Dispelling Common Myths & Drug War Propaganda

I looked through some of the past posts, and didn't see anything on this. So I thought it might be a good idea to create a list of common drug war propaganda/myths and why they are factually incorrect/wrong. It would help to make reference to studies, scientific reports, surveys, data, etc. in order to back up your statement. So let's get ready to deny some ignorance!...here we go:
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Myth: Drugs are illegal because they are dangerous/kill:

Fact: Alcohol, cigarettes, poor diet, cars, etc. kill more people than all illegal drugs, direct & indirect combined. (Source)
Tobacco 435,000
Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity 365,000
Alcohol 85,000
Motor Vehicle Crashes 26,347
Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs 32,000
All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect 17,000
Marijuana 0

Of interest is also the history of how cannabis became illegal. It was not based on a scientific review of objective facts, but rather was made illegal mostly for political gain and for the protection of corporate profits. People at the time supported it because they were fed a steady diet of fear based propaganda, including much that was blatantly racist. (Source)
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Myth: Drugs are illegal in order to protect children.

Fact: Drug dealers do not check ID. In a recent study, teenagers reported that illegal drugs like marijuana is easier for them to get than legally regulated drugs like alcohol. (Source Source)

Furthermore young kids and teenagers are often employed by drug gangs and cartels to do their "dirty" work of selling drugs in the black market since kids often don't recieve the same punishments and jail time as adults. Federal numbers show that over 900,000 teens are currently being employed in the black market drug trade. (Source, Source
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Myth: "Parents are often unaware that today's marijuana is different from that of a generation ago, with potency levels 10 to 20 times stronger than the marijuana with which they were familiar." (US Drug Czar John Walters)

Fact: "Federal research shows that the average potency of cannabis in the US has increased very little. According to the federal Potency Monitoring Project, in 1985, the average THC content of commercial-grade marijuana was 2.84%, and the average for high-grade sinsemilla in 1985 was 7.17%. In 1995, the potency of commercial-grade marijuana averaged 3.73%, while the potency of sinsemilla in 1995 averaged 7.51%. In 2001, commercial-grade marijuana averaged 4.72% THC, and the potency of sinsemilla in 2001 averaged 9.03%. " (Source)
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Myth: Needle exchange programs encourages/increases drug use. Incidences of AIDs and HepC have increases since NEP have been introduced.

Fact: All the research shows that needle exchange does not increase drug use, and it decreases the spread of HIV. The US Surgeon General and the US Secretary of Health and Human Services have both reached this conclusion. (Source)
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Myth: "Is marijuana a gateway drug? Yes. Among marijuana's most harmful consequences is its role in leading to the use of other illegal drugs like heroin and coc aine." ( Statement from the Justice Department's own website; Source)

Fact:

"In December 2006, a 12 year gateway drug hypothesis study on 214 boys from ages 10–12 by the American Psychiatric Association was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. The study concluded adolescents who used cannabis prior to using other drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, were no more likely to develop a substance abuse disorder than subjects in the study who did not use cannabis prior to using other drugs."

(Source, Source Source)

"In 2004, a study comparing cannabis users in San Francisco to those in Amsterdam was done to test the effects of the differing drug policies in the two cities on drug use patterns. The Netherlands has a drug policy of decriminalization in which cannabis can be bought by adults over 18 in quasi-legal "coffee shops" and used publicly, while in the United States cannabis is criminalized and must be bought in the black market (often from the same dealers that sell hard drugs) and used "underground". The results found that, compared with their counterparts in Amsterdam the San Francisco cannabis users were significantly more likely to use coc aine, crack, amphetamines, ecstasy, and opiates despite similar cannabis use patterns and a more permissive drug policy in the Netherlands. One plausible explanation is that the black market itself acts as a gateway to harder drugs, as opposed to the effects of cannabis per se."

