Ok, I know I'm starting to sound repetitive on this topic, but this really gets to me:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/04/10/1175971073477.html?from=top5

First of all, I am sick of hearing from 'Drug and Alcohol' campaigns. The title alone is completely misleading. The idea that alcohol is somehow independent of all other drugs is ludicrous. Scratch that, it's not ludicrous, it's deception, and because we can safely assume that the words are not chosen by accident, we must conclude that this is intentional and wilful deception.

The youth in our society today are binge drinking more and more. They are also smoking less marijuana.

Before I get into why this sucks, a cursory look at how it's happened:

There's a two pronged attack going on here. The first is the glamorization of alcohol, due largely to advertising. Amazing looking models dance about on billboards for ads for tequila, general fun loving Aussie culture in advertising is almost exclusively found in beer commercials, sugary mixer drinks appear to serve no other purpose than to appeal to 15 year olds. All this is not only condoned, but celebrated in our culture, despite the fact that alcohol is far and beyond the number 2 killer drug in our society (second only to cigarettes).

Enter the fear campaign against marijuana. Despite unmovable scientific evidence that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol in every single way, and not responsible for one single overdose ever, the number of young cannabis users has halved in the past 6 years. They're scared of it. That's fine in itself, cannabis ain't exactly broccoli. But what do they do instead? Hammer back jager bombs until they're stomach needs to be pumped, or they slam a car into a pedestrian, or wake up at age 40 with no kidney and a tumour in their colon.

This sucks because such a state of affairs can only be due to conscious and intentional deception. We know the truth, yet we tell our children the opposite. This is the unavoidable conclusion of the above.

So the only remaining question is: what is the motive for lying to our kids?

The motive is, "because they can". Governments love to think up new ways of doing, "the right thing" by the citizens by depriving them of their rights. The only thing you can do is amass a large amount of people (and that would be impossible without an exceptional event to create a new world order like the destruction of the Aboriginal people of Australia)

spendocrat. It is all just a ploy to make it look like they are doing something about drugs and to present the picture that they are doing a job. They target pot because it is the easiest to target and to get people off and, consumption has already dropped. That way they can then show that the campaign has been successful. Everything is for show.

The abuse of alcohol is rife within our youth. I have two teenage children and it is scary out there. It is all well and good for people to say "just say no" but when the culture is to drink and be promiscuous, when television makes drinking and sex popular if you say no and go against the grain you are left with nothing. If you dont join them you are not invited to parties, you are not included, you are ostrasized, bullied and critisised. Nobody wants that for their kids.

What we need is to do something about the glorifying of alcohol, drugs and sex by the media and by the public. Surely we are more intelligent than that? There needs to be a change in attitude.

Jolanda - my point was the double standard existing between two particular substances. Personally I think sex is glorious, and it doesn't exactly compare with alcohol in terms of a death toll, so I have no problem with its glorification

Pot shouldn't be encouraged, obviously, except perhaps as a safer alternative to binge drinking - that would be a logical approach. Instead it's treated as this evil threat to youth and to society, which, as I've stated earlier, is a complete lie. It prays on people's pre-existing fears rather than educate in any meaningful sense. All under the guise of a health message.

I'm speaking from very personal experience. From alcoholic to stoner - I can't even begin to list the ways in which my life has improved.

I can't help but ponder the possibilities of why the the two deadliest drugs are both legal, while comparatively harmless drugs like marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms are against the law. It's gotta either be a massive conspiracy whereby those in power wish to keep the masses docile by advocating substances that offer nothing positive, everything distractive and keep you stupid or dead, while simultaneously demonising and generating irrational fear of substances that in fact widen perspective and offer hope, OR, someone made a filing error a long time ago that was never corrected.

Drugs Kill.
Yes my dear old mum did get a precription from the doc, so her blood pressure would be controlled.
She died ten years later?
She would have died five years earlier,if she did not take her medicine.
It is time to tell everybody that some people like myself have a few drinks then walk home.
If I swallowed,injected myself or snorted I probably would not be able to walk home.
The reason why al,and I may be one of many who decide to committ suiside in later life.
Alcohol and illegal Drugs are mentioned separately is obvious to me perhaps not to our young.
If the young wish to gamble with their life it is right to tell them the evils of drug taking.Overdose,contamination,dieseses,Suicide soon or later in life,family sufferance,etc. l

...ok...dunno what brock is on, but lets try and ignore the wild abstract free association nonsense ramblings of crazy people, and attempt to focus on the topic maybe..

Spendo, how about tax?

What's the annual tax revenue generated from grog and fags? When this issue was raised recently people who are good at numbers argued that drinkers and smokers easily cover the cost of their use of the health system through tax.

I forget exactly what it was now, but something like more than 50% of the cost of grog and fags is tax. How the hell could they hope to raise that much from pot, which anyone can grow, dry, chop and smoke without the industrial processes involved in manufacturing grog and fags?

Why would they need to gain that much tax from pot (I assume your referring to the hypothetical of marijuana being legalised)?

Firstly, legalisation doesn't mean proliferation. That's been well and truly established. So even if there's a slight increase in usage, there wouldn't be any extra burden on the health service that didn't already exist. Secondly, if it offsets alcohol related problems, you'd probably end up with a net gain - and this is still with zero tax on pot.

Still, if you wanted to tax it, you still could - make it only legal when purchased via blah blah whatever. This wouldn't stop people illegally growing it at home as well, but hey, nothing's stopping them right now either (my plant is starting to bud! It's a girl! Woooo!). Did you know it's illegal to grow tobacco in your backyard too? Which means it's only legal when purchased in its most addictive form. Weird...

But anyway, while I do support legalisation, I hadn't intended to be the purpose of this topic. My question was why are children intentionally being deceived by misinformation, scare tactics, and lies? What does it accomplish?

Spendo, I've worked in the substance abuse field for a while. When I get the opportunity to, I remove the "and" from "Drugs and Alcohol" and replace it with "e.g.". Most people get the point, but it's probably going to take a while.

Spendocrat there are well established links between illicit drug usage and mental illness-both onset and worsening of existing conditions such as depression and schizophrenia.Anyway you just need to get out to see the damage done.
I agree with you that alcohol is a potentially angerous drug too-theres no shortage of victims, and binge drinking among teenagers is appalling.
But alcohol is treated differently for obvious reasons-like history and social acceptability. So not being familiar with your hobby horse here I'm not quite sure what your point is.

"there are well established links between illicit drug usage and mental illness-both onset and worsening of existing conditions"

Sorry palimpsest this statement is misleading, there is zero evidence that marijuana has any link to the onset of mental illness.

What many studies have shown is that people with a mental illness tend to use drugs more heavily, possibly to change their difficult reality, but no, none, zero, studies have shown that marijuana causes mental illness.

Repeat a lie often enough it becomes a fact.