I’ve read a story about how cannabis tops the list of illicit drugs sending people to hospital (see also: this and the public veiws on that).

Cannabis use is causing more admissions to publicly-funded hospitals than all of the other illegal drugs combined, a police drugs specialist has found.

373,310 people (83% percent of whom don’t use regularly) use cannabis, 143,280 people (51% of whom don’t use regularly) use drugs other than cannabis. So thats under half (38%) the amount of that people use drugs other than cannabis.

More cannabis user than any other illegal drugs combined = more cannabis-related admissions that any other drug combined.

Police are not yet revealing full details of the findings in a new report by National Drug Intelligence Bureau strategic drug analyst Les Maxwell.

Yea, they don’t want us to know all the number or else they’ll look like fools.

Details of the report, titled: New Cannabis: The Cornerstone of Illicit Drug Harm in New Zealand, follow yesterday’s release of a Drug Harm Index which found New Zealand’s drug use cost $1.3 billion in 2005 and 2006.

Keep in mind the drug harm index is just something these guys made up, what looks like the day before the full report came out.

The Drug Harm Index is not an international standard.

Parts of the report released to the Herald last night show there were between 2205 and 2512 cannabis-related admissions to publicly-funded hospitals between 2001 and 2005.

Seems like this is manipulated to make it look worse than it is. Shouldn’t it be figures per annum?

628 Admissions a year. About two a day.
2 people out of 373,310 (83% percent of whom don’t use regularly, remember?) in the country will visit each day. At that rate it would take 594 years for all those people to visit the hospital.
Considering they visit in this lifetime, and with life expectancy at 75 thats 46875 (12.5%) of cannabis users that will visit the hospital in this lifetime.
At approx $2949 each visit that is $1.85m a year for 2512 people ($1.37m at the lower figure quoted, 2205).

What are people doing to themselves on marijuana that is needing for them to go to the hospital let alone have $2949 worth of care spent on them? Is it a really fancy hospital in Remuera?

I have never known or heard of anyone getting hurt while on marijuana.

This has to be made up

Hospital admissions relating to all other illicit drugs, including P, ecstasy, cocaine and heroin, ranged from between fewer than 1500 to 2000 during the same period.

But your other report said that 2292 patients were admitted? So if cannabis-related visits are between 2205 and 2512 where did all those other patients come from? Which figure is it?

1500 to 2000 people admitted for other drugs is over half of the amount of 2205 people admitted for marijuana-related problems. When cannabis is used over twice as much as the other drugs.

Officers at the NDIB were last night remaining tight-lipped on why cannabis featured heavily in admission statistics. But the Drug Harm Index shows cannabis is the most widely used illegal drug in the country, with 373,310 users – well above the next most popular drug, amphetamines, with 95,170 users.

Tight lipped because there are no patients because you can’t hurt yourself while on cannabis.

The reasons for hospital admissions due to cannabis use include mental illness, psychosis and accidents.

I thought they were being tight-lipped? Mental Illness? Marijuana cannot affect the brain that way. Psychosis? That would have to be a lot of weed, and you’d still have to be awake, and able to talk.

The drug harm index was designed by economists to help police and other agencies decide where drugs do the most harm and enable them to use resources more efficiently. Police spokesman Jon Neilson said police already had intelligence which helped them focus on the drugs which caused harm but the index was another tool to assist that.

Designed by Economists. More tools to help focus on the drugs that cause harm, good.

What about the drugs that don’t cause harm. What about all the people that don’t cause harm while on these drugs (87.5% of cannabis population never need hospital care for instance).

National Drug Intelligence Bureau co-ordinator Stuart Mills said while police have known the street value of drugs seized in the past, they have never known the social impact of removing it from society.

Social impact?

Like raising the blackmarket prices, causing it to be even more expensive to get a fix, digging users a deeper grave than they are already in. Pulling more addicted girls into prositution for instance.

A big advantage of the index was that police would now be able to not only give the street cost after a big raid or seizure, but also say what the social savings were.

Uh, pretty much just the same as the last paragraph.

“We have never had anything to say what are we achieving … I suppose this is giving us a measure.”

How many more sisters,mothers,daughters,granddaughters,girlfriends are now crackwhores than before the operation.

That kind of information could also be helpful for appealing for funds in future police budgets.

“If I wanted to ensure I got my fair share of the budget within police and I had to proof what I was going to achieve in various operations, then that’s a very helpful tool.”

Ok more funds, great, but put them in the right place.

Mr Mills said the index illustrated to the community the wider social impacts.

“We are not just talking about the drug harm to someone else. The use of illicit drugs within the community is affecting all of the community … we have seen the impact in various stories of violent crime and addiction.”

Have you ever seen anyone on ecstasy commit a violent crime? No. Usually because they are too busy stroking themselves, other people, and anything textured. How about just marijuana? These drugs are not addictive.

P, Cocaine, heroin and alcohol are addictive drugs that cause violence (including domestic violence) and other crimes.

Meanwhile, Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton said while illegal drugs cost society, the harm was dwarfed by that caused by legal drugs alcohol and tobacco.

Finally someone in the Ministry says something about legal drugs.

“If you ask the police, or medical authorities, about the times they are called in to crises, or to accidents, to clean up human harm they will tell you that alcohol is almost invariably involved.”

Mr Anderton said tobacco caused about 4700 deaths each year, and the social cost of alcohol misuse was $1.5 billion to $2.4 billion a year.

Cost of drugs misuse was $1.3 billion a year. 480 drug-related deaths a year (including road accidents and homicides, keeping in mind marijuana overdose is scientifically unreachable). Each death costing $106,000 a person thats $508.8 million dollars a year for drugs. $4.98 billion for year for alcohol.

Approx1,659 deaths resulting from injury each year (2002).

“If any other drug caused that number of deaths, there would be rioting in the streets. So why do we make alcohol legal, when it causes much more damage than any other drug? Why can we buy tobacco, a killer drug, at the corner dairy?”

Why do we make alcohol legal, when it causes much, much more damage than all illegal drug related deaths put together.

So I hope that opens your eyes.

Tags: conspiracy, drugs, government

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