(Source Source)

Furthermore, studies pointed to by the government done on rats, were in fact "no more likely to get addicted (as measured by likelihood of self-administration) than the controls"...additionally other studies done on animals and rats since then have actually disproven "gateway theory" (along with an increasing majority that have also proven the theory false)
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I will continue to post some more, as there is plenty plenty more (but first I must go have some dinner)...In the meantime, feel free to post your own...Please remember to use DATA, STUDIES, RESEARCH, NATIONAL TRENDS, etc. to back up what you are saying...be as scientific as possible. Also, for anyone interested I highly suggest watching the video for this event that took place at the Cato Institute: "Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics: A Critical Analysis of Claims Made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy" (State University of New York Press, 2007)
www.cato.org...
It really lays out, quite convincingly, what a failure the drug war has been using the ONDCP's own metrics and data.

And finally thank you ATS for supporting the forum and letting us have this much needed discussion. Deny Ignorance!

Another one...[I hope this helps some people...the idea being to have a resource that outlines what the data actually says in order to fight certain drug war/gov't propaganda and "deny ignorance"].
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Myth: If we ended the drug war tomorrow, drug use would increase dramatically

Fact: As a matter of fact, federal surveys have shown that drug use has increased since prohibition was implemented, especially drug use in adolescents [1] Also, since implementation of prohibition overdose deaths and emergency room mentions of drugs have escalated consistently since the 1980s, and both are at record highs. [2] Furthermore, despite the U.S. having some of the most punitive policies for drug use among other similar democratic first world countries, the U.S. was also found to have the highest rates of drug use. [3] [4] Obviously, given the data, our current drug policies are not succeeding in their goal of reducing drug use. In fact, these policies are probably exasperating the problem. Studies of Portugal's decriminalization policy of all drugs has shown that drug use for adolescents dramatically decreased [5] and according to Glenn Greenwald's paper the data show that decriminalisation has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates in Portugal”, which “in numerous categories are now among the lowest in the European Union”. [6] [7] Additionally the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, new HIV cases to injection drug users plummeted from 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006 [6]. Advocates of ending the drug war also point to the Netherlands which, while marijuana is still technically illegal, sales of the drug are tolerated by local government in coffee shops (also sometimes called the "coffee shop model"). Lifetime usage rates in the U.S. are twice as high as they are in the Netherlands, roughly 41% compared to 22%. [7] Given the data, there is no evidence that ending the drug war, whether through legalization or decriminalization, would increase drug usage. In fact the data seems to point to drug use, and especially deaths from drug use, decreasing for many drugs, especially among the harder ones.

[1] Monitoring The Future: National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2000, Volume 1: Secondary School Students" (Washington, DC: National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2001), p. 115, and and "Volume II: College Students and Young Adults Ages 19-40," p. 102. Source

[2] Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, US Dept. of Health and Human Services, "Year-End 2000 Emergency Room Data from the Drug Abuse Warning Network (Washington, DC: DHHS, July 2001), p. 2.

[3] esciencenews.com, "United States has highest level of illegal coc aine and cannabis use... and more", Source

[4]Louisa Degenhardt, "Toward a Global View of Alcohol, Tobacco, Cannabis, and Cocaine Use: Findings from the WHO World Mental Health", (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, PLos Medicine, July 2008) Source

[5] "Drug use by minors in Portugal plunges after decriminalization" Source

[6] Glenn Greenwald, "Drug Decriminalization in Portugal" Source

[7] "Drug War Facts" Source

Myth: Marijuana use leads to an increased risk of mental illness/ smoking just one joint of marijuana leads to a 40% increased chance of developing schizophrenia

Fact: This myth is one that is based on pure fear-mongering on the part of the media. The study that this comes from is one done in the UK which claims that marijuana smoking just one joint increases your chances of developing a mental illness, including schizophrenia by 40%. Smoking just one cannabis joint raises danger of mental illness by 40% (Source) Pretty scary huh? In fact, one has to pay careful attention to methodology and the quality of the actual research, there have been many studies claiming to have "shown" that marijuana causes mental illness, however they all fail one on one basis: The research attempts to convince us that there is a causality effect simply because among mental health patients, researchers find an increased incidence of drug use. Well this fact has long been known, that people with mental illness often take drugs in order to cope with symptoms, and in fact research has been able to show that mental illness is what leads patients to smoke marijuana, not the other way around. (Source). So in these studies that claim to "prove" that marijuana causes mental illness, what we have is people who were already predisposed to mental illness, or had already developed symptoms of mental illness, then choosing to use marijuana in order to cope with their symptoms. In fact criticisms of these studies have pointed out that researchers did not mention or account for these variables, making it clear that they were all to willing to push the false assumption that correlation equals causation. Here's what a Time magazine article had to say on the subject.

