Canada tokes at 4 times world average: UN

[boy162000]

Last Updated: Monday, July 9, 2007 | 12:25 PM ET

CBC News

Canadians use marijuana at four times the world average, making Canada the leader of the industrialized world in cannabis consumption, a recent United Nations report found.


The 2007 World Drug Report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says that 16.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 64 smoked marijuana or used another cannabis product in 2006. The world average is 3.8 per cent.
In the report, Canada ranks fifth in the world for marijuana use, behind Ghana at 21.5 per cent, Zambia, 17.7 per cent, and Papua New Guinea and Micronesia with 29 per cent each.


Cannabis accounts for the bulk of global drug use, consumed by 160 million people.


In 2006, about 200 million people, or five per cent of the world's population aged from 15 to 64, used drugs at least once. Of those, an estimated 25 million had drug dependencies.


The report found that Canada also had a high rate of usage for cocaine, at 2.3 per cent of population, ranking it third behind Spain and England.
For the other top three drugs — heroin, amphetamines and ecstasy — Canada was near or under the international average for usage.
The UN report found that overall, drug usage around the world is relatively stable for the third year in a row.


"Overall, we seem to have reached a point where the world drug situation has stabilized and been brought under control," said the report.



Yet another reason for me to love the motherland.

[Euphoric]

Originally Posted by boy162000

"Overall, we seem to have reached a point where the world drug situation has stabilized and been brought under control," said the report.

Has been brought under control? Right...

[SuprSonik]

I can see it now.

"A representative from the United States commented on the report, saying that it "outlines the precise reason why marijuana is such a dangerous drug to our nation and our nation's children. Marijuana and similar narcotics like heroin and cocaine will lead us down a path of socialized medicine and replace our nation's strongest traditions, like baseball and football, with hockey playing. Furthermore, it proves that marijuana use is directly related to the use of cocaine, despite what many drug fiends would like our people to believe.""

[The Doors]

Canada continues to lead the way... Now, how about legalizing it? Oh! Since when have they been under control?

[Borracho]

Originally Posted by boy162000

Last Updated: Monday, July 9, 2007 | 12:25 PM ET

CBC News

Canadians use marijuana at four times the world average, making Canada the leader of the industrialized world in cannabis consumption, a recent United Nations report found.


The 2007 World Drug Report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says that 16.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 64 smoked marijuana or used another cannabis product in 2006. The world average is 3.8 per cent.
In the report, Canada ranks fifth in the world for marijuana use, behind Ghana at 21.5 per cent, Zambia, 17.7 per cent, and Papua New Guinea and Micronesia with 29 per cent each.

I woulda thought Jamaica would be up there

[Nature Boy]

Ghana, Zambia, Papua New Guinea and Micronesia? SWIM never imagined there would be much of a cannabis culture in those countries. He may have to visit them some day.

[Joe Duffy]

I imagine cannabis is not illegal in these countries.

[chrisn]

Legality is probably only part of the picture. Cannabis use is much lower in the Netherlands, than say, the US.

[grandbaby]

Another perspective, from a small alternative paper:

****
Higher Learning
L?herbs est toujours plus verte
By The Druganaut

From a Canadian perspective, there are a number of ways to interpret the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2007 World Drug Report released last month. According to the UNODC, Canadians’ rate of ecstasy and amphetamine use is slightly below international averages and doesn’t begin to approach the level of abuse observed in many European nations. Recent visitors to certain areas of Vancouver might be surprised to hear that heroin, too, is less common in Canada than in most industrialized countries.

This ought to be taken as good news: use of intravenous drugs like heroin spreads HIV and other serious diseases, costing lives and public health dollars; “amphetamines” includes methamphetamine, a demonstrably dirty and destructive stimulant with a short but ugly history of contributing to all sorts of social ills right here in Alberta. While even this relatively low level of use of these substances here certainly brings about its share of troubling consequences, that Canadians seem to be, generally speaking, steering clear of smack and crystal meth is a positive development.

Most media outlets reporting upon the study’s release, however, took a different approach. “Canada goes to pot” screamed the headlines accompanying the national newsmedia’s hand-wringing over the report’s assertion that Canadians lead the industrialized world in marijuana consumption, smoking more weed than Americans, Britons, Australians (who lead the world in ecstasy consumption), Spaniards (who do the most cocaine – good night, Ibiza!), even Jamaicans. Fully 16.8 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 15 and 64 years old used cannabis in 2006, good for fifth in the world behind Papua New Guinea and Micronesia (who tied for first at 29 per cent), Ghana (21.5 per cent) and Zambia (17.7 per cent). The world average is just under four per cent, a mere quarter of Canada’s rate.
So is Canada the Great Stoned North, a nation of giggly, glassy-eyed, pasty-mouthed hoser tokers? Not really. There are more than a few problems with this analysis, not the least of which is that these numbers actually represent the percentage of the population who had tried cannabis even once in the last year. It seems a little disingenuous to put the 17-year-old girl who took a puff at a bush party in Cochrane once last summer in the same category as heavy daily marijuana smokers. The report’s data indicates that only five to 15 per cent of Canadian pot smokers are dependant, chronic or “problem” users, about the same ratio of alcoholics compared to all alcohol drinkers.

The truly glaring problem with picture of Canada painted by the UNODC’s report, however, is that Canada is (and I hope I can say this without pissing off too many ardent federalists) a nation of far flung, vastly disparate regions, no more so than when it comes to our toking habits. A 2002 survey of junior high students by Health Canada showed just how big this gulf really is: while 11 per cent of respondents in Ontario said they’d had at least a puff recently (the lowest rate in the country), Quebecers are the nation’s most prolific stoners, at 32 per cent. That’s three times Ontario’s rate, for those keep score, and almost double the 18 per cent reported by second place (and supposedly bud-happy) British Columbians (Alberta was just slightly behind in third spot). The two surveys aren’t directly comparable, but based on these numbers it is probably reasonable to assume that, if it were considered a sovereign nation by the UN (again, sorry federalists), Quebec would probably have lead the entire world in marijuana use, with the rest of Canada falling at least a few spots down the list.

Of course, the real question raised by all of these statistics really should be “Who cares?” Without marginalizing or trivializing the very real harm caused by a whole range of illicit substances in this country, the facts presented by the UN’s report show a country that is, with some notable and regrettable exceptions, largely free of the addiction-related strife ravaging segments of the population in many countries both rich and poor. Quite frankly, the best response to the revelation that Canadians – particularly Quebecers – like smoking pot a little more than the rest of the world is probably, well, c’est la vie.

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http://www.beatroute.ca/view_article...articleID=1141

[Nagognog2]

Key Word: Industrialized Nations. Re: First World Nations.

[D.U.M.B]

Canada seems a much more liberal country than others when it comes to Marijuana or at least it does from what I've heard and read

Ghana, Zambia, Papua New Guinea and Micronesia are places SWIM may need to check out soon