Boomers going back to the bong

This was the most interesting drug war news of the week.

Overall, illicit drug use among Americans rose slightly from 2004 to 2005, driven in part by small increases in cocaine and prescription-drug abuse by young adults 18-25 and by rising drug use — mostly marijuana — among adults 50-59, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health said. The survey said 8.1% of Americans 12 and older were illicit drug users in 2005, up from 7.9% in 2004 but down from 8.3% in 2002.

The use of illicit drugs among baby boomers 50-59 rose 63% from 2002 to 2005, according to the survey, which was sponsored by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The survey questioned 68,308 people 12 and older about their substance abuse, smoking and drinking habits. [...]

Steve Hager, 55, editor of the marijuana advocacy magazine High Times, says some ailing people his age choose marijuana over sleeping pills or anti-depressants. “People in their 60s are rediscovering it,” Hager says of marijuana, which has been used as a pain reliever for glaucoma and other maladies. “If you're using it sparingly, it's the most wondrous medicine.”

Hager makes the key point. The aging boomers, having suffered through the adverse side effects of a plethora of pharmaceutical remedies for their middle age maladies have discovered that marijuana was the best medicine after all. But we're not smoking all day long like we did as kids, (which I may note didn't seem to adversely impact our productivity or contributions to society in the long run), we've learned to be responsible consumers of a natural herb with a multitude of benefits, that has no overdose level and furthermore is virtually free of the adverse side effects of the more costly legal chemical drugs that profit only big pharma corporations.

[hat tip Richard, graphic gratitude]