http://www.breitbart.com/…

Americans are the world’s top consumers of cannabis and cocaine despite punitive US drug laws, according to an international study published in the online scientific magazine PLoS Medicine.

The study, released Monday, revealed that 16.2 percent of Americans had tried cocaine at least once, and 42.4 percent had used marijuana.

In second-place New Zealand, just 4.3 percent of study participants had used cocaine, and 41.9 percent marijuana.

The research was conducted at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, based on World Health Organization data from 54,068 people in 17 countries.

Rates of participation differed from country to country, and researchers noted uncertainty over how honestly people report their own drug use.

“Nevertheless, the findings present comprehensive data on the patterns of drug use from national samples representing all regions of the world,” a PLoS statement said.

A vast majority of survey participants from the United States, Europe, Japan and New Zealand had consumed alcohol, compared to smaller percentages from the Middle East, Africa and China.

The data also revealed socioeconomic patterns in drug use. Single young adult men with high income had the greatest tendency to regularly use drugs.

Drug use “does not appear to be simply related to drug policy,” the researchers wrote, “since countries with more stringent policies toward illegal drug use did not have lower levels of such drug use than countries with more liberal policies.”

In the Netherlands, where drug policy is more liberal than the United States, 1.9 percent of survey participants said they had used cocaine and 19.8 percent marijuana.

Twelve US 12 states including California permit medical use of marijuana, but possession and use remains prohibited under federal law.

And despite the US government’s massive anti-drug efforts, the United States remains the world’s top drug market, one amply supplied by South American cartels.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency has observed ever larger quantities of illegal drugs pouring into the country.

“We are seizing greater quantities of illegal drugs than ever before,” said a DEA statement last week.

In 2007, agents seized 41 metric tons of cocaine in just two raids, and denied drug traffickers record-breaking revenue of 3.5 billion dollars for the year, it said.

That war on drugs is working real well, huh?

This November 5th
Realtime Donation Graphs and Statistics

This really is awesome. As of 7:26am almost $600,000 has been raised today. 4893 have donated in the past 24 hours leaving over a thousand who pledged to donate and haven’t yet. The average donation is around $140. It may not hit $10 million today… but I have to say this has been a success. If you’ve had any desire to donate to the Ron Paul campaign I suggest donating what you can today. The more that is brought in the less likelihood the main stream media and other candidates can continue to ignore and discount us. I’m sure they will point out missing the $10m mark… but I’d like to see any of them rally their supporters like this… without even raising a finger.

We are putting our money where are mouth is. We are making a very active attempt… an undeniably strong statement against the corruption of Washington DC, the lobbyists and the corporatism, the welfare and warfare state, the money manipulators and the MIC and the unnecessary aggressive wars, the DEA raids on pot smokers and sellers and immigration stops on highways, the NAU and the UN and the WTO and the WHO, the subsidies and regulations that distort our economy, the debt we are placing on our future generations so that we may live comfortably today, the taking of property and means to protect ourselves, the government’s involvement in letting parents choose how they raise their children, the idea that we can’t make our own health decisions, the REAL ID and the PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the idea that we can’t plan for our own futures.

Donate here

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=22148

In May, the Commonwealth Fund issued its latest comparison of the U.S. medical system with five other wealthy nations’ systems: Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand and Great Britain.

Predictably, the study begins: “Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms.”

I was immediately suspicious, considering the loaded study by the World Health Organization seven years ago. (I wrote about it last week.)

Michael Cannon, the Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies, summed up what’s wrong with the study: “The report does nothing more than reveal which nation does the worst job of satisfying the subjective preferences of the people who conducted this study.”
Fans of the Canadian system should note that Canada ranked fifth out of six and did worse than the U.S. in many ways.

I love how this and the WHO report go out of their way to make the US system look bad without it looking so bad as to be unbelievable. Since most people only read the headlines or the overall ‘rank’ assigned it makes it easy to sneak the truth by the public. It’s interesting how they weight having computers to print medication lists the same as receiving preventive care. Equity doesn’t go into detail as to what ’sick’ means when people don’t go to the doctor when sick. Lots of people don’t go when sick because it’s not necessary. How many of those in the UK (who’s 1st in equity) go just because they can? I’ve read that the elderly will make appointments because they are lonely and in some UK hospitals they’ve had to introduce a small copay to keep them from wasting the doctors time. Freedom will drive down health care and insurance prices and keep our quality up… not more government regulation.