Drug Czar grasps at straws

The Drug Czar's "blog" is touting this year's just-released Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) numbers, which track mentions of drugs in emergency room admissions.

New Report: Cocaine, Marijuana Top Drugs Implicated in Emergency Room Admissions

Yesterday, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released the latest report showing drug-related admissions to emergency rooms. Here are the results in a nutshell:

The 2004 DAWN estimates that cocaine was involved in 383,350 visits to emergency rooms; marijuana was involved in 215,665 visits; heroin was involved in 162,137 visits; stimulants, including amphetamines and methamphetamine, were involved in 102,843; and other illicit drugs such as PCP, Ecstasy, and GHB were involved with much less frequency.

But, as Pete at Drug War Rant explains, these numbers don't say anything at all about whether or not a particular drug caused someone to visit the emergency room. The only thing the numbers measure is how many times a given drug was mentioned during an E.R. visit.

However, unlike the conclusions sometimes drawn in news reports, what DAWN does NOT demonstrate is any connection between the use of a drug and the likelihood that it will send you to the emergency room.

But don't think that's going to stop the Drug Czar from going ahead and tricking lazy reporters into writing hysterical stories on how today's potent marijuana is sending unprecedented numbers of people to the hospital...