Salon.com > Tony O'Neill

Tom Tancredo: I’ll smoke a “marijuana cigarette” in public

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 20:00:00 +0000

Not everyone would give too much credence to what the DEA has to say about marijuana legalization, but this week's claims by the agency that “legalizing marijuana would…encourage promotion and acceptance of drug use," already seem strangely prescient. Former Colorado Republican congressman Tom Tancredo—who came out as a surprise supporter of Amendment 64, whichlegalized recreational pot use in his state—has vowed to smoke a joint publicly now that the law has come into effect. As you might remember, Tancredo penned an op-ed for the Colorado Springs Gazette prior to the historic vote entitled, “Marijuana Prohibition Has Failed Us.” “I am endorsing Amendment 64 not despite my conservative beliefs, but because of them,” he wrote then. “Our nation is spending tens of billions of dollars annually in an attempt to prohibit adults from using a substance objectively less harmful than alcohol.”

Actually, pot may not lower IQ after all

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 23:38:00 +0000

  Remember the study that came out last year, researched in part by Duke University, which claimed that smoking marijuana in your teens leads to a long-term drop in IQ? It won blanket coverage at the time—but a new analysis is now crying foul. Media enthusiasm for any study suggesting a causal link between pot use and low IQ/psychosis/ impotence/cancer is nothing new. The proud tradition goes all the way back to when William Randolph Hearst used his press empire to suggest that marijuana caused Mexican migrant workers to go on violent rampages; the unfounded claims helped to bring about US pot prohibition. The Duke study looked at 1,000 people born in the town of Dunedin, New Zealand: Their IQs were tested at the ages of 13 and again at 38, and they were interviewed about their marijuana use. When a causal link between teen pot use and lower IQ was reported, the press wasted no time: “Smoking Cannabis When a Teen Makes You a Dope!” trumpeted UK tabloid The Sun. The Daily Mail went one further, suggesting that teenagers “addicted” to marijuana show signs of mental impairment normally seen “in early Alzheimer’s.”

Teen heroin use on the rise

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 15:24:00 +0000

It was the British novelist LP Hartley who famously wrote, “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” Nowhere is this truer than in the world of the junkie, where the landscape changes so quickly and dramatically that the dope fiend of 1998 now looks like some lumbering victim of evolution to the younger using set.

The most startling thing about the new breed of heroin addict is both their age and social status. Newspaper reports from across the country tell us that heroin use is skyrocketing among middle class, suburban teens. From La Crosse, Wisconsin to Chicago, Illinois, the stories are eerily familiar: suburban teens are turning to heroin in greater number than ever before, after first getting their habit going with prescription painkillers. NBC News’ recent piece on rising teen heroin use only served to confirm the narrative: the spiraling use of painkillers among teens is leading to an epidemic of heroin use. Indeed, by the DEA’s reckoning, Americans consume 40 percent of the prescription drugs in the world, despite only making up four to five percent of the population.

World’s best places to get high

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 03:00:00 +0000

What are the best countries to call home if you take drugs? It’s a simple question on the surface, but one fraught with complexities. For many people, the best country in the world might be one that has successfully managed to prevent drugs from being available to its citizens. But since such a place doesn't exist, and never will — not even within the walls of a prison — this list considers the question from the perspective of harm reduction.

Penalizing drug users for their habits does little to curb levels of use or improve the lot of addicts; the mushrooming HIV crisis in punitive Russia is a perfect example. So where are people who use drugs least likely to end up in harsh criminal justice systems? Where can users access their drugs of choice without having to take risks in dangerous environments? And where can they get on with their lives without stigma, secrecy and shame — whether or not they ultimately decide to get clean?