Cannabis Study House - NORML Weekly News in Audio 2006.3.16

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Weekly News in Audio

March 16, 2006

Zogby Poll: Nearly Half Of Americans Believe Pot Should Be Regulated Like Alcohol -- Majorities In The East And West Coasts Back Legalization

Congress Considers Legislation To Ban Drug Test Aids

Student Surveys Under Report Substance Use, Study Says

Washington, DC:
Zogby Poll: Nearly Half Of Americans Believe Pot Should Be Regulated Like Alcohol -- Majorities In The East And West Coasts Back Legalization

Nearly one out of two Americans support amending federal law "to let states legally regulate and tax marijuana the way they do liquor and gambling," according to a national poll of 1,004 likely voters by Zogby International and commissioned by the NORML Foundation.

Forty-six percent of respondents -- including a majority of those polled on the east (53 percent) and west (55 percent) coasts -- say they support allowing states to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. Forty-nine percent of respondents opposed taxing and regulating cannabis, and five percent were undecided.

"Public support for replacing the illicit marijuana market with a legally regulated, controlled market similar to alcohol -- complete with age restrictions and quality controls -- continues to grow," NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said. "NORML's challenge is to convert this growing public support into a tangible public policy that no longer criminalizes those adults who use marijuana responsibly."

Respondents' support for marijuana law reform was strongly influenced by age and political affiliation. Nearly two-thirds of 18-29 year-olds (65 percent) and half of 50-64 year-olds think federal law should be amended to allow states the option to regulate marijuana, while majorities of 30-49 year-olds (58 percent) and seniors 65 and older (52 percent) oppose such a change.

Among those respondents who identified themselves as Democrats, 59 percent back taxing and regulating marijuana compared to only 33 percent of Republicans. Forty-four percent of Independents and 85 percent of Libertarians say they supported the law change.

Respondents' opinions were also influenced by religious affiliation. Nearly 70 percent of respondents who identified themselves as Jewish, and nearly 60 percent of respondents who said they were non-religious believe that states should regulate cannabis, while only 48 percent of Catholics and 38 percent of Protestants support such a policy.

A previous Zogby poll of 1,024 likely voters found that 61 percent of respondents opposed arresting and jailing non-violent marijuana consumers.

Washington, DC:
Congress Considers Legislation To Ban Drug Test Aids

Members of Congress introduced legislation this week to prohibit the manufacture and sale of commercial products intended to influence drug test results, such as diuretic teas and chemical adulterants.

House Bill 4910, the "Drug Testing Integrity Act," calls on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to define these items as "banned hazardous products" under federal law. The bill now awaits action by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

House Bill 4910 is the second proposal to be introduced in Congress since members held hearings last May vowing to bar the sale of any commercial products designed to influence drug testing results.

Of the estimated 55 million drug tests performed annually, approximately 90 percent of those are urine tests, which may be influenced by dilution or adding an adulterant to the sample. To date, fourteen states have enacted laws prohibiting the commercial sale of such products.

While often referred to as an impairment test, urinalysis cannot detect the presence of parent drugs, and only indicates that a particular substance may have been previously consumed at some unspecified point in time. In the case of cannabis, non-psychoactive marijuana metabolites (compounds produced from chemical changes of a drug in the body) may be detectable in urine for days or even weeks after past use. As a result, the US Department of Justice affirms that a positive urine test, even when confirmed, "does not indicate ... recency, frequency, or amount of [drug] use; or impairment."

Responding to the introduction of HB 4910, NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said, "It's ironic that Congress is trying to quash legitimate businesses that have successfully emerged in the free market -- particularly when the market for this industry is a direct result of politicians' zeal to intrusively search the bodily fluids of tens of millions of law abiding Americans without cause."

Atlanta, GA:
Student Surveys Under Report Substance Use, Study Says

Student surveys underestimate the prevalence of substance use particularly the use of alcohol and tobacco, among young people according to findings to be published in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of School Health.

An international research team from Switzerland and the United States found that students who are absent on the day that self-report drug surveys are given are far more likely to report the use of alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana than their peers. Inclusion of the data from absent students more than doubled the percentage of students reporting substance use, researchers found.

"The prevalence of risk behaviors was higher in absent than present students," authors concluded. "Adjusting for data of absent students increased the prevalence estimates in the base population."

In the United States, government officials rely primarily on a single student survey of self-reported drug use, performed by the University of Michigan, to estimate the prevalence of substance use among young people. The most recent edition of the study, which has been performed annually since 1975, finds that slightly more than half of American 12th graders report having used an illicit substance during their lifetime -- a figure that has remained virtually unchanged over the past thirty years.