safely ignore the situation and believe the government's propaganda.

maybe we'll get farther down the road on changing their minds if we remember that. after all, we're asking them to understand that their government has overstepped its boundaries and is not acting in their best interests.

that's like taking santa claus away from them.

Yes, you are right, people aren't stupid, but they have been brainwashed, or maybe conditioned is a better term.

I have lost all patience with people who are unable to look at this issue logically.

No matter what the costs of drug use, they pale in comaprison to the costs of the war on drugs. Not just in dollars, but in pain, suffering and oss of freedom.

I bet that not a single drug war supporter has spent any significant amount of time reading about teen drug use, the history of the reefer madness campaign, morbidity rates from all causes, no-knock drug raids gone bad and asset forfeiture horror stories.

Most drug war supporters don't even know how many people die a year from illegal drugs. Even fewer know how this figure compares to deaths from prescription drugs, or alcohol and tobacco.

I showed in an earlier post that teen prescription drug abuse has tripled since 1992, yet was that point addressed? No, it was ignored as the people who support the drug war just dismiss anything that doesn't fit their views.

People have proven they are willing to do almost anything to get high. In China they execute over 100 people a year for drug trafficking, yet their drug problem continues to get worse. In the US and the UK huffing has become a serious problem, proving that even when no drugs are available, kids will resort to inhaling the fumes from dangerous chemicals which can result in death. One UK study showed a high number of deaths from huffing were 1st time users.

Some people just don't get it.

[brian bennett]

perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote: perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote: Quote:
"A study prepared by The Lewin Group for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimated the total economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse to be $245.7 billion for 1992. Of this cost, $97.7 billion* was due to drug abuse."


the score would be:

alcohol - $148 billion

all illegal drugs combined - $97.7 billion
alcohol is always conveniently ignored.

However, if we change those figures to per capita users, alcohol is not nearly as bad as the illegal drugs.

From the CDC:Fastats table on Substance use

According to the table, 51% of the population 12 and over drank alcohol in the past year. 8.3% had any illicit drug use at all.

Let's compare the per person cost for people who have used alcohol with those that have used illicit drugs.

Yes, alcohol costs $148 billion, but that's due to it's consumption by over half of the population. That's 2.9 billion for a single percent of population.

Illicit drugs cost $97 billion, but only 8.3% of the population tried illicit drugs in that time period. That's 11.7 billion for a single percent of population. If as many people used illicit drugs as used alcohol, we could extrapolate that the cost would be $596.7 billion. If on the other hand, as few people used alcohol has use illicit drugs, we could extrapolate the alcohol cost as $24.07 billion.

Now which is REALLY more expensive?

alcohol.

while you may think that extrapolating the current "costs" for drug abuse is a simple linear operation, it is not: among other things, you need to take into account that three-quarters of those "costs" are the price for trying to stop people from using the drugs in the first place.

then you need to bear in mind that part of the "cost" model involves silly stuff like "lost productivity" -- from being in jail. indeed, in the cost model that forms the bais for the government claims, there are large portions of those "costs" which are entirely invented.

and don't forget to include the "costs" of preventable deaths. the current scenario for some of the drugs is a bit of russian roulette -- and that is not going to happen with legal, pure drugs taken in known dosages. (and hey, if the threat of immediate death doesn't stop people from using the drugs, then the rest of what we we're doing can hardly be expected to "work.")

the drug czar's office did a big report on the "costs" and how they break down. so yours truly decimated it:

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/costs/costs05.htm

That was the biggest mess of misinterpretation I've read in a while.... However, I've got one question. Why didn't you divide your costs into alcohol vs. illicit drugs?

my good man, you are the one misinterpreting things. as i said, the number used to describe the "costs" of illegal drug abuse is incorrect, as it consists primarily of the costs associated not with drug use, but with the price tag of trying to stop drug use. thus, if you want to get a closer approximation of the costs of drug abuse, you need to reduce the figure by the amounts spent trying to prevent and otherwise interfere with said use.

now as to your question of why i have not divided the costs into alcohol vs other drugs, it is simply because the ONDCP report in question only covers illegal drugs. remember: the central contention i am addressing here is that the figures for the "costs of drug abuse" consist mostly of the price tag for drug war. and, the alcohol costs all by themselves are nearly twice the costs attributed to illegal drugs -- even including the costs of fighting the drug war. eliminate the "costs" that are due to drug war and the costs to society due to alcohol use are exponentially greater than those due to the use of other drugs.

