I'll just leave this here....

[AFK]

I mean, reducing substance abuse across the board is definitely desirable, but my actual cause is with youth.  Besides, I know the caliber of law enforcement in this area and I know they'll be right on top of any shennanigans that crop up.  People here need some jobs, this place needs an injection of economy.  

[AFK]

I imagine that, all snark and vitriol aside, the casino issue is one in which you and I find ourselves in complete agreement.

I'd like to find the people responsible for it and give them all the bastinado.

Heh, NOPE.  I voted FOR the casino. 

Oh, WOW. How the FUCK do you make that jibe with your desire to reduce substance abuse in communities?

That's some first-class hypocrisy there.

YOUTH substance abuse. 

and allowing it for adults doesn't send the wrong message?

You think it's going to be a monumentous revelation to adolescents that adults consume alcohol? 

[BabylonHoruv]

I imagine that, all snark and vitriol aside, the casino issue is one in which you and I find ourselves in complete agreement.

I'd like to find the people responsible for it and give them all the bastinado.

Heh, NOPE.  I voted FOR the casino. 

Oh, WOW. How the FUCK do you make that jibe with your desire to reduce substance abuse in communities?

That's some first-class hypocrisy there.

YOUTH substance abuse. 

and allowing it for adults doesn't send the wrong message?

You think it's going to be a monumentous revelation to adolescents that adults consume alcohol? 

I meant gambling, which you've mentioned as an addiction of concern in the past.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I will note that the pattern across ages looks to be pretty much the same.  So I can roughly say that culture doesn't seem to be an impact in terms of substance abuse and development.

Huh, I don't quite see how that follows?

I mean, the pattern is, the numbers go up with age. Which for the blue line is logical because "have you ever used pot" is cumulative, it would indicate an error if it went down For the green line it's not necessarily cumulative, but I notice that the curve seems to flatten, I expect for older ages to go up a littlebit further, and then go down because (anecdotal, but probably supported by numbers somewhere) people tend to stop smoking pot as they near 30 (roughly, pulling that age anecdotally out of my ass).

No, I understand the pattern.  What I'm saying is that the pattern here in the States is pretty much the same.  The 30 day use is a little more pronounced here in the States because the numbers are higher, but they follow the same general trend.  So I'm saying in terms of how use develops through this particular age span there doesn't seem to be a vast cultural difference between the two countries, other than the overall numbers being higher in the States. 

Does that make any better sense? 

But if your view that legalization for adults would raise usage in kids, shouldn't Trips graph looks much different?

I mean if we just look at the data presented here, one would have to think that the legal status may not actually affect youth abuse. Or am I misreading something?

The data certainly would seem to indicate that fewer children use it in a place where it's legal for adults and controlled.

It's probably just a fluke.

Portugal is just a double fluke.

[East Coast Hustle]

I imagine that, all snark and vitriol aside, the casino issue is one in which you and I find ourselves in complete agreement.

I'd like to find the people responsible for it and give them all the bastinado.

Heh, NOPE.  I voted FOR the casino.  

Oh, WOW. How the FUCK do you make that jibe with your desire to reduce substance abuse in communities?

That's some first-class hypocrisy there.

YOUTH substance abuse.  

Yeah, and the scum and villainy that comes along with a casino TOTALLY respects the line between an 18 year old and a 17 year old.

As for the "quality" of local law enforcement...the casino won't be MSP's problem (they're by and large some of the best cops I've ever encountered anywhere), it will be the problem of the county mounties. And the county mounties in Maine are by and large a pack of half-drunk good ol' boys who aren't competent to do much more than arrest drivers who are drunker than they are and break up teenage parties in the gravel pits. Especially the ones in Oxford County, where if memory serves they intend to build the casino.

[East Coast Hustle]

RWHN, have you ever lived anywhere with a large casino nearby?

I have. Most of the jobs created are of the below-subsistence-wage variety, most of the real money goes to out-of-state interests and/or indian tribes, and the money that gets earmarked to help the state pay for the needed infrastructure upgrades and the inevitable increases in crime, substance abuse, gambling addiction, etc. NEVER actually matches what the state will have to spend on those things.

The casino in Maine is even worse than most as it's not going to draw very many people from out-of-state. Nobody's gonna drive from Boston to bumfuck western Maine when Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are just as far away and have their own exits right off the interstate, as well as all the trappings of civilization that Massholes expect. The vast majority of casino patrons in Maine are going to be FROM Maine. I hope I don't have to explain to you why that's not a good thing.

