"Study finds half of men arrested test positive for drugs"
From USA Today:
Half of the men arrested in 10 U.S. cities test positive for some type of illegal drug, a federal study found.
Not only do the findings show "a clear link between drugs and crime," they also highlight the need to provide drug treatment, says Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, which will make the data public Thursday.
Assessing offenders for drug and mental health problems and providing treatment is "important if you want to stop recidivism and recycling people through the system," says Kerlikowske, who supports drug courts that offer court-ordered drug treatment.
"There's an opportunity when someone is arrested to divert them to treatment if they need it," says Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance Network, a group that supports legalizing marijuana and treating drug use as a public health issue. "But people shouldn't have to get arrested to get treatment."
In 2008 researchers interviewed and obtained urine samples from 3,924 men arrested in 10 metropolitan areas: Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New York, Portland, Ore., Sacramento and Washington, D.C. . . . .
posted by John Lott at 4:46 AM
6 Comments:
Hmmm, it seems to me Professor John that this is something that gets reported periodically...
I remember the very same sort of news from when I was in high school and I graduated back in '69...
So I guess that means as usual, there's nothing new under the sun...:-)
The other half sold the drugs.
Yeah, well, 100% of the people would also test positive for H20 and probably 70% for beer or ethanol, especially if the test can detect a time window as wide as a month.
I wonder... With 50% of people arrested NOT taking illegal drugs, why didn't they conclude that it is the NOT taking of any drugs that is the cause of crime ?
Alcohol causes far more costs than does marijuana. When marijuana was banned, it was done initially for the purpose of having an excuse to deport immigrant workers from Mexico during the Great Depression.
After having worked five years as a bouncer at a bar, I can assure all here, that it would be far easier for I, to oversee an establishment full of stoned idiots vs drunken idiots.
No harm, no foul.
The Government, after failing to control what was essentially an ancient cultural phenomena (alcohol), they turned their sites onto getting rid of those whom took jobs away from white folks. Geez, we have all these Agents whom no longer have to go after bootleggers. Hey! Let's get rid of the Mexicans, and gain time while we expand our powers...
Once Government gets control over something, no matter if it causes little costs to the majority, they refuse to relinquish said control so that they may gain more control over everyone.
Even at the expense of our rights, and they ignore the Constitution in doing so.
BHO continues with a tried and true pattern, does he not?
Aren't most arrests made under the pretext of drug laws? Does that really show a "clear link between drug use and crime", or does it just mean that drug laws themselves create a whole new class of criminal?
I'd like to see an objective look at th report, or even the study itself. I suspect shenanigans of selecting the men tested, possibly other manipulation (remember, caffeine and alcohol and nicotine are all drugs that show up in urine samples).
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