the attribution of costs in the ONDCP report is highly suspect -- and my analysis of it explains the situation quite well. when you dig into it, it becomes very easy to see that the actual costs of drug abuse are about one-quarter the cost of trying to stop people from using the drugs in the first place. thus, any figure cited about the "costs" of drug use is actually inflated by 400 percent because the figure contains the costs of the drug war itself.

perdidochas wrote:
Also, how do you categorize lost productivity as a drug war cost--a person who doesn't show up at work because he/she can't function due to the substances they just ingested is not the problem of the "drug war" but is caused by natural consequences. Things that alter your perceptions like alcohol or illicit drugs cause temporary problems. Categorizing that as a "drug war" cost is absurd.


i explained why i put them into the two piles that make more sense (drug war vs drug abuse) across several pages, but start here:

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/costs/real-costs05.htm

the ONDCP made the original cost categorizations, not me -- i merely divided them into two piles that made a lot more sense (as opposed to the way they broke them out). "lost productivity" contains several sub-categories, none of which includes missing work due to being non-functional. here's the graph and data of the cost categorizations included in "lost productivity." and here are the cost category descriptions taken verbatim from the 2001 ONDCP study.

as you can see in the graph, being in jail is the major component of "lost productivity" costs, followed closely by "drug-related illness." and "drug related illness" is itself an entirely invented cost, which the lewin group even admitted in the 2001 version of the study:

Quote: "The real change in lost productivity due to drug related illness is measured based on the number of individuals reporting 100 or more days of marijuana or cocaine use in their lifetime. Since this is a self-reported measure included in the NHSDA, it may be subject to changing views on drug use. Also, changes in the number of individuals using marijuana and cocaine for more than 100 days may not be closely related to drug abuse related illness."


so they themselves admitted that something that accounts for 25 percent of the total "lost productivity" cost was actually a fabrication not based on tangible evidence.

this is merely one reason why no one should ever take anything coming from the ONDCP at face value.

perdidochas wrote:
Tell me what you think the true cost of drug abuse vs. the true cost of alcohol abuse. IN the earlier post of yours, which I destroyed, you seemed to agree with the $148 billion to $97.7 billion breakdown.


"destroyed?" you make me laugh! all i did was the arithmetic to deduce the costs associated with alcohol use provided in the orginal document cited, and i then explained that the original number provided for the "costs" of illegal drug use is composed mainly of the price tag for waging the drug war. to whit:

"you need to take into account that three-quarters of those "costs" are the price for trying to stop people from using the drugs in the first place." -- it's still there, above, quoted in your response to it!

all i'm telling you is why the numbers cited as the "costs" of the use of illegal drugs are inflated by the costs of waging the drug war.

perdidochas wrote:
That is the figure I used, because you seemed to be in agreement with it (see the red in your original quote above). I just interpreted according to other data. Do you have anything to show that the % of people that used either drugs or alcohol in that year are radically different from the figures I found?

you made the numbers red and say that i appear to agree with them, even though in the post you included i stated specifically that i indeed do not agree. this whole exercise has been the explanation of why i do not agree with the number.

i haven't discussed the number of users at all. there is no reason to do so until you figure out how blatantly arbitrary and inflated the alleged "costs" of drug abuse actually are. i'm doing my best to make it obvious -- but you'll have to drop a few of your preconceptions apparently before you can actually discuss it rationally.

bottom line: the alleged costs of drug abuse are based largely on conditions attributable to trying to stop people from using drugs, rather than the actual costs of the drug use itself.

that's why i did the work. you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him read reports.

perdidochas wrote:
ALso, I agree with the extrapolation issue. I stretched a bit on that. However, just using the simple proportion of ACTUAL costs versus population, there is no doubt that per user, illicit drugs are much more expensive than alcohol. Now, if you were to separate out the alcohol related costs to the total drug costs that you did in your report, we could evaluate that more efficiently, however, for some reason that escaped your analysis.

again, the ACTUAL costs are mostly the cost of trying to stop drug use -- not the costs of drug abuse. once you understand that and can tell that the actual cost is much lower than what the ONDCP says, then and only then will it be possible to extrapolate the numbers somewhat rationally.

i say "somewhat" because even if you subtract out all the drug war costs from the equation, the numbers will still not be linear. for one simple example: overdose deaths are primarily accidental and the result of using impure product of unknown dosage. obviously, the death figures should decrease if people can know exactly what they are taking -- and more importantly, the number of people using the stuff that can kill you so easily is unlikely to be substantially increased even if it were legal.

