113
Yes, the claims are approximately true.
From a 1976 study:
Two stages of Vietnam drug use are identified-a period of increasing marijuana use followed by the 1970 influx of highly potent heroin to which 1/5 of the enlisted troops were addicted at some time during their tour. ... Since 95% of those who were addicted to narcotics in Vietnam have not become ...
91
A similar claim is often made, but limited to the use of marijuana. For that, the Washington Post has a good overview. The results for overall drug use are similar to those results.
Drug use by race/ethnicity
The dataset that is used most often to evaluate claims like this is the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
You can view the data here for 2011....
44
First of all I will assume that by sugar we mean sucrose, which is the common table sugar.
Here is the structural formula for sucrose:
Source: Wikipedia - Sucrose
If you are not familiar with chemical structures for organic compounds, note that every "corner" in a chemical structure like this is considered to be a carbon atom (C), even if it is not ...
43
Snopes.com includes it as a legend and includes a large number of other possible reasons with the most likely one is that most people do it because they think it looks cool.
All across the United States, you'll encounter discarded shoes hanging from wires, poles, and trees. Theories as to what these shoes signify abound, but, contrary to what one hears, ...
37
Is it true Coca-Cola once contained Cocaine?
Yes, yes, yes; it did.
When created, Coca-Cola's two key ingredients were cocaine and caffeine. Guess how the name Coca-Cola was derived? Since the cocaine was derived from the coca leaf and the caffeine from kola nut; the name lead to Coca-Kola; but later for marketing purposes, they changed the name Coca-Kola ...
32
The first part of the statement is probably true.
The second part is highly misleading. What the actual paper of the time shows is that 5% of former addicts became re-addicted (basically meaning daily use) in the first year, but the number increased to around 10% in two years, and to 12.5% in three years. Furthermore, if we consider relapse as reuse rather ...
31
There is plenty of circumstantial evidence that this is the case.
With respect to the Contra affair, the Kerry inquest reached the conclusion that there was some involvement, directly by CIA or by companies employed by CIA (full text);
The CIA itself does not deny many of the allegations (link);
There have been many other examples of the CIA dealing drugs ...
24
"One element away" is pretty much nonsense, and there are lots of kinds of sugar. Let's ask a more targeted question:
Are some sugars closely related chemically to cocaine or any other drug?
Yes, but it's not cocaine. It's the most commonly used recreational drug, alcohol.
Ethanol, the alcohol in beverages, is
H H
| |
H - ...
22
From the DEA drug factsheet for marijuana:
No death from overdose of marijuana has been reported.
21
Summary: decriminalisation clearly doesn't lead to catastrophe, seems to reduce harm and might reduce consumption in some cases
Before attempting a proper answer to the question as asked it is worth making a clarification: the expected benefits of decriminalisation are much broader than just a reduction in use (lower crime and lower policing costs could ...
20
Short answer: nobody knows, because the research simply hasn't been done yet. It's a safe bet that the more hysterical responses are utter nonsense, but the safety of mephedrone (particularly in the long term) is still an unanswered question.
Also note the weasel-wording in the ACMD report: "confirmed as a factor in". One of the notable "mephedrone was a ...
19
While this doesn't prove that the hypothesis "70% of marijuana users also use while working" is false, it certainly makes it look unlikely.
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/quicktables/quicksetoptions.do?reportKey=23782-0001_du%3A7
Using data from this site, I was able to come up with the following table. This represents employed (both full-time and part time) ...
19
There are unsurprisingly plenty of studies in this area. The article you quote is one. However note it says "Long-term marijuana use can lead to addiction" not "Long-term marijuana use leads to addiction". The results very from person to person.
Here is another article: from the University of Wisconsin-Madison:
The majority of marijuana users do not ...
18
There's a Straight Dope column that covers this question, it notes that there is an element of truth to the scene:
doctors honest to God do on (rare) occasion jab a big hypodermic of epinephrine, AKA adrenaline, directly into the heart of someone who's gone into cardiac arrest, a technique called intracardiac injection (ICI).
I found a few articles on ...
16
This is a thorny question, both because it is a politicized issue, and because the effects of cannabis use while driving are less well studied than the effects of alcohol, and appear to include a number of confounding factors.
Overall, my survey of the literature suggests that there are two questions, which have (surprisingly) different answers:
Does ...
16
As an ER physician who routinely uses fentanyl to treat acute pain in patients, I can confirm that 250 mcg (0.25 mg) would be a potentially lethal dose in some circumstances.
When I use fentanyl to treat pain a usual starting dose would be roughly 1 mcg/kg given intravenously. Because fentanyl acts rapidly and wears off quickly, we can give multiple doses ...
