Norman, OK: Exposure to drug prevention programs and the threat of criminal legal sanctions play little if any role in determining whether or not Americans use cannabis or other drugs, according to a survey data published in the journal Substance Abuse & Misuse.
Investigators at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Central Oklahoma surveyed 51 current and ex-users of marijuana over a two-year period. Respondents were asked about their decisions to use, continue to use, and/or cease using marijuana and other illicit substances. All of the subjects in the study were described as being employed, enrolled in school, or acting as the head of their household.
Subjects said that past exposure to youth drug education programs such as DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) did not dissuade them from trying marijuana. “While a number of individuals were exposed to drug education and prevention programs in school, the influence of these programs were viewed by respondents as minimal in retrospect,” authors wrote. “None of the respondents described these programs as having any long-term influence on their abstinence from drug use.”
Subjects also said that they did not make determinations regarding the health effects or safety of drugs based on their legal or illegal status. Investigators wrote, “During the later stages of drug involvement, the distinction between legal and illegal substances [became] a less important basis for differentiating between different types of drugs than the specific benefits and risks of different types of drugs.”
Investigators reported that most cannabis users initiated their use based on a “general curiosity about drugs” rather than because of “a desire to achieve a specific drug-related effect.” Users decisions to either continue or discontinue their use, particularly as they grew older, were based on “incrementally … more complex” factors, such as the drugs’ “cost … potential health risks, and length of high,” as well as other so-called “life factors,” such as becoming a parent.
Commenting on the study, NORML Senior Policy Analyst Paul Armentano said: “It is telling, though hardly surprising, that adult marijuana users share more in common with ‘conventional,’ non-illicit drug using citizens than they do with the federal government’s image of the stereotypical pot smoker. Further, this study reinforces the notion that adults base their decisions to use or not use cannabis on a set of sophisticated criterion and cost/benefit analyses. When the consumer has determined that the cost of continuing their cannabis use outweighs its potential rewards, they voluntarily cease their use accordingly.
He continued: “Fear-mongering disguised as drug education and the enforcement of harsh criminal penalties factor little into Americans’ decision-making process regarding whether or not to experiment with cannabis – even in Oklahoma, the state with arguably the harshest pot penalties in the nation. It’s time for the federal government to cease playing to inaccurate stereotypes, and abandon its current heavy-handed criminal justice policies that waste billions of taxpayers’ dollars, but have little influence upon Americans’ decisions to use or not use illicit drugs.”
For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst, at: paul@norml.org. Full text of the study, “Investigating how decisions to use marijuana change over time,” appears in the journal Substance Use & Misuse.