[East Coast Hustle]

In short, voting in favor of the casino makes you a bad person. Or at least a bad Mainer.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Re: the maine vs netherlands thing. While i do believe the discrepancy has a lot to do with the fact that its legalized, one must also not overlook the fact that theres probably not a whole hell of a lot to do if youre a teenager in a state that is 90% forest.

Rwhn's goals might be better met by making the state more entertaining to the average joe.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I mean like, when im visiting my family in ireland my day consists of eating toast drinking tea, sitting around in the kitchen drinking more tea, going up town to log on to the net for an hour, walking for about two hours, eating lunch, drinking beer, eating more toast and drinking more tea, soap operas in irish, eating dinner and then going to the pub.

[AFK]

I imagine that, all snark and vitriol aside, the casino issue is one in which you and I find ourselves in complete agreement.

I'd like to find the people responsible for it and give them all the bastinado.

Heh, NOPE.  I voted FOR the casino.  

Oh, WOW. How the FUCK do you make that jibe with your desire to reduce substance abuse in communities?

That's some first-class hypocrisy there.

YOUTH substance abuse.  

and allowing it for adults doesn't send the wrong message?

You think it's going to be a monumentous revelation to adolescents that adults consume alcohol?  

I meant gambling, which you've mentioned as an addiction of concern in the past.

Maine actually has funding set up to deal with problem gambling.  Part of the deal with these racinos and casinos that get set up in Maine is that, by law, 3% of proceeds from slot machines must go to a pot to help people pay for treatment.  Because of course insurance won't cover gambling treatment.  In fact, the old agency I used to work for used to manage that program, before Baldacci decided to get his grubby paws on the money and put it into the general fund.

[AFK]

I will note that the pattern across ages looks to be pretty much the same.  So I can roughly say that culture doesn't seem to be an impact in terms of substance abuse and development.

Huh, I don't quite see how that follows?

I mean, the pattern is, the numbers go up with age. Which for the blue line is logical because "have you ever used pot" is cumulative, it would indicate an error if it went down For the green line it's not necessarily cumulative, but I notice that the curve seems to flatten, I expect for older ages to go up a littlebit further, and then go down because (anecdotal, but probably supported by numbers somewhere) people tend to stop smoking pot as they near 30 (roughly, pulling that age anecdotally out of my ass).

No, I understand the pattern.  What I'm saying is that the pattern here in the States is pretty much the same.  The 30 day use is a little more pronounced here in the States because the numbers are higher, but they follow the same general trend.  So I'm saying in terms of how use develops through this particular age span there doesn't seem to be a vast cultural difference between the two countries, other than the overall numbers being higher in the States. 

Does that make any better sense? 

But if your view that legalization for adults would raise usage in kids, shouldn't Trips graph looks much different?

I mean if we just look at the data presented here, one would have to think that the legal status may not actually affect youth abuse. Or am I misreading something?

The data certainly would seem to indicate that fewer children use it in a place where it's legal for adults and controlled.

Eh, it doesn't really work that way.  The way to know for sure would be to look at rates when it wasn't legal.  Did they go up or down?  I've seen studies, which I've linked to in the past, where the rate of pot use amongst 18-20 year olds went up after coffee shops were able to sell it. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

GOSH, it sure seems like that would be a more reasonable way of dealing with...

oh never mind.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I will note that the pattern across ages looks to be pretty much the same.  So I can roughly say that culture doesn't seem to be an impact in terms of substance abuse and development.

Huh, I don't quite see how that follows?

I mean, the pattern is, the numbers go up with age. Which for the blue line is logical because "have you ever used pot" is cumulative, it would indicate an error if it went down For the green line it's not necessarily cumulative, but I notice that the curve seems to flatten, I expect for older ages to go up a littlebit further, and then go down because (anecdotal, but probably supported by numbers somewhere) people tend to stop smoking pot as they near 30 (roughly, pulling that age anecdotally out of my ass).

No, I understand the pattern.  What I'm saying is that the pattern here in the States is pretty much the same.  The 30 day use is a little more pronounced here in the States because the numbers are higher, but they follow the same general trend.  So I'm saying in terms of how use develops through this particular age span there doesn't seem to be a vast cultural difference between the two countries, other than the overall numbers being higher in the States.  

