116
votes
Accepted
Did 20% of US soldiers in Vietnam use heroin, 95% of whom quit afterwards?
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 ...
- 14.1k
93
votes
Accepted
Do blacks in the US get arrested more often for drug usage despite using drugs at the same rate as whites?
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/...
tim♦
- 51.9k
81
votes
Accepted
Did over 1000 people in the US die of cannabis overdose in 2021?
That's not what this data says.
What's happening is that in cases of overdose deaths, both causative and contributing drugs get listed in this report. We have a hint in the description of the data, ...
- 787
74
votes
Is Adrenochrome an addictive drug only obtained by drinking blood?
You can just buy adrenochrome, e.g. here from Sigma-Aldrich. It's somewhat expensive for a relatively simple chemical, but not as expensive as it would have to be if the only way to acquire it would ...
- 43.6k
67
votes
Accepted
Do methamphetamines give more pleasure than other human experiences?
It's somewhat simplistic view that dopamine is directly proportional with pleasure. This was a mainstream hypothesis in the 1980s, but has fallen out of favor:
The idea that dopamine was a mechanism ...
- 59.8k
47
votes
Are 20% of automobile drivers under the influence of marijuana?
In short: No
I first tried to find the article's own source, however the Florida Department of Families and Children did not have any such information that I could find. There are other Departments of ...
- 2,401
35
votes
Accepted
Has LSD 'been widely used in hospitals for the treatment of mental disorders'?
Yes, LSD has a history of psychiatric use
In terms of the number of doses administered in an official clinical setting, it might not fit the definition of widely, but it has been tried out for wide ...
- 44.1k
34
votes
Did 20% of US soldiers in Vietnam use heroin, 95% of whom quit afterwards?
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 ...
- 59.8k
22
votes
Accepted
Has anybody overdosed on marijuana and died?
From the DEA drug factsheet for marijuana:
No death from overdose of marijuana has been reported.
- 1,068
17
votes
Accepted
Did Dubai sentence someone to four years in jail for possession of three poppy seeds from a bread roll?
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 ...
- 828
16
votes
How lethal is Fentanyl in humans?
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 ...
- 161
13
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to get high smoking banana peel?
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 ...
tim♦
- 51.9k
13
votes
Accepted
In states where medical marijuana laws are passed, did prescription painkiller sales decrease?
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 ...
- 106k
10
votes
Accepted
Was the quantity of Fentanyl imported in 2018 enough to kill every American?
According to Fentanyl seizures at US-Mexico border up 750 percent:
The amount of fentanyl seized by border agents has skyrocketed in recent years, from two pounds in fiscal year 2013 to ...
- 106k
10
votes
Accepted
Does smoking one joint give as much exposure to cancer-producing chemicals as smoking four to five cigarettes?
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 ...
- 14.1k
10
votes
Did over 1000 people in the US die of cannabis overdose in 2021?
If you "Download Table" from https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/drugoverdoses/data-details/ there's a bit more detail on where these data came from:
Deaths are ...
- 2,129
9
votes
Accepted
Do most drug users not become addicted?
Although he does not state it clearly, Hayes is working under a definition of addiction that is tied to societal outcomes, in contrast to mere physical dependence. Here's the contrast from NIH's "...
- 59.8k
9
votes
Did the CIA sell drugs in the US?
Probably Not
There is no evidence to suggest that the CIA actually sold drugs in the US. There is plenty of evidence that they worked with groups that trafficked drugs like the Contras and Vietnamese ...
9
votes
Did the Nixon administration use anti-drug law against anti-war movement?
Apparently it is true. Interview with John Erlichman:
https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently ...
- 191
8
votes
Accepted
Can fermented human waste ("jenkem") be used as a hallucinogenic drug?
I'm calling it a hoax.
Besides Wikipedia calling it a "presumed" drug and Snopes debunking it as you already found out, Erowid, which is a reputable and complete aggregator of psychoactive-related ...
- 78.6k
8
votes
Accepted
Is it fair to say that "everything we think we know about addiction is incorrect"?
In short, Partially.
This appears to be referencing the famous Rat Park addiction experiments. Prior to this study, the scientific evidence matched pretty much what is still commonly believed, that ...
- 1,344
8
votes
Accepted
Do the recent changes in US drug policy correlate with an increase in people moving from prescribed opioids to heroin?
There's a lot of literature on this apparently, and I've only looked at one (55-page) 2018 NBER paper. There is some (correlational) evidence that the "pill mill" crackdown contributed to the switch ...
- 59.8k
8
votes
Does most illegal fentanyl sold in the US come through Mexico?
I suspect that might be based on estimates using as proxy the US seizures of fentanyl at borders (points of entry more precisely). If we use that method, the claim is only nominally correct, i.e. in ...
- 59.8k
8
votes
Accepted
Did Harry Anslinger say these things?
I see no evidence that he actually said these things. I believe one of the principal sources for these quotations is this ad by Common Sense for Drug Policy, which ran in 2006. It claims to be a ...
- 44.9k
7
votes
How lethal is Fentanyl in humans?
A DEA publication states:
Although the total quantity of fentanyls seized may appear small
relative to other illicit drugs, fentanyl is more lethal to potential
users than other illicit drugs ...
- 5,550
7
votes
Has anybody overdosed on marijuana and died?
There have been no deaths definitively caused by an overdose on cannabis.
There is a "possible relationship" between cannabis and myocarditis, and myocarditis can be fatal, especially in children.
...
- 179
7
votes
Accepted
Did Nizari Ismailis assassins commit murders under the influence of hashish?
According to Medieval Islamic Civilization by Meri and Bacharach at page 73:
The [Arabic word Hashishi (pl. hashishiyya, hashishin)] was applied by other Muslims to Nizaris in the pejorative senses ...
- 106k
7
votes
Accepted
Did DUI fatalities increase or decrease due to legalization of marijuana?
We don't know.
The study cited for all the articles about the statistics for the state of Washington was one produced by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
Prevalence of Marijuana Involvement in ...
- 9,688
6
votes
Do dealers give free drugs to teenagers?
See Drug dealers give free samples to customers Baltimore Sun 9 March 1997:
If you think the videotaped evidence of the Sugar Hill gang's drug transactions was "astounding" (Feb. 25, "...
- 106k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible