Survey Finds U.S. Leads World in Substance Abuse

Well, for one thing, a common sense sniff test. Take a look around, do 3 out of 4 people in the United States smoke? The other thing is that is the American Cancer Society quoting those numbers, you can't get much more reputable.

The number is a lot closer to 20%. Been published all over the place.

The other question is what the heck does "lifetime use" mean. I'm thinking it means something like "have you ever tried tobacco at any point during your lifetime?" That's the only way I can see a number of 74%.

It certainly doesn't mean that 74% of people currently smoke, because that's just way way wrong.

I'm not denying the number sounds high... but what qualifies as a lifetime smoker? I'm thinking it's probably have you ever been a smoker in your lifetime as you said.

Dispute of the tobacco numbers notwithstanding, the point of the article remains, when comparing apples to apples (as this article is doing with "lifetime" rates), the US grades out as the biggest substance abusers.
Or maybe they wanted to make it look like the US is just a bunch of dumb smoking drug ussers.

Or maybe they wanted to make it look like the US is just a bunch of dumb smoking drug ussers.

I think we do that quite easily ourselves.

Nobody said we are dumb though, in fact I think the poll results indicate that more educated societies tend to have bigger problems with drugs.

I'm not denying the number sounds high... but what qualifies as a lifetime smoker? I'm thinking it's probably have you ever been a smoker in your lifetime as you said.

Here's your answer, straight from the study:

Measures

All WMH surveys used the WHO Composite International Diagnostic Interview, Version 3.0 (Composite International Diagnostic Interview [CIDI] 3.0), a fully structured diagnostic interview for psychiatric conditions [5 (http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050141&ct=1&SESSID=e35d832a54f5dfb7c0d500ec92c70bed#journal-pmed-0050141-b005),6 (http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050141&ct=1&SESSID=e35d832a54f5dfb7c0d500ec92c70bed#journal-pmed-0050141-b006)]. Within this assessment, participants were asked if they had ever used (a) alcohol, (b) tobacco (cigarettes, cigars, or pipes), (c) cannabis (marijuana, hashish), and (d) cocaine. Those who had used these drugs were asked about the AOO of use of each drug class, except in New Zealand, Japan, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain, where age of first tobacco smoking was not assessed.

So their stat is a "have you ever" stat, it's not a "do you currently" stat. I'm not sure how meaningful a "have you ever" stat is. A good portion of American respondents would have lived through the 60s and 70s, which as we know, was a period in American culture where we saw a rampant substance abuse spike. Further, just about everyone of adult age in the 1950s smoked.

The Cancer Society's stat would be much more telling to compare across nations, since it's a "do you currently" number. I don't care how many people USED to use drugs, I care how many do today.

Here's your answer, straight from the study:


So their stat is a "have you ever" stat, it's not a "do you currently" stat. I'm not sure how meaningful a "have you ever" stat is. A good portion of American respondents would have lived through the 60s and 70s, which as we know, was a period in American culture where we saw a rampant substance abuse spike. Further, just about everyone of adult age in the 1950s smoked.

The Cancer Society's stat would be much more telling to compare across nations, since it's a "do you currently" number. I don't care how many people USED to use drugs, I care how many do today.

Good catch I was just looking for the same thing.

Yeah I mean it's pretty pointless to know who has used vs. who uses now.

I also have trouble believing that America leads the world in smoking, at least per capita. While I've never been there, all I've ever heard from people is that when they spend time in Europe smoking is much more of an issue than here.

Or maybe they wanted to make it look like the US is just a bunch of dumb smoking drug ussers.

Or, they wanted us to look like people who know how to party.

I also have trouble believing that America leads the world in smoking, at least per capita. While I've never been there, all I've ever heard from people is that when they spend time in Europe smoking is much more of an issue than here.

I spent a month in China a few years back and I think every man there smoked. It was astounding how much smoking there was. Not a single woman though.

How'd you like China, SS. I've always wanted to travel to that area of the world (China, Japan, Korea, etc) but not sure if I'll ever get to. We're folks friendly, were you able to communicate?

How'd you like China, SS. I've always wanted to travel to that area of the world (China, Japan, Korea, etc) but not sure if I'll ever get to. We're folks friendly, were you able to communicate?

I loved it. I went with my cousins on one of these tours

RIM-PAC International - China Tours. (http://www.rim-pac.com/chinatours.html)

I think we went on the Traditional China tour. We went in June 2001 when it was a bit nicer to fly and travel abroad. We had a tour guide with us each day. The tour was from 9a to 6p and then at night we had our own time to explore the city we were in at the moment.

Communicating was tough but part of the fun I suppose. When we were on our own we had dictionaries to get by. But they were pretty useless.