Friday, November 19, 2004

Marijuana Use

(Reuters) Swiss teenagers smoke more cannabis than their peers in every other European country, a survey said Thursday, ... One in three Swiss 15-year-olds has lit up a joint within the past year

Wow, sounds awful eh? Well lets compare this to the United States of America. Per the White House's Drug Policy website, use in the past year among 8th graders is %12.8 which jumps to %28.2 amongst 10th graders and %34.9 for our 12th graders. Locally, Colorado has the highest per capita pot use in the nation, tho I dont know how that affects high schoolers.

Now lets break it down by crime statistics via the FBI for 2003 using Alabama and Louisiana for comparison as they are the two closest in population to Colorado.

In Alabama (pop 4,500,752) there were 19,331 reported instances in the Violent Crime category, 182,241 in the Property category.
In Louisiana (pop 4,496,334) 29,062 Violent, 195,569 Property
In Colorado (pop 4,550,688) 15,706 Violent, 179,340 Property

By Ratio
Alabama 1 in 233(Violent) 1 in 24.69(Property)
Louisiana 1 in 155(Violent) 1 in 22.99(Property)
Colorado 1 in 290(Violent) 1 in 25.37(Property)

Remember you want higher numbers on the right. Is it misleading to pull only one variable and make a conclusion from it? You betcha, but I am working on joining the Legacy Media per my previous post, therefore I postulate that Colorado's higher usage of the Devil Weed is actually making us safer.