Treatment Statistics or, The Drug Czar is Lying to You

Many of us in the drug policy reform community have been offended by the Drug Czar’s and Administration’s distortion of treatment numbers to claim that they somehow prove marijuana is addictive, or that today’s marijuana is more dangerous than before.
Jim at Vice Squad gives some additional rebuttal based on the limited information that SAMHSA released publicly.
However, while the government likes to release information only in ways that support their contentions, the underlying data is public information if you know how to wade through it.
I have run the government’s data myself here so that it’s available in a convenient form (and shows clearly that the Drug Czar is lying). Let me know if you’d like to see other data comparisons in the treatment data.
The sad fact is that the data can provide useful information that should inform a national discussion, but it’s been hijacked in the Drug Czar’s desire to demonize marijuana to the detriment of any other policy.
See the data for yourself.