It must be true, I read it on the internet!

[chipotle]

I keep seeing the following in people's journals:

98% of the teenage population has tried pot. If you're part of the 2% that hasn't, copy this into your journal.

Where's this 98% coming from, guys? The National Institute for Drug Abuse, which one doubts would be inclined to underestimate usage, reports:

The percentage of youth age 12 to 17 who had ever used marijuana declined slightly from 2001 to 2002 (21.9 to 20.6 percent). Among adults age 18 to 25, the rate increased slightly from 53.0 percent to 53.8 percent in 2002. The percentage of young adults age 18 to 25 who had ever used marijuana was 5.1 percent in 1965, but increased steadily to 54.4 percent in 1982. Although the rate for young adults declined somewhat from 1982 to 1993, it did not drop below 43 percent and actually increased to 53.8 percent by 2002.

So speaking roughly, about half of teenagers have ever used marijuana.

I don't usually go out of my way to take pot shots (no pun intended) at a meme, and the "put this in your journal if you've never used marijuana" half is fine. But this isn't a quiz meme, it's a factoid meme, and the factoid is wrong.

Comments

[jadedfox.livejournal.com]

*chuckles* I didn't bother to look it up, I thought it was quite high, but the school I went to it was damn close to accurate I'd say. But well, there were gang fights there on a regular basis. Las Vegas sucks for school. ;) (When I was in Tampa I went to Robinson, which is one of the lowest income per capita schools in the district. I hate to play stereotypes, but I didn't think Robinson was MUCH better than Cheyenne,)

[mordrul.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much in the same boat here. Admittedly I did not apply any 'critical thought' when I saw that, and yes 98% seems rather high. On the other hand, I'm going to call bullshorts on the assertion that the rate for those years on kids who had ever tried pot was a mere 21%. This is based strictly on my own experience, going to two different middle schools and five different high schools in 3 different states from age 12 to 18. I of course have no idea what the actual percentages were for those places, but I'm going to guesstimate that at Waynesville high school in Missouri, the number who ever tried it was probably around 70% or so, and the number of regular users was at least 25%. Again, an extremely nonscientific process and result based squarely on my own experiences.

[gatcat.livejournal.com]

...it was quite high...

That's one way of putting it. :>

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I'm restraining my statistics geek here. It's more work than it should be, and I preemptively apologize -- while I'm not a statistician, analyzing data and doing research has been a substantial part of some jobs I've had. :)

There are going to be outlying data points. The federal figures don't preclude the possibility that there will be high schools, metro areas and even states that are higher or lower than the national figures. In fact, it's almost a given. I found some of Missouri's own data on this subject, and it looks like they are, in fact, over the national average -- way over it in 1997, although they edged down closer to it by 2001. Seniors were still at over 50% usage for "any time"; we can safely call it about 10% over the national average.

The second thing is, of course, that as you noted, you have only your own experience to work with. In my experience, marijuana usage at my college was almost certainly lower than what I suspect the truth was. If I accepted common wisdom about New College's student body, though, the usage would probably be, well, nearly everyone but the people I knew and myself -- which I can't help but suspect is rather on the high side. :)

[cetasdolphin.livejournal.com]

I will admit I just saw this in Jadedfox's journal and seeing how it is true for me (at least in the sense that I haven't done any illegal drugs my whole life, only the prescription ones that were legit). I thought I would put it in my journal, as it is at least true for me.

Cetas