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you seen how doped up some of those "stars" are??

Have you seen how doped up a good percentage of our population is?

http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/data/12data/fig12_7.pdf

How many people do you know that have tried heroin and not gotten addicted?

Because why trust statistics when we can share anecdotes instead?

According to the NIDA it is estimated that "about 23 percent of individuals who use heroin become dependent on it".

According to the 2011 Monitoring the Future" report about 1.4% of 12th graders have tried heroin at some point within their lifetime (which is a lower level than the late 90s but has been stable since 2003).

Then based on your logic, I guess this means that parenting is getting better over the years.

http://monitoringthefuture.org/pressreleases/07drugpr.pdf

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_America#Wisconsin , in Wisconsin, if two people between the age of 16 and 18 have sex, then it's a felony if they're not married. The laws are pretty convoluted, but I'd say that in most states, it'd be a felony for a freshman and a junior to have sex. See http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/LegalCenter/story?id=1693362&page=1 . Stories come out like that one every couple months, I could produce a bunch more on request. (Funny enough, it turned out that oral sex was illegal in Georgia between consenting adults.

To throw another example out there, sodomy was illegal in Texas until 2003. And not in a cutesy "You won't believe these crazy laws on the books" sense. Police actively went around breaking into Gay people's homes arresting them until a decade ago. Would you call gay people in Texas, pre-2003, criminals?

" No one is protesting in the streets about arresting minors in possession of alcohol, are they?"

Sure, because the police don't make any effort to enforce it. 75% of high-school students report having drunk a non-trivial amount of alcohol. If the Police started arresting anywhere near that amount, there would be a tremendous amount of protest. ( http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/overview2005.pdf )

"A criminal is someone who has committed a crime."

Sure, there's a sense in which that's true. But then, nearly everybody is a criminal. It is a crime to drink alcohol as a minor, yet most people do it. By this definition, I'm a criminal, our last 3 presidents were criminals, and I'm willing to bet quite a bit of money that you're one too.

And if all of us are criminals, then frankly, the word loses any negative connotation. That's why, in standard English usage, we don't actually use the word criminal for someone who has committed any crime.

You make an important point, actually. In my experience, self-reported drug use always has a little fuzziness to it. Not only do some people lie (either intentionally or through self-delusion)...sometimes they aren't entirely sure what they have taken...especially when it comes to so called "club drugs"! I support skepticism, I just try to avoid becoming cynical and assuming that all scientific inquiry in this area must therefore be wrong.

However, self-reports of drug use, while not 100% accurate, have been found to be useful by a number of studies. The Monitoring the Future study (which is a self-report drug use survey) covers this in one of their occasional papers:

The one marijuana/emphysema abstract I found (in 2 minutes of looking) says it was based on a random sample of 1500 people in Vancouver, B.C. (I wish I had more than an abstract). Of the 878 respondent over 40, it found that current cigarette smokers were 17% more likely to have COPD symptoms than non-smokers. Respondents who were both current cigarette smokers and current marijuana smokers were 83% more likely to have these symptoms.

However, "Such associations were not found for marijuana smokers alone."

I still think people should not smoke pot...but I think there is some evidence that those who smoke pot should make sure that they ONLY smoke pot!

The other factor you're not addressing, is the simple correlation between progressive taxes on the high end and quality of living, especially violent crime. You seem fond of bringing up small, anecdotal cases. Do explain to me Sweden, with high gun ownership rates and low wealth disparity managed not by an estate tax now, but by a direct, flat tax on total wealth every year. Why is it that they have one of the lowest rates of violent crime and one of the best standards of living? Note, their unemployment rate is about the same as the US.

Ahhh, does little baby want to pack up his toys and go home? Regardless of whether or not you'll respond to me (and risk getting destroyed, again), here is some more information for your edification.

Who knows, maybe you'll think twice before blindly spouting off the miracle that is Sweden...

An absolute comparison of income

Sweden's poorest 10% actually does slightly worse than their counterpart in the US in real dollar terms (PPP adjusted) even after taxes and most subsidies are taken into account. What's more, virtually every economic group above it, especially at the median and above, does significantly better.

If you're unconvinced that absolute measures of poverty "matter"..

Read Page 22

See page 17

Evidence of Sweden's declining economic status. The average Swede has lost purchasing power over the past 20 years and this effect is particularly evident when compared against the rest of Europe. They've slipped from #4 to #18 from 1970 to 1998 (an absolute loss of 17 points vs the OED average of 100).

Swedish Egalitarianism between 1903 and 2004


Evidence that Sweden had much less economic disparity before their welfare state was created due to collapse of capital markets (as opposed to the "because" that you want to believe) and that they've, in fact, followed similar economic trends.

Economist overview of Swedish economy and growing discontent amongst Swedes

A balanced article in the Economist about some not so well known facts about the Swedish economy. For instance, although they report 6% unemployment officially, they have a ton of people that actually long-term unemployed and living off the system (e.g., long term sick leave). Reliable estimates put their true unemployment closer to 15-17%. What's more, 30% of the country works for the government.

They also point out that Sweden has created virtually no new net jobs in private industry since 1950.

Only 1 of Sweden's 50 largest companies was founded after 1970. Entrepreneurship (and even self-employment) are much lower in Sweden than most of the US and even Europe.

Sweden's problem with entrepreneurship

An article discussing some of the problems and statisics relating to Swedish entrepreneu