While marijuana went from being a secret shared by a small community of hepcats and beatniks in the 1940s and '50s to a rite of passage for some 70% of youth by the turn of the century, rates of schizophrenia in the U.S. have remained flat, or possibly declined. For as long as it has been tracked, schizophrenia has been found to affect about 1% of the population.

One explanation may be that the two factors are coincidental, not causal: perhaps people who have a genetic susceptibility to schizophrenia also happen to especially enjoy marijuana. Still, some studies suggest that smoking pot can actually trigger the disease earlier in individuals who are predisposed, and yet researchers still aren't seeing increases in the overall schizophrenia rate or decreases in the average age of onset.

Source
Another article essentially points out the same thing:

There have been many studies promoting the link between cannabis use and the onset of schizophrenia. It is not the quantity of scientific studies that matters though, it is the quality. As stated in some of my other marijuana myth posts there are three criteria that need to be satisfied in order to prove causality, these are: Association, Temporal Antecedence and Isolation. Association means the cause and effect must occur together, temporal antecedence means the effect must follow the cause and isolation means all other causes must be ruled out. The first two can be shown for pretty much anything.

For example if I performed a raindance and it rained later in the day I have satisfied association and temporal antecedence but not isolation. Therefore I cannot scientifically prove that my raindance worked. If raindances were a controversial topic the media would then publish the “study” and the headline would read “Recent Study Suggests that Raindance Leads to precipitation”. Sounds ridiculous right? Well that is exactly what has been happening with the hundreds of “studies” on cannabis and schizophrenia.

Isolation has not been proven in the marijuana-schizophrenia link. In fact evidence to the contrary is indisputable. Marijuana use has grown significantly in the last 30 years. If schizophrenia was caused by marijuana use then there should be an observable rise in schizophrenia rates as well. No such link has been established. This study from Australia demonstrates these findings (Source). Before marijuana became popular less than 1% of the population was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and now that marijuana use is widespread the rate of schizophrenia diagnosis is still less than 1%.

Source
Any study that claims to have proven that marijuana causes mental illness in regular healthy people needs to be carefully scrutinized, as there have been many studies that have in fact concluded the opposite to be true, that there is no causal relationship between marijuana use and development of mental illness later in life. Additionally, studies have also found that it may in fact help symptoms associated with certain forms of mental illness including schizophrenia.
Source, Source, Source

Among the conclusions from studies disproving the link between marijuana and schizophrenia is this:

[T]he expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10 year period. This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. … This concurs with other reports indicating that increases in population cannabis use have not been followed by increases in psychotic incidence.

Source
As well as the following statement taken from a Canadian report on the "The Report of the Senate Special Commitee on Illegal Drugs"

No mental pathology directly related to the overuse of cannabis has been reported, which distinguishes this substance from psychostimulants such as MDNA, coc aine or alcohol, heavy and repeated use of which can give rise to characteristic psychotic syndromes. Similarly, cannabis does not seem to precipitate the onset of pre-existing mental dysfunctions (schizophrenia, bipolar depression, etc.).

Source

Nice list of myths.

Myth: "Parents are often unaware that today's marijuana is different from that of a generation ago, with potency levels 10 to 20 times stronger than the marijuana with which they were familiar." (US Drug Czar John Walters)

Even if this one was true, it would be a positive, rather than a negative. Having to put 10 to 20 times less smoke through your lungs to get the same high seems pretty good to me. And as we all know there is zero risk of accidental death from overdose. The absolute worst case is that someone will have to lie down and sleep it off.

Myth: "Is marijuana a gateway drug?

One plausible explanation is that the black market itself acts as a gateway to harder drugs, as opposed to the effects of cannabis per se.

Exactly. If it is indeed a gateway drug it's prohibition that causes it to be, just as Big Macs are a gateway to McNuggets.

IMO the gateway effect isn't even a bad thing, as there are other useful and safe substances besides cannabis out there.