16
As far as I can tell all the articles refer back to Fair Trials, a real charity with a focus on access to fair trials around the world.
Their original article as far as I can tell is not on their website anymore but can be found at archive.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160602220644/https://www.fairtrials.org/press/charity-issues-urgent-warning-to-all-...
15
Biographer, Matt Ridley, reported in the New York Times that Crick experimented with marijuana and LSD.
In the book "Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code", Ridley wrote:
I am frequently asked for my opinion on the speculation that Francis Crick was on LSD when he discovered the double helix; or that he was involved with a man named Dick Kemp in ...
15
Harman WW, McKim RH, Mogar RE, Fadiman J, Stolaroff MJ.
“Psychedelic agents in creative problem-solving: A pilot study”.
Psychological Reports. 1966 Aug;19(1):211-2.
Abstract
Based on the frequently reported similarities between creative and psychedelic (drug-induced, consciousness-expansion) experiences, a preliminary study was conducted to explore the ...
15
I had to dig a little, but I believe I have an answer for you, and the answer is: Yes, but how quickly depends on the user.
I'm drawing from this study from the British Journal of Anesthesia. According to the study, your average modern joint is going to have between 60mg and 150mg of THC (which mirrors information gathered by the National Highway Traffic ...
15
Summary: I don't have evidence for a 10x increase since the 1960s. I do for an increase from 1.5% THC to 8.8% THC (i.e. fivefold) from 1980-2008.
The University of Mississippi have a long-running "Potency Monitoring Project".
Potency trends of delta9-THC and other cannabinoids in confiscated marijuana from 1980-1997, ElSohly MA, Ross SA, Mehmedic Z, Arafat ...
15
There is evidence that cannabis sensitivity varies considerably:
CONCLUSIONS: Genetic variation in AKT1 may mediate both short-term as well as longer-term effects on psychosis expression associated with use of cannabis, possibly through a mechanism of cannabinoid-regulated AKT1/GSK-3 signaling downstream of the dopamine D(2) receptor.
Whether one can ...
15
The meme claims that:
children who are vaccinated are 85% more likely to inject heroin than those who are not.
Because the claim didn't mention which type of vaccines will cause heroin injection, and had the slogan "protect your children from vaccinations", the meme's target was all vaccines, therefore paraphrasing the claim would lead to:
Any vaccine ...
13
Yes he did. Though he didn't say it quite like that; according to The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, he wrote in Philadelphia on February 24, 1794 to William Pearce:
I am very glad to hear that the Gardener has saved so much of the St.
foin seed, and that of the India Hemp. Make the most you can of both,
by sowing ...
13
Yes, this was studied in Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Prescription Medication Use In Medicare Part D Health Affairs July 2016 vol. 35 pages 1230-1236 :
In states with medical marijuana laws, pain medication was reduced by 1,826 daily doses filled per physician per year.
Ultimately, we estimated that nationally the Medicare program and its enrollees ...
13
Bananas contain no known psychedelic substances, so any "high" that is experienced is purely psychological.
The book Rooted in America: Foodlore of Popular Fruits and Vegetables gives a short overview over the topic:
For a few months in 1967 bananas made he headlines as the latest ingredient for a psychedelic trip. Underground newspapers in Berkley, New ...
11
The USC webpage states
MARIJUANA USE CONSEQUENCES
The well-confirmed danger of smoking marijuana is lung damage and lung cancer. As examples:
1 joint = 5 cigarettes in terms of amount of carbon monoxide (CO) intake.
1 joint = 4 cigarettes in terms of amount of tar intake.
2 joints = 20 cigarettes in terms of microscopic damage to ...
10
SWATs are used more often for drug warrants than to deal with any violent crimes
An ACLU report © 2014 titled War Comes Home --
The Excessive Militarization of American Policing says that in their statistical study of 800 SWAT deployments
conducted by 20 law enforcement agencies during the years
2011-2012, 62% were for drug searches (including marijuana)....
9
For the total user population, 70% cannot have used marijuana in the workplace.
I derived from table 2.11 on this paper to find that 33.6% of marijuana users aren't even employed. So if 33.6% aren't employed it can't be true that 70% are using at work.
33.6% is reached by using the 2009 data on millions of users (NOT the rate of use in past month chart) ...
9
Shoes (probably not those ones, specifically) mark a gang's turf. This practice is in decline, however gangs selling drugs, is not. Source, living in Chicago.
"It might appear to be a juvenile prank, but it's not," said Matt Smith, spokesman for the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation. "My experience is that it's somehow announcing the ...
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