From: nils@monroe.dartmouth.edu (Nils Nieuwejaar)
Subject: Re: We're winning the war on drugs. Not!
Keywords: drugs DEA WOD legalization
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 42

kennejs@a.cs.okstate.edu (KENNEDY JAMES SCOT) writes:

>The chart that follows was taken from the Wednesday, April 14, 1993
>issue of USA Today ("Drug Use Up Among U.S. Eigth-graders" by Mike
>Snider, p. 6D).

>    Adolescents' choices

>    Drugs used by eighth graders in the last month:
>                      Estimated, per 100 students
>                             1991     1992   Pct. chg.
>    Alcohol                  25.1     26.1        +4%
>    Cigarettes               14.3     15.5        +8%
>    Marijuana                 3.2      3.7       +16% 
>    Amphetamines              2.6      3.3       +27%
>    LSD                       0.6      0.9       +50%
>    Cocaine                   0.5      0.7       +40%
>    Crack                     0.3      0.5       +67%

>    Source:  University of Michigan Institute for Social Research,
>    1993 report

>We are not winning the "war on drugs".  I think you can see that one
>of the tactics that the DEA employs to give people the impression that
>the "war on drugs" is being won is to selectively quote statistics---
>only statistics that support their contention that drug use has gone
>down.  The excerpt from Time magazine that I included in this post is
>an excellent example of how organizations like the DEA attempt to
>deceive the public.

Unfortunately, there's not much we can learn from the statistics presented
here either.  Due to rounding, the 1991 est. for LSD could be anywhere
from .550 to .649 and the 1992 est. could be anywhere from .850 to .949.
This means that the actual change (if you believe these statistics in the
first place) was anywhere from 31% to 73%.  Similarly the increase in
cocaine use could be anywhere from 18% to 66% and the increase of
crack use could be anywhere from 29% to 120%.  This doesn't even
take into account the margin of error which isn't provided here.

This does not mean that the rest of the argument you present is unfounded,
but it does mean that USA Today has (not surprisingly) provided us
with virtually no information.
