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"Depressing" statistics
Thursday, March 31st, 2011 12:12 pm"Statistics on rehabilitation center admissions also paint a sad picture of drug addiction. In 2006, there were over 175,000 people who checked themselves into a rehab facility. It is estimated that 5 percent of those people returned to using drugs after they were released" (addictiontreatmenttips.com). So lots of people went to rehab, and 95% of them were cured. I don't get what is sad about this. Maybe we are so conditioned to the idea of statistics being depressing that you can put any number in the same sentence as something with an aura of badness, and people will jump to the conclusion that it is bad news.
Incidentally, the same article claims that 76% of the US population used marijuana in 2005. This strikes me as rather a lot, but I know very little about statistics or, for that matter, the smoking habits of Americans. Now this is a drug the authorities regard as so dangerous that in some states producing it can get you a couple of decades in prison, and in South Dakota you can be sent to prison for even being in the same room as this evil weed, yet a honking three-quarters of the population have smoked the stuff. If it's so dangerous, why aren't they dead or in mental institutions? Or in prison for that matter? If three people out of every four are criminals, you'd think the law enforcement agencies could catch at least half of them, thus putting around 150 million Americans behind bars.
Incidentally, the same article claims that 76% of the US population used marijuana in 2005. This strikes me as rather a lot, but I know very little about statistics or, for that matter, the smoking habits of Americans. Now this is a drug the authorities regard as so dangerous that in some states producing it can get you a couple of decades in prison, and in South Dakota you can be sent to prison for even being in the same room as this evil weed, yet a honking three-quarters of the population have smoked the stuff. If it's so dangerous, why aren't they dead or in mental institutions? Or in prison for that matter? If three people out of every four are criminals, you'd think the law enforcement agencies could catch at least half of them, thus putting around 150 million Americans behind bars.