Does that make any better sense?  

But if your view that legalization for adults would raise usage in kids, shouldn't Trips graph looks much different?

I mean if we just look at the data presented here, one would have to think that the legal status may not actually affect youth abuse. Or am I misreading something?

The data certainly would seem to indicate that fewer children use it in a place where it's legal for adults and controlled.

Eh, it doesn't really work that way.  The way to know for sure would be to look at rates when it wasn't legal.  Did they go up or down?  I've seen studies, which I've linked to in the past, where the rate of pot use amongst 18-20 year olds went up after coffee shops were able to sell it.  

If those are the same studies I looked at, the rate when up as more people experimented with it, initially. Then it went right back down.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I will note that the pattern across ages looks to be pretty much the same.  So I can roughly say that culture doesn't seem to be an impact in terms of substance abuse and development.

Huh, I don't quite see how that follows?

I mean, the pattern is, the numbers go up with age. Which for the blue line is logical because "have you ever used pot" is cumulative, it would indicate an error if it went down For the green line it's not necessarily cumulative, but I notice that the curve seems to flatten, I expect for older ages to go up a littlebit further, and then go down because (anecdotal, but probably supported by numbers somewhere) people tend to stop smoking pot as they near 30 (roughly, pulling that age anecdotally out of my ass).

No, I understand the pattern.  What I'm saying is that the pattern here in the States is pretty much the same.  The 30 day use is a little more pronounced here in the States because the numbers are higher, but they follow the same general trend.  So I'm saying in terms of how use develops through this particular age span there doesn't seem to be a vast cultural difference between the two countries, other than the overall numbers being higher in the States.  

Does that make any better sense?  

But if your view that legalization for adults would raise usage in kids, shouldn't Trips graph looks much different?

I mean if we just look at the data presented here, one would have to think that the legal status may not actually affect youth abuse. Or am I misreading something?

The data certainly would seem to indicate that fewer children use it in a place where it's legal for adults and controlled.

Eh, it doesn't really work that way.  The way to know for sure would be to look at rates when it wasn't legal.  Did they go up or down?  I've seen studies, which I've linked to in the past, where the rate of pot use amongst 18-20 year olds went up after coffee shops were able to sell it.  

If those are the same studies I looked at, the rate when up as more people experimented with it, initially. Then it went right back down.

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/179/4/369.2.full#ref-3



South Australia
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7626679?dopt=Abstract 

[post legalization abbreviated quote]

The increase in South Australia was not significantly greater than the average increase (P = 0.1)... data indicate that there were increases in cannabis use in South Australia in 1985-1993, they cannot be attributed to the effects of partial decriminalisation, because similar increases occurred in other states.

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6376

"In sum, there is little evidence that decriminalization of marijuana use necessarily leads to a substantial increase in marijuana use." - National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (IOM). 1999

Still looking for details on Netherlands pre-legalization numbers.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Ah, found one of the studiess I read before:

https://www.tlupress.com/files/arts/9117/Semind04285ff846b9e4048da727e6231a4d5.pdf

Lots of interesting data there. The upshot of which is that the laws governing cannabis usage in the Netherlands appears to NOT correlate with usage.


In "The Limited Relevance of Drug Policy: Cannabis in Amsterdam and in San Francisco" Craig Reinarman, PhD, Peter D. A. Cohen, PhD and Hendrien L. Kaal, PhD, the abstract concludes:

Results. With the exception of higher drug use in San Francisco, we found strong similarities across both cities. We found no evidence to support claims that criminalization reduces use or that decriminalization increases use.

Conclusions. Drug policies may have less impact on cannabis use than is currently thought.

(Th abstract is free, sadly the full document is not)

A new report from Sept 2011:

Results  The available evidence suggests that the prevalence of cannabis use among Dutch citizens rose and fell as the number of coffeeshops increased and later declined, but only modestly. The coffeeshops do not appear to encourage escalation into heavier use or lengthier using careers, although treatment rates for cannabis are higher than elsewhere in Europe. Scatterplot analyses suggest that Dutch patterns of use are very typical for Europe, and that the 'separation of markets' may indeed have somewhat weakened the link between cannabis use and the use of cocaine or amphetamines.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2011.03572.x/abstract Robert J. MacCoun (Prof. Goldman School of Public Policy and Boalt Hall Law School at the University of California, Berkeley)