to review:

your original number from 1992 is inflated by the cost of drug war.

the ondcp did a full study of the alleged "costs" of drug abuse in 2001 -- which i decimated by dividing the cited costs into two piles (cost of drug abuse vs cost of "zero tolerance" - i.e. the drug war itself), rather than the three used by ONDCP (health care, lost productivity, and "other").

and i did the same thing with the ONDCP's revised study released in 2004.

bottom lines:

it costs three times as much to try to stop people from using drugs than the cost of said use,

and,

alcohol all by itself still costs more than the costs of both drug abuse and the pricetag for the drug war.

[brian bennett]

Norrin Radd wrote: Some people just don't get it.

so we keep trying.

[perdidochas]

brian bennett wrote:
bottom lines:

it costs three times as much to try to stop people from using drugs than the cost of said use,

and,

alcohol all by itself still costs more than the costs of both drug abuse and the pricetag for the drug war.

Alcohol also has about 6 times the number of users that illicit drugs have. I'm not saying that alcohol doesn't cause major problems, or that drugs shouldn't be legalized, those are different issues. My point, that you chose to ignore is that the primary reason for the increased cost of alcohol problems is the bigger user base of alcohol. It's a simple concept. More alcohol users than illicit drug users. If alcohol is equally bad to illict drugs, we would expect the cost of alcohol abuse to be greater than the cost of drug abuse.

I'm honestly agnostic on drug legalization, it really doesn't matter to me if legalization occurs or not. Some problems will be resolved by drug legalization (the drug war costs), but drug usage (including alcohol) does cost society.

Question: Did I read your link correctly? Do you conclude that in 2002, the "true cost" of drug use is $40 billion?

Let's assume that is true. Let's also assume that the cost of alcohol abuse is $148 billion (do you have a better figure?).

$148 billion for 51% of the population is the cost of alcohol abuse.
$40 billion for 8% of the population is the cost of drug (ab)use.

Any problem with that comparison? If so, it shows that alcohol, per capita, isn't as much of a problem as illicit drugs.


As I've said, I don't doubt at all that alcohol has a greater cost to society. However, half of the population consumes alcohol every year. Of course something that 140 million people consume is going to cost more to society than something that 22.4 million people consume. It's common sense.

[Norrin Radd]

perdidochas wrote: brian bennett wrote:
bottom lines:

it costs three times as much to try to stop people from using drugs than the cost of said use,

and,

alcohol all by itself still costs more than the costs of both drug abuse and the pricetag for the drug war.

Alcohol also has about 6 times the number of users that illicit drugs have. I'm not saying that alcohol doesn't cause major problems, or that drugs shouldn't be legalized, those are different issues. My point, that you chose to ignore is that the primary reason for the increased cost of alcohol problems is the bigger user base of alcohol. It's a simple concept. More alcohol users than illicit drug users. If alcohol is equally bad to illict drugs, we would expect the cost of alcohol abuse to be greater than the cost of drug abuse.

I'm honestly agnostic on drug legalization, it really doesn't matter to me if legalization occurs or not. Some problems will be resolved by drug legalization (the drug war costs), but drug usage (including alcohol) does cost society.

Question: Did I read your link correctly? Do you conclude that in 2002, the "true cost" of drug use is $40 billion?

Let's assume that is true. Let's also assume that the cost of alcohol abuse is $148 billion (do you have a better figure?).

$148 billion for 51% of the population is the cost of alcohol abuse.
$40 billion for 8% of the population is the cost of drug (ab)use.

Any problem with that comparison? If so, it shows that alcohol, per capita, isn't as much of a problem as illicit drugs.


As I've said, I don't doubt at all that alcohol has a greater cost to society. However, half of the population consumes alcohol every year. Of course something that 140 million people consume is going to cost more to society than something that 22.4 million people consume. It's common sense.

You are right, to an extent, but I was wondering, if only 8% of Americans do illegal drugs, what is the percentage of teens that do illegal drugs?

I already showed that prescription drug abuse has tripled in teens since 1992, so what is the total percentage of teens who use illegal drugs, and/or who abuse prescription drugs?

Also, do you know what percentage of teens have bought, or been offered drugs on school grounds?

Common sense says the drug war is a complete failure when the easiest place to buy drugs is any public school.